Advice #1

I'm tired of travelling on the transit in my city. It's slow and annoying. What should I do?
- slow and annoyed

Dear SAA,

I understand. In my city, it takes an hour and half to get from one end of the city to the other! Very annoying, I know.

I suggest biking or buying a car. Click here for a good list of reasonably priced cars.


I want to write a book, but I can't string three words together. Besides these ones. What should I do?
- Can't think properly

Dear CTP,

I , too, am trying to write a novel and I apparantly, also have this affliction known as "writers block"

I suggest you visit the website above and follow all of their explicit directions with complete faith. Also, try doodling on scrap pieces of pink, lightly scented paper.

E-mail me at roshan.sethi@gmail.com with more questions!

Winnipeg

I suppose there are good things and bad things to every place; balance, after all, is at the heart of everything.

Winnipeg is remarkably tilted, however, towards the bad......

I don't think this is a particularly malevolent remark- especially given native winnipegers are prone to the exact same sentiments.

Maybe a more diplomatic way of stating (the obvious) is to suggest that Winnipeg isn't exactly the centre of the universe. The most exciting attraction in the city is the place where two rivers meet; an area with the exciting name of "the forks" which is a fairly self-explanatory moniker.

I was privileged enough to voyage to this city- innocuous and insignificant as it is, it is the debating centre of Canada- for, what else, a debate. No, just kidding, it was for a volleyball tournament- I'm very athletic, remember?

In any event, the debate was being held by the Jewish community in Winnipeg- in particular by the Asper Foundation (which I found out later, owns Winnipeg). Despite the bland surroundings, I really did enjoy myself- the Jewish community was very receptive and friendly to the lot of us, even giving us a place to stay in their homes.

_

We (meaning Twin and I) tied for second at the debate. We tied, incidentally, with the Aussies.

Understand, however, that Australians have a significant advantage in debate; namely, that their accents make anything they say sound good! It's peculiar, but they could be telling you about how ugly your chihuahua is, and you would nod as though they were speaking with great wisdom. In first place, was a team that had made it to World Speech and Debate championships previously- somehow, we were only 1.4 points away from them!

I was actually surprised we made it as far as we did; I had not entertained any previous notions of making it to the Finals, so was surprised when we did.

There was another pair of twins, debating together, from Montreal! I had thought that only twin and I were creative enough to do something like that. It would have been a great show if we had debated against one another ; alas , some things are not meant to be.
_

It was kind of a week of quips, however. Mazal and I had this contest to see who could say the most number of quips (cool, I know) and we had such gold one-liners, like:

"I always read the wedding announcements, in the paper..." I was musing, when Mazal came back with, " Why? To see who's off the market?"

OK, some of them were funnier then that. I'll ask Mazal and see if she remembers the others.

Besides, quips, we also had gaffes aplenty. The one I did, mostly because I was not paying attention and was thus inarticulate was kind of embarassing.

For some reason we were talking about wedding gifts, for a couple that we thought had a strong likelihood of getting together at the debate. It was a joke; they weren't actually getting married. I mean, they were our age and debaters.

So, I said, " I'll get the groom handcuffs." Now this sounds very wrong, for a number of reasons.

The thing was, I was thinking of cufflinks when I said that, but couldn't get the right word out. So for some reason I said the other, with absolutely no attention of making it sound so bizarre.

They stared at me for a couple of seconds, and it was a few minutes before I realized the implications of what I had said. I'm slow...........
_

The billets I was staying with, had two cats. They're peculiar creatures- especially for someone like me who only knows dogs. They move very stealthily, slinking along with glittering eyes that seem eternally malevolent. I can't help but feel that they're......evil.

They also are very clever. Although Winnipeg by-law prohibits cats from being anywhere but indoors, they will lurk in the closet by the door and wait for some unsuspecting person to open the door, so they can escape from the confines of their apparant captivity.

In any event, I didn't really expect anything like this to happen when I was there, so I wasn't to careful whenever I opened the doors.

Once, however, when I was in the process of getting into the host family's car, I heard a tinkling- the characteristic sounds of the bells on the cats. We were in the garage at the time- I had left the door to the garage closed, but somehow the cat's had slipped in before it completely shut. Realizing that the garage was wide open to the outside world, I dropped all of the bags that I had been hauling into the van to the floor, in a resounding crash, and leapt towards the direction of the sound.

I saw a brief blur of orange sweep out from no where and make a beeline for the garage boundary. With a muttered cry, twin and I ran forward to try and intercept the creature; effortlessly, it veered to our side and leaped over our bags and out into the drizzling rain and blistering winds. Without really thinking about it, I followed. Twin stayed behind, apparantly satisfied that I was taking care of it.

Winnipeg indeed lived up to it's alternate name, Winterpeg, and it became very obvious, very abruptly that I had no coat or really any kind of protection. Freezing I ran through the rain, racing after a cat that could easily run twice as fast as I could. It streaked across the lawns of at least a dozen neighbours, leaping nimbly while I stumbled after it, desperately saying it's name and asking it to halt.

It raced across sidewalks, and roads,under trees (which I hit, face on, in my wild chase) and mailboxes and over garden ornaments, through wet grass that made me slip, and (deliberately, it seemed) right through the center of muddy puddles. I cursed at it, calling it a variety of names that must have drawn the attention of the people who watched as I raced by in the early hours of the morning, very afraid that I had just lost our billet family's cat. The gap between us did not appear to be any smaller, I remember noting with some desperation.

Then suddenly it stopped, in a recoiled position that looked as though it were ready to pounce on something. I swept the thing upwards in my hands- noting idly that it was like holding a big stuffed animal- and marched with it firmly secured, all the way back to the home.

"It likes to do that," our billet family noted," but it always comes back."

Nice to know.

It was a good morning run, in any event, I suppose.

I haven't forgotten about you!

I've decided that I'm going to offer advice.

So e-mail me at roshan.sethi@gmail.com with questions, and I'll respond with advice.

No, really.

PS Or I'll make one up!

PPS: I'm really bored.
_

The subject header for this entry is largely directed at my blog.

I've been...er...busy at school lately, what with everything, you know, collapsing on top of me.

*sigh*

I had always been told that Grade 12 was easier than Grade 11; that in fact, Grade 11 was the hardest of them all. Now, having overcome the collosus that was Grade 11, I feel like I'm staring at another, greater mountain that I have only even begun to climb. Everything- all my major assignments, SAT studying, tests, university applications- seems to be coming at the same time.

The point of all these commiserations is the following:

BEWARE OF GRADE 12.
_

Which, of course, reminds me of a wonderful Roald Dahl story (called "Beware of the Dog"). It's really quite good, despite requiring historical knowledge of World War II. Find the story here .

In fact, Roald Dahl's short stories are nothing short of brilliant- and often overlooked, at that. The fact that his writing endeared so well to children- a fickle audience at the best of times- is only testament to how clever he is.

Same with Dr. Suess. Now there was talent.

_

I suppose a description of Temptation 2004 is required. If only as a form of catharsis.

Kiff, twin, family and I went, as one party (despite Kiff seeming out of place-being non-indian and all) to this event which was supposed to furnish the hottest new Bollywood stars. Live! In Person!, the commercials that flooded our televisions exclaimed, accompanied by beatific pictures of indian movie stars in various poses.

It was very nearly a no-brainer that our family wanted to go- we're Indian, and we love Bollywood( no, the two aren't always synonymous).

For some reason, however, that I am yet unable to divine, Kiff also wanted to attend. She first forwarded her proposal over a rousing MSN conversation under the guise of a psuedojoke. I didn't store the convo, but it's interesting to observe my transition from bemused to shocked and alternately thrilled. Even then, I didn't really believe her.

She brought it up again, however, in real life and I realized- finally- that she was being sincere.

Getting the tickets proved to be difficult. Our family had already ordered and received the tickets, and were quite content with them. Despite the msn convo, I hadn't really thought that Kiff wanted to go.

So we had to contact the smarmy organizer about getting new tickets.

The organizer decided to put me on hold for an inordinately long time (there wasn't even hold music!), with his cellphone conveniently placed so that I could hear all of his business transactions. After hearing him sell three tickets, he finally picked up (probably thinking that he had proven to me how important he was) and after much wrangling, refused to do anything about the situation.

So I called TicketMaster (who through some stroke of fortune were selling the tickets) and was able to find a seat for Kiff not too far away from us. I figured we could trade.

Finally, we got to the actual event which turned out to be packed.

When we walked through security, all of us were checked (quite rigorously I might add) except for Kiff. We had to put our hands up, so we looked like scarecrow mannequins, were demanded if we had a camera on our person, and were frisked- Kiff, on the other hand, merely smirked at them and swept through without even being asked a single question.

Maybe it was because she was caucasion. On that note, there were plenty of caucasions at the event- most of them, however, turned out in traditional Indian clothing. Except for Kiff. She dressed up like a swedish native (not even kidding).

The event itself was OK. It was really quite mediocre to be honest. Apparantly, there is some subversive desire in Bollywood to be modern- to this end, all of the participating stars decided to wear very revealing clothing. For the love of God, there were children there! It was risque in every sense of the term- I hate what's happening to Indian cinema. Whatever happened to serenading people, dancing around trees and fighting seven (7) villans at the same time?
_

I'm going to take a page from another blog I've read.

I have several gmail invitations- if you want one, all you have to do is write a haiku poem and e-mail it to me at roshan.sethi@gmail.com

Please?

_

I founded something at my school, recently. Yay!

I am impossibly excited about it and where it might possibly go.

Election Night

The final vote was cast merely two minutes before the cut-off. A man wrapped in a grey, baggy trench coat that enveloped his entire body slipped the pink ballot through the slit in the box and glided off. He earned a few stares from the pollmaster who was looking at his watch and wondering why the recently departed man had spent an astounding thirty minutes in the pollbox before emerging, expressionless. He had bit his lip with apprehension when only five minutes was left, wondering how he was to tell the man when the vote was over, that he would have to leave the pollbooth. The man had solved the problem for him in any event, emerging with a few minutes to spare.
As the man in the trench coat pushed the exit door open with a loud bang, in a commotion that made several of his attendants jump, the pollmaster could not help but heave a sigh of relief. It wouldn’t have done to have a…problem. The pollmaster frowned, no that wouldn’t help his prospects of promotion. Steeping his fingers, he leaned back in his comfortable chair and wondered who had won in his vicinity. It mattered, of course.
“The final count is due in a bit, sir” one of his more over enthused attendants remarked happily. The boy seemed to think this was the first rung on the political ladder that he wanted to climb. Pah! Everyone knew that when you got involved in the election business, you never even had a hope of running for office. Maybe being promoted, maybe being Master of Polls, but never becoming a politician. The pollmaster pulled nervously on one end of his mustache, thinking bemusedly that he had never bothered to tell his attendant that. The boy’s political career was in shambles now. Oh well.
They would be coming, of course, in a bit. It was just a matter of which party.

The pollmaster, whose name was unpronounceable but spelt McGliycolan, stood up abruptly and began emptying the ballot boxes. They were full to the brim with tiny slips of pink paper, with a hole stamped in the box for the appropriate candidate. Slowly he ran his hand through the piles of paper, smiling, and thinking of how much money he would have tonight.
One of the attendants had turned on the TV to keep them company during the long night of counting. Poor, naïve fools; they seemed to actually believe there would be a great deal of counting tonight. They also believed they were doing a service to their country. McGliycolan guffawed slightly.
“Results from poll booths around the country indicate a very close race. For the fifth time in the last two decades, the vote will depend on the region of Alkcarcey,” The TV commentator paused to shake his head wonderingly, “In the lead, by a close margin is….”
The door burst open, and five burly men entered- their faces were obscured by wide brimmed hats, that cast eerie shadows about their body. On their lapels was the face of one of the candidates, the candidate in the lead.
McGliycolan smiled broadly and waved expansively at the pink ballots behind him.
“Help yourself,” he said, beaming.