Thursday, July 19, 2007

8 and 3

I've been tagged yet again , this time by lalouve and nazi for the 8 and 3 tag. The number 8 reminded me of Thomas Jefferson and his obsession with the octagon. I visited the UVA campus in Charlottesville, Virginia in the christmas vacation of '02, and thats when , I had the opportunity of visiting Monticello and Bourboursville vineyard. The octagon was ubiquitous. We did get sick of it eventually.

Today I am back to the number 8 and it does not make feel too well. You see, I don't like tags. I definitely don't like tags that involve me talking about myself. As Nazi said, I am full of myself. I do like myself that way, and don't really wanna share. The fact that I blank out completely and can't think of anything to write is just another reason for not liking tags. The number of things only seems to increase. Earlier it was 7 and now 8. uggghhhhh

Now lets see. How many random things about myself can I come up with
1 I pass a few homeless ppl on my commute to work and back , every day. Wkends I spend in Roppongi, and again, on our walks, we come across some more homeless ppl . Some of them sleep in pedestrian underpasses. Some of them sleep on stairs leading to shrines and gardens. Tokyo is an expensive place to live in . Roppongi, the heart of Tokyo, more so. I often wonder, If I can cope with a life of that kind. No roof over my head, no walls around me to keep me safe and away from prying eyes, no one to call my own, no one to wait for me, or care for me when I am sick. No one and nothing except a few of my essentials in a plastic bag. While I walk past these ppl, I can experience a whole gamut of emotions. Its not a pleasant sight and it isn't a good life. It isn't a life I can imagine...

2 My dreams are real enough to scare me and sometimes surreal enough to know that they are just dreams. I often see really rich colors in my dreams and when I still lived at home, I often dragged my mom to shop for colors I'd seen.

3 Talking of colors, I have a tendency to get hooked on a particular color. It was yellow one year, till mom put her foot down and refused to pay for another outfit in yellow. After that it was shades of peach and cream. Now , I am stuck to grey and brown.

4 Since I mentioned peach and cream, here's another view into that obsessive compulsive mind of mine. Mom has always encouraged us to do our own work as much as possible. So she washed our clothes, but we had to iron them ourselves. Something, I took care of during the wkends. I'd iron all my clothes and then hang em on hangers with a color as close to the color of the outfit. Then each outfit would hang in order so you could go from dark to light. When I was in my peach -cream phase, the clothes would hang with the peach outfit first, the cream outfit last and all the intervening shades in the middle. One day, when mom and I were arguing about getting more color in my wardrobe, she opened the door of my closet and then asked, " Where do u see color?" You go , mom , you really know how to drive a point home.

5 Home is where mom is . Always. We've lived in a lot of places and for the last decade and almost half, our family of 5 has been in 4 different geographical locations. So when we go home for a vacation, its wherever mom is . Delhi, Tokyo, Saigon, Delhi. Life comes a full circle.

6 Circle reminds me of the old oft repeated joke- I am in shape, round is a shape. Man that is scary shit that seems to be hell bent on being my near future.

7 My immediate future though is scarier. The roller coaster that a PhD is , is nearing one of its steepest slopes and it ends in a free fall. As they say, its the light at the end of the tunnel. I am simply praying that isn't an incoming train.

8 The last time I was on a train was in 98. We'd gone to a Bombay-Goa "educational" trip. Nuff said.

Whoa, I got done with the 8 part of it. Am not going to do the 3 part of it for now atleast. I am not enough of a sadist to really torture any one else. so not tagging anyone.

P.S Nazi, I am an INTP too. Now who'da thunk?



4 comments:

Apy said...

Not bad not bad at all!!! :P

La Louve said...

billy girl,
i loved reading these tidbits about you! really.. first chets and now you, learning fun things.. Your color 'obsession' is so 'unique'!

Good luck with the Phd lady.. a few more months and ohla! :)

i noticed this one "obsessive compulsive" on chets' tag as well.. coincidence!

La Louve said...

and i always thought japan would be such a rich place and never thouht there were poor people there... *sumb me*

parikrama said...

Am not going to comment(on this post) until i see the epilogue..