Going vegan

I am, or rather was, the strictest non-vegetarian in the world. I wouldn't touch my plate without a piece of meat, fish or egg before me. (I preferred fish.) Now all that has changed.

It has got nothing to do with the steely resolve of mine. I am rather more like Mark Twain -"Quitting smoking is easy. I have done it a hundred times." My mom has stopped cooking non-veg food and so I am forced to eat green grass! :-(

For some time, I tried to resist eating. Finally, feeling so hungry that I couldn't have even discerned the taste of what I was eating, I pushed in some food into my mouth. Now I follow this as a routine - I don't eat unless I can help it. And for the first time in my life, I am losing my weight rather than gaining it. The sense of loss is overbearing. I miss most of my cheeks. If it goes on like this, my parents will not be able to distinguish me from my sis. (She is lean and I come under the category 'too many extra pounds'.) I miss the totally unhealthy, fatty, delicious food I used to have. I don't know how long mom is going to continue this. Dad is talking of making the whole family vegan. I am sincerely praying for a job that would take me to one of the Scandinavian countries where I hope they have fish and meat as their staple diet, like me.

Arab countries aren't liberal with women, you see.

Living in fear of death

Over the past two weeks, I have been living in fear of death - not only mine but anyone known to me. It has almost become an obsession with me. Sometimes, I wake up at night and check that everything is right. It really scares me - I can't sleep at night and this fear is eating me up. And I know that I am not alone. There are many people I know who are dealing with this fear.

It all began two weeks ago - on the night of July 17, we were informed that my cousin Nimmy, who was of my same age had passed away. It was really unbelievable, as mom had visited them only the week before and she was in the pink of health, preparing for her job at a bank. She is six months younger than me and her death left us really devastated. The doctors who did the biopsy declared the cause to be a cardiac arrest. A cardiac arrest? At her age, the probability of having a cardiac arrest would be one in a million, as she never had any complaints about her health before. We couldn't reconcile ourselves to her death. Her father had died due to a cardiac arrest, too; but then, he was comparatively older and we could at least bring ourselves to believe it, albeit after a long time. This was really mind-numbing.

This should not really have been a shock for us. We too had too many near-death experiences. I have lost count of how many I had. The boat in which I travelled once sank into a river. And the van or trucker in which I travelled to school inevitably got into at least two accidents every year. Mom's is the worst - a brain haemorrhage. Luckily I happened to be around and got her into hospital just in time to save her.

Then too many news of death started pouring in - my dad's cousin's wife died, inexplicably, after she almost recovered from a fever; the father of my best friend at school died; my mom's favourite teacher and then one of her friends died and many others too - to the extent that it has become almost a joke, and a very terrible one at that.

So much so that everytime the landline rings, my heart races. I can't bear it anymore. There is no longer any interest in the things I used to do, and I have become a net addict. I just need some time before I can really reconcile myself to all this. I keep laughing and so does papa, mom and sis, but we all know that there are really deep wounds beneath the masks we wear, and it is going to take some time to heal.

Today, dad called my uncle to tell him that my purse, which I had lost in the train, had been recovered. Usually, it is mom who calls my uncle.

After some time, dad told us that uncle was really worried when he called. He was fearing the worst when the phone rang. We are not alone in this fear.

Cleaning it up

So when Mr. Varkey told us that our house would be the venue of the prayer meeting this month, it really spent a chill down my spine. First of all, the house resembled an amazon jungle. Second, we did not know what a prayer meeting actually looked like. I have been only to one and that too, I had reached there at the fag end - while they were distributing the prizes. (I was supposed to collect a prize, you see;-) )

We were in panic mode, especially mom. She was tormenting papa and me with a volley of questions about the time we had spent at the prayer meeting mentioned above. That was about three years ago and now I don't even remember where the house was.

I thought I'd be able to escape as I had the GAIL test on Sunday. Then, all of a sudden, my dad's cousin's wife died and papa decided to attend the funeral. So my test got 'cancelled'. Now I'd have to help mom with cleaning.

Hercules would have had an easier task with Augean stables than me with my room. I had a great collection of little pieces of paper that became useless as time passed, lots of books (starting almost from my kindergarten. There are some missing, but that can be managed.), too many clothes (I don't like to this, but most of them are not to my taste and the rest are not to my shape.) and other waste materials you can reasonably expect to find in a bedroom. The bathroom attached to the room was another story. I will not describe it simply because I do not find words to describe it. I guess it would suffice if I say that it was grossly multicoloured.

Then I had to clean the showcase in the main hall as well. That was the most tricky part.It contained bills and receipts dating back to the Gupta empire and any mistake I made while discarding any would have far-reaching implications. "Be careful!" my mom said. I adopted the motto "When in doubt, do not throw" I recovered many things, including an 18th century photograph of pop and my sis standing in front of the Agra fort, a 17th century photograph of all of us in front of the Gateway of India. And I had been thinking that all these valuable historical records had been lost forever. I even got a horoscope of a guy who was born about fifty years ago. Nobody had any clue as to how it ended up where we found it. I washed the statuettes of St. Joseph and St. Mary; Infant Jesus now shines in His lily-white dress. I found that St.Mary's crown actually had red, and not brown colour in her crown.

"Mom, do you know what this is?" "Coal-tar?" "No, mom! It is dirt from my fan!"

Half an hour later, when Anju came home: "Guess what this is?" "Carbon particulates" I gave up. Was never strong at organic chemistry and I feared she would start naming all the organic compounds, starting with the aromatic ones. If not cancer, they would give me at least a headache. I ran away to my room. (I bet she smiled. She is always studying organic chemistry when I go to her room and maths when she comes into mine. I am getting suspicious!!!)

When I finished all that, I gave everything a wash and a scrub. It looked so neat, I thought I would faint. I had a rather brilliant idea of restricting the entry to my bathroom forever, but then decided against it as I would be accused of violation of human rights.

I went shopping after that. Had to make an egg omelette for having lunch. My mom was hard at work, and so she had not prepared anything except rice. I bought cutlets and biscuits. Mom had forgotten to buy paper napkins and so I had to run around finding a shop that sold them as most of the shops I knew had run out of stock.

I was panting when I reached home. Mom looked happy and told me I had lost a great deal of weight. (I know this meant that I still had a lot more work to do. Mom should be made a General or something. She surpasses even Dale Carnegie at everything he wrote about.)

After all the work was over, I resumed reading the 'Bandit Queen'. After reading for five minutes, I went to mom and told her: "Mom, you know, this doesn't feel like my home anymore."

A crazy subject

When I was asked to take sociology as the optional, I never knew it would be so interesting. This is perfect for me - the exact thing I want to read: the structure of societies, how they evolved and their future course. Life couldn't be any more exciting. In fact, after four years of reading textbooks that were drier than the Sahara desert, this comes as a gale of fresh air.

And the most important thing about it is that the dear old God's own country has the dubious distinction of finding itself mentioned in association with almost all the curious practices I have read till now. Matriliny, extreme untouchability and what not. This particular little state seems to have all the variety in the world when it comes to sociology.

Dad and mom are loving it too. Dad is heavily interested in anything related with the customs of social groups. So everyone now listens to me with interest. And if you have not guessed it till now, I love to talk. And I was very very unpopular in this house for the past six years on account of talking pure jargon - two years scientific and four years engineering. It is all over now.

I must however say that I am not affected by comments of others about my talkativeness. Never was and I don't think I would ever be.

Attendance!!!

I can't wash this stupid smirk off my face. I started smiling the moment the guy in the office threatened that my attendance report would be sent home at the end of the month. I was just thinking of all those letters from the PTA addressed to my parents begging them to turn up for the parent-teacher interaction. My parents are usually never at home when the postman comes. So naturally, either my sister or I collect it. Initially, I'd conscientiously tell my parents, "There's a letter from the PTA" "Did you get yourself into any trouble?" "No, it's the annual PTA meeting." "Ah! Leave it then!" In the succeeding years, it turned to "Dad, there's a letter from PTA. I guess you're not going, are you?" He wouldn't reply but stay immersed in the newspaper. Towards the end, I didn't even bother to tell him.

So now out of college and in a coaching class, I'm being threatened with such a threat! What an irony! I thought I'd burst out laughing but luckily controlled it. I told my parents when they came home and they are smiling too. Non-stop.

Four probationary IAS officers came to talk to us the other day. Very sensible people they were, and they've almost succeeded in changing my view about the civil services - a rather prejudiced view. They busted some myths:

1. You need to study for 12-14 hours daily to get into civil service. "That's plain insanity."

2. You shall study at least 4-5 books for each subject. "1-2 books are more than enough. You just need to complete the syllabus"

and my favourite one:

3. You need to answer the questions reaaally confidently in the interview. "I am yet to meet a person who was not nervous during the interview."

Kudos to all the four. Never met such down-to-earth, simple, intelligent persons. Our country will survive and flourish.

What now?

So, in the course of a year, I screwed up the CAT exam (total 99.82% DI 69%), a job at Deloitte and an interview at the ISRO (more about that later!) I ought to be given some sort of award for screwing up so many things.

My parents hate to see me sitting peacefully at home and gorging on food. So they enrolled me in a civil service coaching centre, much to my annoyance. But later I relented - I could read whatever I wanted and no one would stop me!!!

I had an entrance test first of all, based on current affairs. I thought I would flunk, but unluckily I didn't. I was made to write an essay on 'Why I wanted to be a civil servant'(Imagine that!). The only thing I like out of the entire range of services is the Indian Foreign Service, just because you get posted so far away from the country that you needn't bother what your parents are thinking! Personally, if I get into IFS and if they ask my preference, I'd ask them to post me in Norway, Sweden or some other Scandinavian country.Anyway, I wrote half a page but he had given me two sheets and I had to write at least one page. So dragged on and used some rather flowery language about serving my countrymen.(Yuck! I hate it when I am made to write emotionally charged essays!) I know I'd like to serve my country but I am modest; I don't like to write about it. Why can't they ask some more serious topics like the Indo-U.S nuclear deal?

Well, he told me my English was good (which I already knew) and I was asked to join the next day. He asked me what I'd like to take for my optionals.

Till then, the only thing I knew about the civil service exam was that there was a prelims and then there would be a mains followed by an interview. You had to be as insane as a patient at St. Bedlam's to clear the stuff. This whole idea of 'optionals' was so new to me that I stared at him in blank amazement.

Two days later, I became well-versed with the syllabus of the 'optionals'. They gave me a book containing general guidelines about the civil service exam and the syllabi. I've decided to take sociology and public administration. The best thing about the latter is that it is usually called the 'pub ad'. Now, that was a genius at work there!

My first class was economics. I was about 20 minutes late for the class because I had to get some work done at the office. When I entered the classroom, the person taking the class was waxing eloquent on inflation. Now, I love economics. I had studied it for a semester(I don't remember which). So I was peacefully listening to it and slipping into deep slumber when someone came and announced that a rather famous civil-servant-turned-politician would come and talk to us.

So he came, we saw but I don't think anyone really conquered. We were treated to the tales of his heroics by the man himself. He rubbished half the civil servants whose names I knew and so I had a great time, as a whole. Then he started teaching economics, found some faults with the deficit budget, especially the mode by which the deficit was to be funded and talked about a new theory which he was propounding. So by the end of it, I had such a severe headache that I could barely walk.

For the second day, we had history at first. Now, the Prof. who teaches history is a rather interesting story-teller. I don't think I'll have to read any history text if he is going to teach the subject. Next was physics. I was expecting a thrilling journey into the world of quantum mechanics, electromagnetic theory and other fancy stuff. She came and started with...(guess what? ) Units and dimensions!

I am not exaggerating when I say that I was on the verge of tears in that class. One fellow even asked, "Ma'am, so you say that water is denser than oil. So will oil REALLY float on water?"

Then I had a really brilliant idea: to kick that fellow's a__. But didn't do it. You have to be patient at times. Today I made a lot of friends in the class. And everyone seemed to agree: that fellow really needed one. Well, next time, may be.

Today was my first sociology class. Yesterday I came to know that we'd be having a test on the chapter 'Demography' because it was completed in the class. I scraped through that somehow.

The sociology class, I found, can be roughly divided into two - the abnormals who want their classes to start at 7 in the morning and end at 5 in the evening, with no breaks in between, and the normals who'd like to start at 9 and end at a sane time of 11, both in the morning. Now, I am a diehard normal but I find that normals are usually silent, docile and everything you can say about the domesticated Indian woman (but majority of the normals are men) and abnormals are loud, aggressive and everything you can say to describe the Australian cricket team when playing a match against an Indian team that includes Sreesanth, Harbhajan and everyone else you can think of. So we usually lose out. I've decided to do something about this pathetic situation. Let me see.