Annoying cliches in teen dramas

1.) High schools are always named after the small town where they are situated. For example if a place is called 'ABC-ville' the high school will undoubtedly be called 'ABC-ville High'. Duh do not expect the founders of American high schools to be endowed with a better imagination. 

2.) The male and female protagonists would invariably have a troubled past, i.e, either their parents died or divorced when they were kids or he/she is an illegitimate child. This of course has inflicted a deep emotional scar on them which usually manifests in the form of them smoking pot or engaging in illegal activities.

3.) No high school would ever have a uniform. I mean how else will all the hot girls get to sit in the most provocative of poses, sporting the shortest of skirts/shorts and cleavage-displaying blouses? 

4.) High-school students are perpetually 16-year olds. Doesn't matter even if the lead actor looks like he could be married with a 10-year old. He is 16 and you gotta believe it and fawn over him. 

5.) The female protagonist is mostly a brunette with a miss-goody-two-shoes air about her. (Let's call her Miss GTS for convenience shall we?) She might look extremely ordinary but all the hot guys would fall for her faster than you can say 'Yes we can' ignoring the advances of the dumb, bitchy blonde who is hot but nonetheless the 'bad girl'.

The perfect Miss GTS

Miss Mono-Expressioned...err Bella Swan from Twilight

The dumb, bitchy blonde

Caroline from The Vampire Diaries

6.) The thuggish looking popular jock - blonde if he is the ill-famed bully, dark-haired if he is the guy-about-to-have-a-change-of-heart, who will ditch his blonde, conniving girlfriend and transform into a good person thanks to Miss GTS.

Classic case in example

 Finn Hudson from Glee

7.) Even though Miss GTS speaks of  'true love' and appears to be a loner with a solitary best friend (who will be an African American/nerdy girl with glasses without fail) she is always plotting inventive ways of getting to jump the hero's bones. Alternately our innocent Miss GTS keeps switching back and forth between two hot guys. 

8.) The slut who gets herself pregnant or is doing drugs and gets lectured on about how one should lead her life by Miss GTS even though her own life is pretty much screwed as well.

 Adrianna from 90210

9.) There's always the dorky teacher who takes no bullshit from his students and as a direct consequence of that, is labeled as one who doesn't understand the 'issues' centering a teen. There's also another good-looking, charismatic young teacher whose side-job is to go around offering free counseling to drug-addicts, pregnant teens, the Goths and other social rejects on campus. (Dude, you could seriously consider becoming a therapist as an alternative career option) 

10.) And lastly no matter what, high school students must never worry about education. They will attend school in the skimpiest of outfits, gossip in class or make paper planes completely ignoring the presence of the teacher, conspire against the good people, join the football/basketball team, worry about part-time jobs and which party to attend during the weekend, make out in front of lockers. But what they must never do is study. It's against the universal laws governing high-school dramas.

P.S : I was never a fan of this dramas, but i was smitten with the Twilight books  years back but seriously... the whole vampire-human romance angle has started to get on my nerves. Oh and somebody provide the makers of crap teen dramas with some innovative ideas. For our sanity's sake.

.......

Insanity Sanity- a state of total mind control. When you are fully aware of the fact that you are doing right thing at right time and place. Tragedy is  you can never find a properly documented list of sane/insane acts. Line which divides sanity from freaking illogical insanity is an absolute blur. Transition from sane to insane is so smooth that it is almost impossible to catch its glimpse... you miss the precious moment all the time.

We all suffer from sudden episodes of it... sometimes we realize it, we apologize and amend things. But damn there are few times when we practically do Blunders. The probability and intensity of executing such blunders increases amazingly when you are with your best buddies  :P  Lets say that it just adds another bump in the roller-coaster ride of your life.

Is it just ME or everyone else thinks too that- "Insanity in individuals is something rare but in

groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the Rule"

Lets discuss the arcane case 

of the gene-insane. 

Some may label it, as an act of 

a typically damaged brain. 

When we are alone, literally busy doing nothing :P this insanity resides miles away. We do fine in our own fortress of solitude. May be because the tiny brain of ours is unaffected by the garbage all around. But all the wisdom goes blank when you are in company of your friends. If you want to see it in practical, go out in evening and observe a group of peers.. unnecessary burst of laughter, long discussions on illogical points, proving the other one wrong, pulling legs and what not. You can write thesis on insanity if you observe too long. :D 

I see no harm in this, this temporary insanity fills our life fun moments. 

As I said all these misdeeds are harmless when they are confined to pint-sized things. Everything is fine if the context is small. Complication arises when same kind of activities are disposed of by groups (NGOs), parties(political parties), nations (govt) at large. I just gave a single instance of every type and it won't be an exaggeration if I say that all of them have taken insanity to an entirely new level.

Blame games in the name of discussion, monetary profit in the name of development and growth, fancy policies just to fill the A4 size paper ( wasting tonnes of paper). Its like all of them are lost in this ubiquitous mist of insanity and got no one to snap them out of it. 

Insanity is now their moral code. Everyone has somehow acclimated to this new improved definition of SANITY. 

I'm worried... Are you ???

Get out of your comfort Zone and Just Keep Going..!!

Each year we, the whole world Celebrates 8th March As International Women's day. While we celebrate a day to empower women, the unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men. The story doesn't end just by putting the blame on someones head, but Its time for us, Women to shine on our own.. 

Marilyn French says that half the women are a contended lot not because they are happy but because they don’t know of better things that they are missing. I don’t remember the exact quote, but this is more or less the gist of what she has written.

Well, what about the other half of the women then? Let’s for a moment consider the girls and young women of today who come from educated and well-to-do backgrounds, who have the choice of a profession or the chance to pursue their interests. Can we honestly say that all these girls go ahead and do what they want? More pertinently, how many of them are serious and committed about achieving something in life?

A statement by one of my classmate made me think and write it. She told me that she want to get married after her studies and have a family, not just her but lot of my friends back then usually talk about is their boyfriends and getting married.

If that is the case with girls who have nothing stopping them from reaching for the sky, what can one say about the average, often repressed girls? Their role models are often the older women including their mothers, aunts and grandmothers in their lives. If at all there is some one who has broken the Rule and has dared to strike her own path, she is an object of either awe or disdain. It is very rarely that they might want to emulate such a person for fear of being branded. At best, they might fantasize about being like her.

The average woman has her life and role cut out for her. She has the mandatory school/college education as the case may be and then gets married to the boy of her choice, or in some cases to someone chosen by her elders. And after marriage, she conforms to the age-old stereotypes of a wife and mother and grandmother as she advances in age.

I have nothing against girls getting married and settling down. But is it the only choice of a woman in today’s world? Why should it stop them from aspiring for something more? Many of these girls are talented and academically brilliant, but the urge simply is missing.  Standing up for themselves is either something that has not crossed their minds or if it has, is too much of an effort and too intimidating a prospect.

Isn’t mediocrity the easy way out? Come to think of it, acceptance is easy; by toeing the line, you don’t have to be responsible for your actions; it doesn’t involve struggle; it gets you the approval of family and society for being so compliant.  It is only when you break the mould that the struggle starts. Why go to all that trouble when you can lie back and take what destiny (or family and society) has in store for you? Then at least you have someone else to blame for your misfortunes and get sympathy in the bargain!

This acceptance also gives them the stoicism to take a drunk or philanderer of a Husband as their fate, a bunch of kids as nothing out of the ordinary, the death of their dreams if they had any, as karma.

Many of them don’t even want to think! Their stock reply to any question about what they want in life is, “I will complete my ‘education’ (Alevel) and get married. I would like to have a career, and my boyfriend wants us to get married.”

Happy to hear the word ‘career’, I say, “Great! What would you like to do?”

It doesn’t take long for me to realize that they have not given it any serious thought. For them the word ‘career’, is synonymous with a job and so it is just another routine as cooking and cleaning.  But one good thing about even holding a mundane job is that it gives their personalities at least another dimension than just the stereotypical person they otherwise are within the four walls of their home.

I am not saying that it is easy in repressive societies and even in normal ones like the ones most girls and women live in; nor am I suggesting that they take any radical route to freedom. Just that they learn to think for themselves; get out of the complacency that gives them a false sense of security; believe in themselves.

This is not the preserve of women who have had a liberal upbringing or those who come from well-to-do backgrounds. When a spark is there inside you, it will burst forth into a flame one day. The idea is to light that spark and not let it get extinguished no matter what.  I have known many women who were in the most abusive of relationships and yet who managed to retain their creativity, sense of humor and self worth.

Interestingly, more and more parents, especially the mothers, are encouraging their daughters to break free of the shackles of tradition and are willing to support them in their efforts. They might not be in the majority but their number is growing. These are the ones who never had a chance to do what they had dreamt of doing and therefore want to give their daughters that chance.  All they want is for the girls to take the initiative to stand up for themselves. But do these girls do that?

A thinking person has a choice in life. She need not only become a professional or career woman. She does what she wants and on her terms. How many of our professional women today are willingly taking breaks from their lucrative and satisfying career to raise their children? Working flexi-hours, working from home, doing something on one’s own – they are making choices. Others opt out of the rat-race altogether.  What is important is that they have control over their own lives because they are willing to think and take decisions affecting their lives themselves.

Let us for a moment talk of the uneducated women. My neighbor refuses to go to her Island since there are no proper schools for her son. She and her sisters, two of whom are  married in the same Island have told their husbands that they could go back but they themselves would stay on in Male’ and educated their children. They incidentally are working despite it not being ‘supported’ by their families.

That makes it doubly depressing when I hear girls from better financial and social backgrounds wail that they never thought about their lives or that they are confused.

Have you heard of the story about the bird swamped by shit?

Well it goes like this: a bird on its migratory trail became so weak with cold that it fell on a field unable to fly any further. A cow ambling along dropped its dung on the hapless bird. Too weak to move, the bird lay under the heap, finding it surprisingly warm and cozy. Yes, it was a pile of shit, but what the hell! It was a warm pile of shit, wasn’t it?

That about sums it up, folks!

An Open Letter

Dear Mosquito on my desk,


The two of us may share the desk and the view, but it does not mean you can cross boundaries at your behest. The cold coffee kept on this table is for me and not for you. Presently, I have covered the mug with a paper and I can see you are walking all over the paper searching for the froth. I don't know if it is written on which wall or which stone, but, I do know that it is written on this blog that I will not  part with my coffee with you. That coffee is for me.


Your accommodating desk mate,
Sleepyface

I Repeat - Another girl’s paradise

Does it all come down to
the thing one girl fears
in the night
is another girl’s paradise
- Tori Amos

We’re so mad at men for treating us wrong, we’re being completely blind to how terribly WOMEN treat other WOMEN!!


Whatever happened to girl power!

Everyone is acting like women are these powerless and helpless creatures that need to be sheltered and ‘taken care of’. Balls to them all, I say. We can help ourselves. We can support each other. We don’t need to be sheltered.

Before you think this is some crazy-ass feministic rant, let me tell you where this is all coming from.

I was watching TV the other day and you know how nowadays the commercial breaks are just getting longer and longer, well it seems that day was my lucky day ‘cause I got to see two brilliantly ridiculous ads one after the other. 2!! Ridiculous. Like laugh-out-loud ridiculous. And they kept getting better. (Thank god, the remote control was out of reach and I was too lazy to get out of bed for it!)

The first was this ad for AXE Body Spray. The one where this girl is standing in front of a mirror, wearing a sleeveless, black dress. She isn’t satisfied with what she sees. Then she picks up a pair of scissors and cuts off the lower half of the dress, up to her thighs.

And then the voice-over – Because guys like less, AXE now costs less.

The other one was this ad in which this young girl just got a modeling contract, but she’s all upset about it. “Why!” Her friend asks, “You look lovely in these pictures!” And she replies that the face in those pictures was her ‘summer’ face, and it’s winter now and her ‘winter’ face is not that pretty. You guessed it. It was an ad for Fair and Lovely’s Winter Fairness Cream. Because regular cold creams, apparently, steal your skin’s natural glow.

And I got so mad after watching these. I thought – How misogynistic! How sexist! How superficial!!!! How dare they make ads like these! What a terrible effect this will have on young girls watching them! Making them feel all pressured into looking and dressing and acting a certain way in order to attract men or find jobs!

And I did what I always do before I write, I googled. You Tube is wonderful dhw? I found the videos for these ads. And this time when I watched them, I just could not stop laughing.

Seriously. Rather than these ads being offensive to women, what I find offensive is the suggestion that these ads will influence how young girls and women feel and think about themselves. No one is complaining how the AXE ad is offensive to men because it shows how one-track-minded men are. But there are loads of articles being written about how the ad is demeaning to women. Such a big deal is being made about all the fairness cream ads and how they make dark women feel bad about themselves.

I ask you, who the hell are these women that need beauty products and television commercials to tell them how to think, feel, dress or look!?? Why can’t you know your own worth without waiting for a guy or the idiot box to tell you how wonderful you are or aren’t.

Body image is only an issue if you turn it into one. We can’t all look like Angelina Jolie or Penelope Cruz. So what if you have braces, or too many freckles, or if you’re flat-chested or have super-thick glasses, or if you’re too short or too tall, if you’re really fat or so skinny your friends call you lolly pop, or if you are asian and so dark your friends call you a negro. Other than you, who cares.

Sure it’ll be heart breaking when some guy doesn’t want to take you out because you’re too fat or too dark. But really?? Is that going to define who you are forever? And do you really believe that THAT guy was your one and only, last chance?

If you don’t like how you look you only have two choices. A – Do something about it. Exercise if you’re fat, eat better if you’re too skinny. Some might suggest surgery of the plastic kind, but not me. B – If  there’s nothing you can do about the way you look, then find a way to make your peace with it. Guys are not going to dump you because of how ‘bad’ you look. (Some of the shallow guys will, but then you don’t really want those ones around do you?) They will, most likely, dump you because you don’t like yourself.
I was listening to Tori Amos’ Raspberry Swirl.  And it got me thinking.

Have you noticed how mean women are to other women? Really nasty. It’s simple things even. We’re out at some party and the guys look over at some chick that’s just walked in and comment on how hot she looks.
The women all huddle together and discuss how slutty she looks.

Men sleep around and get called studs. Women sleep around and they get called sluts. Not just by guys. But by other women!! I find that horrifying.

I recently met a young girl who said she was planning to go for a shopping, and I said great, my girlfriends and I will go with you too! And then she said, oh no thanks, women don’t like me. I get along better with guys. I was offended at first. And then I thought. It’s not her fault. What she said is just a reaction to how women treat other women. I have some of the most amazing girlfriends a girl could ever ask for. But since most of my friends got married and got busy with their lives, I have to say, I’ve found it easier to make friends with or at least have social conversations with guys. You know why? Because as women get older they tend to get more insecure and more suspicious of other women. And it happens to the best of us. I know I’ve been guilty of many unnecessarily catty comments about other women. I’m warier now.

Women need to love themselves so they can love each other.

This is something Tori Amos said about her girlfriends and i know it sound a bit extreme, much extreme, but I think you’ll see why I think she’s so cool.
“I’m in love with my women friends, but I just don’t eat pussy. But I’m in love with them. If I had a different sensibility, then you know I think I could, you know, really fulfill someone down there, where a lot of men in their lives don’t. And eating pussy is a metaphor, too – it’s about crawling in there, being with their juices, really being with them.”

Bill Gates, Don't take this personally, Its just a Joke!!

 

Bill Gates Meets His Programmer

Bill Gates suddenly dies and finds himself face to face with God. God stands over him and says, "Well Bill, I'm really confused on this one. It's a tough decision. I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home, yet you also created that ghastly Windows '95 among other indiscretions. I believe I'll do something I've never done before; I'll let you decide where you want to go."

Bill pushed up his glasses, looked up at God and replied, "Could you briefly explain the difference between the two?" Looking slightly puzzled, God said, "Better yet, why don't I let you visit both places briefly, then you can make your decision. Which do you choose to see first, Heaven or Hell?"

Bill played with his pocket protector for a moment, then looked back at God and said, "I think I'll try Hell first." So, with a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, Bill Gates went to Hell.

When he materialized in Hell, Bill looked around. It was beautiful and clean, a bit warm, with sandy beaches and tall mountains, clear skies, pristine water, and beautiful women frolicking about. A smile came across Bill's face as he took in a deep breath of the clean air. "This is great," he thought, "if this is Hell, I can't wait to see heaven."

Within seconds of his thought, another flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke appeared, and Bill was off to Heaven. Heaven was a place high above the clouds, where angels were drifting about playing their harps and singing in a beautiful chorus. It was a very nice place, Bill thought, but not as enticing as Hell.Bill looked up, yelled for God, told him his decision and was sent to Hell for eternity.

Time passed, and God decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was progressing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill Gates shackled to a wall in a dark cave amid bone thin men and tongues of fire, being burned and tortured by demons.

"So, how is everything going?" God asked.

Bill responded with a cracking voice filled with anguish and disappointment, "This is awful! It's nothing like the Hell I visited the first time!! I can't believe this is happening! What happened to the other place...with the beaches and the mountains and the beautiful women?"

"That was the demo," replied God.

And some days, How I wish, I was a man..!

I love being a woman. Most of the time. Other times, I feel frustrated, angry and very helpless. Because I am a woman.

Not a single day I walk on the road, not feeling unsafe or threatened by someone. I’m not going to write about all the bad things that happened to me on the road, but my very first experiences on the road years back, not to mention that I got stabbed on the road Twice (I know you 'll be shocked to know  but you heard it right). I was lucky i dint die or it dint give me much pain physically for others to notice since i wanted to keep it as a secret, the reason I'll mention at the end of this.

A few years ago, I got free from work so thought will call my friends and asked them to meet me for a coffee and decided to take a walk alone to a decent eating place. I learnt a long time ago that trying to make friends at office is futile – and anyway, that’s not what I am there for. So there I was, all alone, happy at the thought of digging into a plateful of lasagna. I was speeding off to my place of choice. At the first red light, A car stopped a little away from me – black tinted glasses, blaring music – the vulgar signs of money, brazenness and danger in a city like Male’. I didn’t pay much attention to it, till the guy in the passenger seat opened the door and signaled at me. The door shut when I averted my face. I glanced back. This time the guy in the rear seat had opened the door and was jeering at me. I ignored, because in that situation it was the best I could do. And prayed the light would turn green and the monster would zip away and not chase me.

And that’s what happened – they drove away, after rolling down the windows, staring some more at me from their moving cars and laughing, as if it had been some kind of cruel joke. Those guys in the car, perverts obviously, were probably just enjoying the stricken look on my face when they opened and shut their car doors menacingly. They probably were getting their kick by just scaring a girl. And I’m supposed to thank my lucky stars they didn’t intend any worse than that!

A little way ahead, about half way, a cycle slowed down next to me. There was no one but this one guy. By the looks of him, you’d call him decent, almost suave. But he peered at me several times, giving away the truth behind that face. Unlike the men in the car, who seemed physically threatening, this guy was just checking me out. Not just checking out the way a guy would harmlessly check out a girl, but probably, trying his luck. You know, if I would give him the cue to stop the cycle, smile at him and ask for a ride (or maybe not). And he probably thought he could think that because I was alone in the road walking, around, 11.30 pm? I’ve never been looked at like that. And some part of me felt shamed for having given such notions to a man. Some part of me felt absolutely disgusted. And all of me felt miserable.

There’s no justification for a man to treat a woman like that, to make her feel so vulnerable, so frighteningly unsafe, so helpless in just a glance and a gesture. I felt stupid thinking I had plans of enjoying a meal! I felt stupid for being a woman! And I felt frightened at the thought of coming back to home – yes, that’s all the distance there was between my office and the café.

I wept. Scared to call up anyone, because either they would scold me for venturing out alone or they’d be too scared for me – as women, even though we can’t shield ourselves, we always try to shield the people around us. And that minute, I hated being a woman, hated being so powerless to defend myself. What precaution could I have taken to make myself invulnerable to those men on the street? On a crowded street where everyone’s too busy with their lives to stop and stand up for you? On busy road in the Capital city of the country? Is safety really a luxury for women?