The Lament Of A Potterhead

Harry Potter is ending.
Yes, I know you're going to tell me it ended years ago after the seventh book came out, but evidently, what i'm talking about here is the last movie, coming out on July 15th 2011.
I am looking forward to and simultaneously dreading this date so much that whenever I watch a trailer for it I don't recover for at least a day. I spend most of my time mooching around and wailing that the end of the world is coming a year early.
I know it's wrong to be so deeply attached to something as trivial as a book and movie franchise, but to tell the truth, Harry Potter is something I grew up with. The first 'real', 'proper' book I read was Harry Potter. The first release party I went to was for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when I was 8 years old. I stayed up till midnight, got my book and slept curled up around it. It must have been quite a sight: me, this little slip of a girl, holding up a giant hard-bound book with 800 pages. I finished that in two days.
Harry Potter has always been something that defined me, from when I was a child. My parents and grandparents were permanently frustrated with my addiction, to the extent that my grandparents always assumed that any book I was reading was Harry Potter. This book series makes me who I am... it puts the 'h' in Joshi :D
The movies have been an endless source of entertainment, although I do have a large amount of disdain for those who have only watched the movies and still say they love Harry Potter (that's just wrong. They're cheats). It has become such that even the flaws in these movies have become endearing to me... I do obsess over how they missed out this part, or that one, but it's more rueful and accepting than angry. I really can't find any other movie franchise that's managed to blend magic, romance, action and adventure so well. The actors fit their parts perfectly, the music is EPIC, and the dialogues are witty.
Another thing I absolutely love about Harry Potter is the way it manages to unite people from anywhere and everywhere. To use a cliched phrase, it transcends boundaries. No matter where you go in the world, you'll always find at least a few people who speak HP Nerd as fluently as you, and you will get along with them like magic :D
It seems to me that J.K. Rowling was put on earth by a divine hand solely to invent Harry Potter. I feel proud to say that this is a legacy that I will devotedly pass on to the generations after me, over and over again. And one thing I have realised is that no matter what, I will never, ever be able to let go of Harry Potter. I mean, how cool will it be if my last words are "Avada Kedavra!" ? :D

Pichle Saat Dino Mein... :D

I had recently attended a Vipassana course for teenagers. Vipassana is a type of meditation which teaches you to concentrate on your breathing and the various sensations felt in your body. The significance of this is that these two things (breathing and sensations) are with us all the time, from our birth to our death. This form of meditation was originally discovered by Gautama Buddha in India, but was lost until S.N. Goenka brought it back to India from Myanmar. He has been teaching it here ever since.
It was a 7-day residential course. The first 6 days, it is necessary to maintain the Noble Silence, which basically means not talking to the other students. Talking to the teachers and the Dhamma Sevikas (course servers) is allowed, so I'm afraid I ended up boring them a lot :D
As with anything else, there were good and not-so-good aspects of this course...

The Fun Stuff

1. Most importantly, I actually managed to keep quiet for a whole six days, surrounded by 69 other teenage girls who kept talking and giggling the entire time. It was really tough, and I never thought I would be able to do it, but I did. :D



2. The smug glow I could flaunt after six days when people asked me if I had actually kept the Noble Silence made it completely worthwhile :D



3. I realised that food is best eaten in contemplative silence and thinking, "Do I really need this?" Believe me, it's true.



4. I had really nice, understanding teachers who didn't mind even if we went to them and started crying for mommy :D



5. Goenkaji's discourses were always the high point of my day. He's an amazing orator, very funny, and manages to get the moral across perfectly while making it fun at the same time. He tells stories of Buddha's life that leave you convulsing with laughter. And yeah, it really is that funny :D



6. I managed to learn certain super-complicated Hindi words that I will never ever ever forget cos of their being burned into my mind due to excessive repetition.



7. Day 7 was amazingly fun because we all sat together and spoke the tape they played during each sitting of Goenkaji speaking and chanting. We had all memorised it, pretty much :D



8. Since I didn't break the Silence, I didn't know anyone's names until the last day. I had a blast inventing names for different girls based on their looks. For example, there was this girl who walked totally purposefully around the whole centre and scared me into thinking that she was actually going somewhere. I later learnt she did that for exercise, so she became the CrazyWalker. Some others were bitch-with-long-straight-hair, bitch-with-amazing-long-black-curly-hair-and-smug-face, she-with-the-blue-oshos, sits-next-to-me-in-dhamma-hall etc etc :D



9. I made a few great friends in the process, from all over Maharashtra and even some from Goa, which is definitely a good thing :D

The Sad Stuff

1. This form of meditation is supposed to automatically remove all the hatred and envy from your heart and make you feel love towards all living beings. The sad thing is, it was really hard to feel any sort of love and affection towards some of the girls there... they were so annoying!



2. I think it is a law of nature that when you put 70 girls together in an enclosed campus with no contact with the outside world, they will gravitate into groups and fight. Believe me, I saw enough politics on the last day to make me feel profoundly happy that I had actually kept the Noble Silence. Very depressing.



3. I was so homesick. By the first evening itself I was almost in tears. I think that's a testimony to the power of Vipassana meditation, because I am never homesick :D



4. The boredom kills you! All you do is eat, meditate and walk around aimlessly in the middle time. That's what I meant when I said the discourses were the high point of each day. Otherwise it was mundane.



5. Sleepiness is a HUGE problem. I mean, you sit down to meditate and before you know it, your head's on your knees and you're dozing off! The sessions immediately after bath time were the worst, cos the hot water would make me drowsy :D I later took to going to my room in every break and splashing my eyes with water to wake me up.



6. We. Got. Watermelon. Almost. Every. Single. Freaking. Day. I am now officially SICK of watermelon.

So, in conclusion, I would definitely recommend everyone to attend at least one Vipassana course in their lives. Just manage 10 days from your busy schedule and GO. One course can make you want to do them again and again. Please, please, just try it out, and be happy! :D

The Master Plan of My Life

My friends and I have come up with some pretty crazy plans that we intend to carry out in our lives. Purely for your entertainment, here they are:

1. My friend from my Vipassana course and I are going to visit all 50 of the world's Vipassana centres with Goenkaji. We will meditate at each one and become enlightened. Then we will go to jails and teach the inmates Vipassana. They will become enlightened, teach their friends, and thus the whole world will become a happy place. YAY :D


2. Tanu and I plan to open an ice-skating rink in our city along with a Krispy Kreme outlet. We'll ice-skate around and sell fresh hot doughnuts to everyone, earning much dough in the process :D


3. We're going to make a spoof movie of the Siege of Troy. Many scenes are already planned out. All rights reserved :D


4. Deepthi and I are going to write the eighth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the *something awesome we'll come up with* and thus keep the legacy alive until we bequeath it unto our future generations.


5. We shall also remake ALL the Harry Potter movies exactly the same as the books and I don't care if that means the movies are 8 hours long. Each. True HP fans will love it.

Of course, if none of these plans come to fruition, I can always marry Justin Bieber and live a glamorous life, eh? :D

You Know It's Summer In India When...

1. The cold water tap runs hot and the hot water taps runs BOILING.
2. You are not normally found more than a few feet away from any cold substance (ice water/ice cream/just plain ice/fridge)
3. The doors and windows are open, the fan is on full and the cooler is on and you still feel like tearing your clothes off and fanning yourself.
4. All you want to do is lie on your bed in a stupor.
5. A whole tray of ice and a box of ice cream are finished in one day.
6. You break into a sweat the minute you step out of the house.
7. Sudden need to use deodorant.
8. People take to carrying around umbrellas to protect themselves from the scorching sun.
9. Spending two minutes outside results in tan lines in the shape of your shoes on your feet.

How to make really tasty sabudana wada

Begin with the firm intention of making gulab jamun.
Take khoya and add a white powder that you assume to be maida (wheat flour).
Start making balls and deep-frying the resultant dough.
Be shocked when the jamuns start bursting in the oil.
Give up and keep the sugar syrup that you had made in the fridge.
Two days later, remove the syrup, and since you are jobless and absolutely refuse to throw anything (and I mean ANYTHING) away, decide to make shankarpali to use up the syrup.
Mix the syrup, milk and ghee and boil for a while.
Now pour the mixture into some more of that soft white flour you used a few days ago and knead.
Watch in horror as it gains a consistency resembling that of shira.
Speculate on what the flour might be, as it is clearly not wheat.
Realise with even more horror that it's either sabudana (tapioca) or rice flour.
Laugh a lot and fall over.
Make little round discs of the material (which will crack around the edges due to the weird consistency) and deep-fry.
The discs will puff up to resemble pani-puris with a sickly sweet taste.
Give up again and start thinking of ways to get rid of the dough.
Call some people and tell them what happened and laugh even more.
Experiment on a poor boy and watch gleefully as he admits to liking it.
Finally, add cayenne pepper and peanuts and deep fry again.
And there you have it! Delicious sabudana wada with minimal effort. Thank you. :D

[NOTE: Most of this was mom (duh) though I helped with the fall over laughing part :D]

The New Year Post

This is basically going to be a compilation of lists. I've had a crazy, crazy year, and I'm pretty sure the next one will be the same :D
Here goes...
The BAD things about 2010:

1. Tenth (need I say more? :D)
2. My parents changing into crazy paranoid people.
3. The beginning of the end of school.
4. Tenth Social Studies - ESPECIALLY Geography and Eco
5. Complete uncertainty about what exactly the Board is planning with our futures.
6. Playing guinea pig as the CBSE board tries various educational experiments on us.
7. Not blogging and restricted internet access all thanks to the lovely mother.
8. NM moving away randomly without notice in August :'(
9. Every single girl in Std 10 crying on the bathroom floor at some point or the other in the year (it's called a breakdown :D)
10. Only getting to watch 4 movies in the whole year: Avatar, Iron Man II, Eclipse and HP7 Part 1.
11. Munni and Sheila (do NOT get me started... not that I have anything against THEM, just the hype surrounding them and the way the boys in our class were behaving :D)
12. The sudden neccessity to do crunches to stay in shape. Sad.
13. Katy Perry getting married to RUSSELL BRAND in JAIPUR. I mean, whaaa....?
14. Raj Thackeray and his MNS. Geez.
15. Usher wailing OMG.
16. Miley Cyrus TRYING to be bad and failing miserably (Who Owns My Heart? Seriously?)
17. Pamela Anderson in Bigg Boss
18. Actually, Bigg Boss too. It has got to be the most depressing idea in the history of Indian television.
19. The days preceding the CWG and the absolute IDIOCY of the Indian government.

The GOOD things about 2010:

1. Getting a cell phone, no matter how much they confiscate it :D
2. Our last school trip where we had TONS of fun screaming random songs :D
3. The general class unity and togetherness in our last year :D
4. Singing songs in class with a bunch of crazy freaks :D
5. Tenth Science. Especially Organic Chemistry. SO COOL :D
6. Geting over Edward Cullen.
7. Avatar. Even if it was in 2009 :D
8. HP7 and Eclipse
9. Nailpolish in weird colors even though my parents HATE it (BLUE!)
10. Ice Golas for Rs 25 in Central.
11. The entertainers of the year (for me): Lady GaGa! (pure awesomeness :D), Perez Hilton, Lady Antebellum, Eminem (SO COOL) and DJ Earworm (freaking genius).
12. Falling in love with Justin Bieber and Jay Sean
13. Opening Ceremony of the CWG. Stunning :D
14. FIFA FEVER!!! And Waka Waka by Shakira :D

Stuff that I want in 2011:

(My dad is going to look at this and just go "yeah, right". But there's no harm in WANTING, is there, if I know I'm not going to get it? :D)

1. At least 80 books that I have to catch up on.
2. Gadgets-wise: An iTouch, BlackBerry Torch, iPad, a camera of my own and and iMac :D (yeah, right :D)
3. SHOES. LOTS OF THEM.
4. A whole new wardrobe.
5. Gym Membership.
6. Red streaks in my hair.
7. A tattoo of a dragon on my left shoulder blade like Lisbeth Salander ( lol jk :D)

Stuff to not look forward to in 2011:

1. Board exams.
2. Studying for board exams (yeah, that's a whole different category :D)
3. The end of 10th and my school days.
4. Changing schools.
5. Our farewell.
6. Getting older :D
7. Brad Pitt getting married (*sob*)

Stuff to look forward to in 2011:

1. Our last and awesomest concert :D
2. HP7 Part 2
3. The end of 10th and the torture our teachers put us through.
4. Turning 16 (that sounds so OLD :D)
5. Going to France maaaybe? :D
6. Buying books!
7. Our farewell.
8. GaGa's new album :D

So I guess I'll just have to wait out the year and see if it turns out the way I hope it will :D