Author: Tulika

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Time travel tag

This Tag/idea came to me from Sweta, it is originally written by Emily Barton.

Here’s how you do it…

Emily’s Rules
1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.
2. Tell us how many years back you have travelled and why.
3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.
4. You only have one “date” with this former self.
5. Answer these questions.

Okay, as we start, what year is it and how old are you?
It is Oct 1990. I’m 22 years old. I am going back 20 years as everything else seems too recent. 🙂 I am in my last year of graduation struggling with my Physics and Geology.

1. Would your younger self (YYS, from here) recognize you when you first meet?
Oh yes she sure would. I am the same old plump me – the one thing that’s remained unchanged over the years give or take a few kgs. The hair might be a bit shorter now and I might have learnt to carry myself a tad more confidently otherwise I’m pretty much the same.

2. Would YYS be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?
Completely. On the career front YYS is totally confused and a bit dejected. She has only recently given up Engineering aspirations after putting in what she considered her best and failing to make it to any Engineering College. She is now debating between a PG in Management, a career in teaching like our parents or maybe a career in Geology. Journalism is just not her. It doesn’t exist even in her dreams.

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give YYS?
Fashion advice… ummm.. that’s something I’m still a bit deficient in. All I’ll say is look for comfort. Don’t follow trends. And for godsake get a haircut.. scanty hair worn long does absolutely nothing for you.

4. What do you think YYS is most going to want to know?
Will I clear my graduation? She’s not really a bad student but each year she thinks she’ll flunk .. specially post the Engineering debacle.

5. How would you answer YYS’s question?
Yes you will. Have faith in yourself. Besides, it really doesn’t matter.. 20 years later no one bothers how you scored.

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell YYS?
You’ll get to go on foreign cruises and visit some wonderful countries.

7. What is something that you probably wouldn’t tell YYS?
What’s it like to go through a gynaecological examination… ugh..ugh..ugh.

8. What do you think will most surprise YYS about you?
That she’d be a mom … tough to imagine …to twins.. hah.. completely inconceivable, no family history at all. She’s really not into kids and can’t see what’s the ‘they’re-so-cute’ hoo haa about. That she’d completely fall in love with kids.. not just her own but the entire tribe.. unthinkable.

9. What do you think will least surprise YYS?
That I’m still fighting to remain fit. Diet, gym.. the whole thing.

10. At this point in your life, would YYS like to run into “you” from the future?
Sure. She’d love being me.

Thanks Sweta.. that was fun. Leave a comment guys and take up the tag.

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Dilli 6 meets Kite Runner

I was born and brought up in a small mohalla of old Lucknow. That’s a somewhat Dilli 6 setting, the same interconnected rooftops, pleasant camaraderie and long hours on the terrace.
The hottest ‘sport’ back then was kite flying. No gulli cricket for the mohalla boys. No sir, those were tame games for our toughies. It was a strictly boy thing. The gender barrier was clear.
My sister and I had kept out of the way of ‘the boys’. We stuck to our Nancy Drews and Little Women peacefully playing Chinese Checkers and Carom to while away long vacations.
However it was tough to remain unaffected by the sights and sounds that surrounded us. The terrace of the neighbouring house overlooked our garden and was a hotspot for kite kings. Bereft of any parapet it offered full view of all the excitement. “Dheel de, dheel dheel dheel DHEEL DE.. gayi gayi teri toh gayi. Woh chand tara le.. abe chand tara le na… ama yaar kya karte ho…. kaat kaat kaat kaat kaat kheench le kheench le.. gayi gayi gayi… and then mayhem.
Mothers screamed warnings, boys ran recklessly from roof top to roof top, while others dangled dangerously from terraces to catch the kite. Meanwhile the subject of their excitement swayed gently down completely oblivious to the turmoil it had caused. That a flimsy square foot of paper and few bamboo sticks could inspire such thrills seems inconceivable to me today.
However back then it seemed completely natural. I sat chewing my pencil, my homework untouched, with my eyes on the sky avidly taking it all in. I watched as the boys spent entire days on their terrace not sparing a thought to bleeding/bandaged hands. I saw them mending their kites with boiled rice and dough (yes they stick). I watched as they boasted about their razor sharp manjhas. I heard them brag about bringing down two kites in one go or laugh about broken heads as someone ran to catch a ‘cut kite’.
Sometimes a kite would sway straight into our garden or on our roof and I’d enjoyed my moment of power as tens of hands were held out — ‘humein dijiye, humari hai’ they said till I handed it to the lucky one who took my fancy that day.
This, my friends, was an almost everyday affair. However the day after Diwali was special. Shops would down shutters and services would come to a halt as Lucknow geared up to celebrate Jamghat, a day dedicated to kite flying. Men and boys, old and young came together in this kite festival. No mother could dare to protest, no house could close its doors to the boys as they came rushing in behind their catch.
By evening the competitions were at full peak. Amidst all the excitement my sister and I sat in our garden with our school books half- heartedly struggling with our holiday homework. However our ears, eyes, hearts and minds were totally centred on the terrace next door as it buzzed with excitement. The contest seemed to be hotting up between a saffron and gold veteran and a blue and red challenger. All eyes were glued on the high action in the sky with people excitedly taking sides. We too put aside our books and cheered the challenger. The kites met and separated then met again. The countdown had begun.. the weak must go down. Then it happened. The veteran proved it’s mettle as the blue and red came sailing down to loud cheers and disappointed sighs.
Our neighbour’s 10-year-old son had also been observing the match rather keenly but he was more interested in the catch than the match. His eyes fixed on blue-red he dashed to get it. With caution the last thing on his mind he sprinted from terrace to terrace as the kite meandered down and some other kids joined in. Soon the ‘catch the kite contest’ became just as hotly contested as the previous one. The neighbour’s son had a decided edge as the kite made its way to his terrace. He ran and ran and ran; till he had no clue where his terrace ended and our garden began. In the blink of an eye he was running on thin air and in another blink he was falling .. falling.. falling.. right onto Me!
There we were – the neighbour’s son and I with my school books and geometry box scattered all around us and my extremely startled sister looking on. The lucky boy escaped with just a few scratches while I sat nursing a broken ankle for months.
Moral of the story: Watching a sport is injurious to health.

PS: Needed to acknowledge my sister’s contribution to this post for holding my hand as we walked down memory lane together.

 

|This post is participating in the BlogAdda contest with the theme “Sporting Memories”. The contest is sponsored by myntra.com.

I’m not sure this will be classified as a memory of ‘playing’ a sport or even if is a ‘sport’ at all. I’ll let you decide.

Buy Official Cricket and Football jerseys
online at Myntra.com and visit the largest community of Indian Bloggers at BlogAdda.com

Finally I won something.. this entry was one of the winning posts at the Blogadda Contest.. Here’s what the judge  Tikuli Dogra had to say… Yes yes I’m being immodest.. bear with me.. I really don’t win too often… be gald I spared you the video of the jig I performed.

Dilli 6 meets Kite Runner by Tulika Singh: This brought back so many nostalgic memories of kite flying. As I said before the games we play as kids in the neighborhood are the best sporting events. The preparation that goes on for the kite flying contests, the adrenaline rush, the eyes trained to catch the kati patang and the magic of community sporting event all came floating in front of my eyes. I have seen it all come alive at Dilli 6 and heard many such incidents like yours from dad, who was from Allahabad. Great trip back to childhood. Congrats.

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Notes from a journalist turned blogger

Writers who are journalists turned bloggers have to take on some special issues… if you’re one you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you’ve been on the desk for a while the situation is even weirder. The thing is while at the desk you carefully cultivate a writing etiquette and slowly it becomes a reflex deeply rooted in your brain.. while blogging it’s just a pain in all the wrong places.
Compulsive obsessive word count disorder
Yes this is the first one.. the urge to check word count every few words.(92) I still have the itch to do it (100)…. and I have to continuously remind myself.. this is not a newspaper.. this is MY blog and I can fill it up with thousands of words of whatever I like.
Cap it
THEN there’s the thing about ‘first word in all caps’. Don’t ask how many times I’ve had to go back to a post and remove that ‘all capitals’ from the first word. Oh and there are so many other style elements… go away all of you… I’m a free woman …I’m a blogger for godsake!
Break it up
That’s what the editor told us.. if your piece is too long break it up.. and so the fixation with subheads. I simply can’t get away from the image of a reader frowning in distaste at a long page of unbroken prose. Being an avid reader of novels I lurve unending pages of prose.. but then reading and writing seem to be locked in two different zones of my brain.
PICTURE CREDIT: PIXABAY

Picture this

No article, features article specially, is ever complete without a picture. Don’t ask how many long hours I’ve spent surfing in-house photo libraries, Google images and a host of other sites looking for the perfect picture. For the blog of course it doesn’t matter. Yet if I don’t have one in my camera, I still fall back on Google images. Without a picture the piece seems so… incomplete. (BTW if you Google ‘journalist’ you just get images of the electronic-media.. had to search under ‘writer’ to get this one.)
And last of all.. the dreaded Media Net
If you’ve worked for a paper, specially the leader of them all, you know immediately what this is.. the bane of our existence at the desk. God forbid you mention a brand.. any brand in your write up.. or you let it slip past your editing .. you get a congratulatory call all the way from Delhi. “Why did you ‘promote’ that brand?” You write about a restaurant you can’t mention the name.. you can write about a disc.. but no name… you write about shops, resorts, watches and jewellery but.. no mentioning names without permission. Oh it takes plenty of practice and hours and hours of dressing downs (putting it mildly) to get it right. And finally when I did get it right, I quit.
On my blog.. Gawd I so love the freedom of it all.. not only can you name the brands you can even provide links to them.. Yay. Yet each time I do it… I get a guilty twinge.. a pang of conscience, part of which is still behind my work desk at FC Road.
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