The Mental Floss

Everyone is entitled to an opinion of their own. But it doesn't hurt to consider a perspective that might actually make your life better!

[thementalfoss]

Love... All over again!

“...and he just stood there perplexed!” she laughed. To him, she looked the most imperfect pretty possible. As her eyes mapped every region on his face while narrating what she thought was a funny incidence to share, he tried to figure out the imperfection in them.

“I could never forget the look on his face!” she laughed, and looked at him, expecting him to return the laughter. But she noticed that he was too busy concentrating on something else. So, her laughter faded.

“Hellyeo!! Lost are we?” she asked him. He kept staring into her eyes, while waited for him to answer.

“Something’s missing,” he said.

“I’m sorry! What?” she looked around and asked.

“It’s been over two months since we have been seeing each other. We have discussed almost everything that would help us to come to a decision. We’re almost there. But this one thing that’s missing, is somehow bothering me!” he said sounding rather impatient.

“I don’t what you are missing, but I definitely seem to be missing something here,” saying so, she decided to concentrate on the coffee machine on her far left.

“There is something you are deliberately not telling me,” and now he had her attention, “something you don’t want me to know.”

“I’ve told you everything that I possibly wouldn’t want you to know, but you deserved to. So I think that sums up to every detail about my personal life,” the smile had vanished off her face.

“I haven’t met the you, you really are. So I am still not familiar with you. But the you, you are being in front of me, isn’t that you. I can tell that from your eyes. They have a depth. A depth that has something hidden away that’s constantly trying to peep and you are deliberately trying to trap it there.” It looked liked she knew where this was heading. She just didn’t want him to reach there, which meant...

“I’m right then,” he kept looking into her eyes that constantly gazed away now.

“No, you aren’t,” she said, now looking at him.

“How so?” he was started feeling afraid now.

“It isn’t something I don’t want you to know,” she said, and looked away again, “It’s I who doesn’t want to know it.”

“Well, at least we know now that there certainly is a problem,” it was hard to try and not hurt her. She always acted like she is strong, but deep down, she was fragile. “You need to trust me, that I am not going to be judgemental. But whatever it is, the burden of it is pulling you down!” he really didn’t want anything in the world to hurt her.

“It’s the relationship I had before you,” her voice quivered a little.

“You’ve told me, that you both were...”

“Yes. And I have told you everything about the relationship that you deserved to know. What I haven’t told you yet is whether any of it is still left in me or not.” She took a deep breath, “the problem is, I don’t want to know whether any of it is still left in me or not. Because if the answer is yes, then I will be doing wrong to you.”

He looked at her, hoping he could have some eye contact with her. But he knew, she was fighting to shut all the feelings away. It was his turn to take a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. Even for him. But the most for her.

“Ok. Now listen to me very carefully. I don’t want that relationship to die inside you.”

She looked up at him in bewilderment.

“Yes, you heard me right. I do not want it to die inside you. And there is only one reason behind it. That is, whatever has happened in your life has moulded you into who you are. Whether good or bad, all those experiences have shaped you into you. If that relationship dies somewhere down there, it will also kill the you, you have become with the course of time! I don’t want that! I like the you, you are! I like every imperfection you hold! And I wouldn’t want you to be any different! It is ok if you miss him sometime, or something I do reminds you of him! You loved him! And it only means you are capable of loving someone to that extent! It means, you are capable of loving me enough if I treat you correct! Hang in there girl! Don’t be so hard on yourself. Let that shadow loose! Let it follow you! Don’t try to bury it in the depth of your heart! That’s your spirit you are trying to suffocate. Let yourself be 100% you. I need you to. Can you do that?”

As he spoke, her eyes welled up. And just like that, she fell in love all over again.

[thementalfoss]

Crazy Things For Love

"It is easier said than done. I just can't bring myself up to do it !!" Neil said with agitation. Avnee looked at him, not with irritation, but with love. "Do you still think it's about you?" "How do you mean?" he asked, condused. "Ask yourself. Does she deserve this? Or does she deserve much more than this?" Neil stared at her for a moment. Avnee smiled at him and said, "She loves you. And you love her. You say she makes you happy. So doesn't she deserve to be happy? She is rich. Yet she loves you, knowing she will have to make adjustements. Is it not your responsibility to adjust a bit with your comfort too?" Neil looked at her perplexed. It seemed as if he had never looked at his relationship with Naina that way. Avnee looked away and stared out of the window, and said, "Loving someone with all your heart gives you all the strength you need to do thigs out of your comfort zone. You have no idea how crazy things love can make you do." And just like that, her love for Neil made her do the craziest thing she could.

[thementalfoss]

Don't confuse love with the need for commitment. Love is nothing more or less than an act of caring for each other and being there irrespective of all odds when one needs the other. It is as simple as it is complicated.

Aabha

[thementalfoss]

There is no looking for benefits in friendship. Friendship is meant to be selfless and unconditional. Friendship is what and how much you believe your friend deserves, and not what you are getting in return. Friendship doesn’t come from the heart; it comes from much deeper than that… It comes from the soul. Anything otherwise, is just business.

Aabha

[thementalfoss]

Perplexed

I reached there a good 15 minues earlier than I had planned. The kids were having lunch. I was meeting them after almost a year. We all were overjoyed to see each other. We asked each others’ well being and exchanged gifts. Yet I was an uninvited guest at the event. It was his book launch party. The event was over already. And I assumed he must have left immediately, he was a celebrity afterall. Celebrities have a lot of commitments to keep in a day. I sat there enjoying my time with the kids.

Ten minutes later, a convoy of fans entered along with some paparazzi. There he was, surrounded by his admirers and his fans. The students of the institute where the event was being held were pushing their way through the crowd to get a good picture with him. He was making his way towards the kids. He had come back to meet them. I, on the other hand, stood at the back of the crowd. I wasn’t really sure how he will react after seeing me there.

He saw the kids, met them and their respective mothers. And then, he saw me. He gazed into my eyes, and the happiness in his mind highlighted on his face.

"I never thought such a day would come," he said. I couldn’t help but smile and blush. I buried my face in my hands so that no one could see me turn red. The kids were still standing in front of me. So I extended a handshake to him. He looked at me said, "Is this how you are going to meet me?"

Not knowing what to say, I replied, “What can I do? There’s so much distance between us!!”

"Oh! Kill the distance…" saying so he made this way through the crowd towards me, embraced me as tight and warm as he could, and said, "I missed you sooo much!!"

Yet again I didn’t know what I should say. But this time, I was perplexed! He missed me! And he said that aloud! He was more happy to see me there than I was excited about seeing him after such a long time!

I said, “Really? So why don’t you reply when I text you to wish you on your birthday?” He didn’t reply. But neither was replying important. His eyes said it all. The crowd pulled him amongst them again. Chefs, officials and journalists arrived to talk to him. His team members urged him to eat something before he leaves. But the entourage wouldn’t spare him a second to swallow a morsel. Yet, his eyes kept searching for me in the crowd, and would twinkle the moment he would see me.

In a while, he left since he had a fight to catch. We couldn’t say a good bye and see you soon to each other. But I guess, we never needed that kind of a formality. In that moment, I realized, no matter how much we both occupy ourselves, we are always at the back of each others minds. The moment of delight lasted for hardly a couple of minutes. But it went away saying a lot of things this time.

Sometimes the love we feel for each other cannot be defined by generalized philosophies. Sometimes it is so unique that neither does it require a definition, nor does it require the approval or opinion of anyone. What two people think and feel about each other is the only thing that matters. This is the kind of love that can only turn into disaster of it is pushed into enclosures of seriousness. It is only meant to be felt like divinity. Because it is so divine, that it doesn’t even need to be expressed to each other. Those two people feel it when they meet and approve of it from a distance, in silence. No one else is required to know about it.

Ours is that kind of a love. We don’t meet for months together. We don’t even have each others numbers. We hardly get a chance to talk to each other even when are around each other. We have an age difference of 18 years. But none of it matters. What matters is when we meet, magic happens. And it is perhaps the most beautiful thing in the whole world.

[thementalfoss]

That's what my names looks like in the #ModiScript (nothing to do with #NarendraModi... It's out ancient script - for those who might end up commenting anything about our PM) 😝😉😁

[thementalfoss]

Why is being born a woman the most dangerous thing to happen to a woman?

Like many other social media users, I have always posted my social concerns on various social media from time to time. At times my family and relatives have suggested me a lot of things against doing so. Some said that I shouldn’t be so outspoken about women’s sexuality, or sexuality itself. Some said that I sound just too arrogant to be true. Honestly, I am almost 25 years old, a grown up and an adult, and I very much have the liberty to express my views if I can possibly make a valid point. Hence, I apologize in advance to whoever might think I am being overly feminist or arrogant. The only reason I am writing this is because I have been looked upon indecently and obscenely on countless occasions, and I can never get over the way I have felt then. The worst part was I was never able to express it to anyone, neither family nor friends, out of the fear that I will be misunderstood instead.

This post caters to two different posts I read on Facebook and Twitter yesterday (14th September, 2014). The first one was about Suzette Jordan, a woman who gang raped in the dead of the night on Park Street, Kolkata, few months ago. She visited a certain restaurant named Ginger in her city with her fiancé, where the manager of the restaurant refused to let her enter saying he cannot allow her because she was a rape victim. Even the owner of the restaurant supported this stance. To make it even worse, even the people waiting in a queue behind her ignore this ridiculousness, instead of standing up for her. When she called a journalist friend of hers to cover this, the owner spoke rudely to the journalist as well. This was being aired on news channels all day yesterday. The second one is about a post by Times of India on Twitter about Deepika Padukone’s cleavage.

Both women lashed out in their own ways. The question is, how any of us sound ourselves out? Especially women. I have noticed quite a lot of times that people still say this is social media, your words are likely to be misinterpreted, think twice before you post anything or even suggest that don’t retaliate to such issues at all. Then why do you read such posts in the first place? What is the harm in retaliating to such ridiculousness? If you can punch someone in the face for misbehaving with your mother, sister, cousin, any other female family member or relative, as well as any female friend, then why can’t you kick someone in the balls for misbehaving with a woman you don’t know? Does the woman have to be related to you in some way for you to make justice? Secondly, which law in the Constitution of India or the Indian Penal Code says that a rape victim cannot enter a restaurant? I am more amazed with the people who were standing in the cue. Before the manager, I would like to slap them all across their faces. I’m sure the reason they kept quiet was because they didn’t want to be a part of any scene. But is that more important than letting someone misbehave with a woman, let someone pick an innocent person’s wounds, or torment a person mentally for no reason?

Secondly, what do certain media mean when the post something like OMG! So-and-so person exposes cleavage, or so-and-so person’s clothes can’t handle their curves? If an actresses dress tears while at an event is the actress’s mistake or the one who sewed that dress? If someone’s cleavage is showing, specifically when the picture is taken from a higher angle, is it the said celebrity’s fault or the photographer’s, who clicked the picture from an angle from where the cleavage was bound to be visible? And who should women be ashamed of their body? Why should a woman be ashamed because she was raped? Why do you think women have to cover their entire body with clothes? You think it is because not doing so is obscene? Why does obscene apply only to women and not to men?

Men can road around in an underwear and with a bare chest, but if a woman’s cleavage is visible, she suddenly becomes a slut to everyone who sees it. Well, we women don’t cover ourselves with a “necessary” amount of layers of clothes. We wear them because men start salivating the moment any “concealable” part of our body gets exposed, and start fantasizing themselves in every possible sex position with the concerned woman. Given the choice and respect, even women will enjoy roaming around bare chest in under pants just like men. If only a woman’s body exposure never burnt the hair in men’s ears !!! Just because those few assholes lack the nerve to accept that they think indecent about women they say that women tone their bodies and dress that way to look attractive to men. HELL NO !!! We dress up that way and tone our bodies because we like to look good to ourselves !!! Not so that some shameless person can come along and compliment our assets.

It doesn’t require a woman’s attire for a man to start thinking obscene about her. I’ll recount a very disturbing incidence of my life. I was 9 years old, in class 4, and had reached puberty by then. I was probably the first girl in my entire batch who was required to start wearing a bra by that age. But since I was still a kid and very much liked wearing frocks and dresses, I wore them on a regular basis. The father of one of my mother’s students had a xerox shop. He also had a typewriter there in. I would visit the shop at times to xerox documents for my mother and father. And since his son was my mom’s student, he knew me very well. I was very keen to learn how to use the typewriter. One fine Saturday, I went to the shop for to learn it. This was in Kolhapur, where the roads would be dead empty in the afternoon hours. No one was around except for the uncle. He showed me how to load the paper and how to type. And while I was doing so, slowly he moved his hands from under my arms, over my breasts. When I was younger, my family member would hold likewise, but in a very different way. What set his behaviour apart was he pressing hard at my breasts. I found that rather odd. Though at that age I never understood what that meant, or whether that was good or bad, I knew one thing, that this wasn’t how a kid my age should be handled. So that day, I ignore it.

The next day, I went there again. And the same thing happened. This time, he also tried to slide his hand under my frock. I knew for sure this isn’t good. But since I was alone, and no one was around, I just faked a laugh and said that he is tickling me, and rushed out of there saying my mother must be waiting for me. That day onwards, I never went there without making sure there is enough amount of crowd. And since that was the only xerox shop in that area back then, if I had to get something xeroxed, I had no option but to visit that shop. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to explain what happened to anyone at home. My grandmother being old school, she would have definitely created a huge ruckus over it. I was too scared of my father at that point to tell him anything. And I was worried that my mother wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t have a very frank sort of a relationship with her back then.

Not having reacted over that haunts me till date. How is a 9 years old girl supposed to understand that a man is touching him the wrong way. Now tell me, would you still blame a nine years old girl for wearing what she was wearing? Would you still say that her breasts are shamelessly showing up in her clothes? Who is to be blamed here? Thankfully, I did react over it in the future when some refreshed the memory of this incidence in the crowd of Dadar Station Mumbai. I had got off a ladies special train on platform number two. The staircase on that platform is too narrow to accommodate the entire crowd conveniently. I somehow made my way towards the overhead bridge towards the exit. But when was got out of the crowd, I realised some was holding on tight to my breasts from behind. I didn’t even wait to see what that man looked like. I just turned around and started hitting whatever part of his head was in my reach. I hit him so hard that it might have rendered him deaf. It wasn’t just the present situation that set me off, but also the memory of something similar having happened to me when I was an innocent child.

Why do woman always have to answerable about what they wear, where they go, who they hang out with, what they do and what time the return home? Why are women always in danger? Why can’t there be a strict law for crime against the dignity of women? Why is invading the privacy of women the most favourite adventure of so many sick Indian men? Why can’t women just roam around the world like all men do, without feeling threatened by the opposite sex? Why should a woman hide her face because she was manhandled by someone? Why should she be answerable to the world for a crime someone else committed? Why should her body be talked about even after it has been violated along with her mind and soul? Why can’t fellow Indians take a stand and do something to eradicate these crimes from our country? Or are they going to wait till their mothers, sister, daughters and aunts will be raped or molested? Why does the world make women feel that being a woman is the most dangerous thing to happen to a woman? Why do they forget that hadn’t it been for a woman, they would not have been born?

Aabha Padgaonkar © Copyright 2014

[thementalfoss]

While the world is going gaga about the #IceBucketChallenge, and while quite a few of my friends tried to make me see sense in the same, I am still of the opinion that you don't need to #waste a #bucket of #water if you intend to #donate for the cause... I challenge all my friends in #Instagram, #Twitter, #Tumblr as well as #Facebook to donate a minimum of $5 to the #ALSFoundation at www.alsa.org as I did few days ago, and that too without wasting a single drop of water... it's just 300 rupees... quit junk food and movies for a day, and instead donate the money for a #goodcause...

[thementalfoss]

One True Love

Whatever he said, none of it made sense to her. She decided to come straight to the point.

"Do you love me or not?" she asked him.

He remained silent for a second or two before he replied, "The amount of pain I still have in my heart over my breakup, it never really allowed me to think that way about you."

She closed her eyes while he spoke. Deep down she knew, this was going to be his reply. Still, she was hurt. She felt cheated. Moreover, she felt like a fool.

"So what on Earth did you mean when you told our friends that you would like to have a serious relationship with me?" she knew what was coming, but she asked anyway. She needed to hear him say it out loud to believe it.

"I just meant that you are the kind of girl I would like to be serious with. That didn't necessarily mean that I want to get into a relationship with you! I always saw you as a good friend."

And just like that, she was friend-zoned all over again. Ten long years of fighting with herself to believe that some day, some guy will gaze, not at the look of her face and the shape of her body, but into the depth of her eyes, and the beauty of her soul, and see how beautiful she really is. Their friendship had begun exactly on that note. And after all the bliss he gave her of making her feel beautiful about herself, that was just charity.

After all that he had 'clarified' to her, she could hardly take any more. She hung up the call wishing him all the luck in the world. After all, Love cannot be forced. It can only happen. And she truly believed that it happens over and over again, till you find the one who suffices the cause, and there is no need left for love to happen again. Perhaps that is when you truly find your one true love.

Aabha Padgaonkar © Copyright 2014

[thementalfoss]

Review - Ek Villain

"We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." - J.K. Rowling

Rating: 3/5

While I write this review, I wish to begin with saying that it has been a while that I have seen a story being portrayed with quite a bit of justice. I am a reader, and honestly, and avid one. I like reading only a certain mix of genres. And Ek Villain is the kid of a story I would like to read as much as I like to watch it. I started getting impressed with the movie right from the release of its songs. I haven't met him personally, but I have interacted with Manoj Muntashir during one of the shows I worked for, and I know him to be a man of perfection. I remember it well, he was supposed to mail me some verses for a script, and I sent him a text on behalf of my boss regarding the same. He replied back saying I will receive the verses in 19 minutes. And in exact 19 minutes, his mail was in my inbox. When I heard 'Galliyan', I didn't know who had written the lyrics, but the words only sang perfection. When I read the name of the lyricist, I was only more impressed by the work. Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari, Rabbi Ahmed, and Adnan Dhool have done an equally wonderful job on the rest of the songs, 'Awari' being yet another of my favourites.

Getting back to the story, it is a story of Guru (Siddharth Malhotra), whose beloved wife Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) is killed by a psychotic serial killer, later revealed to be Rakesh Mahadkar (Riteish Deshmukh). A supari killer as he was, working for Ceasar (Remo Fernandes), who raised him after his parents were killed by local goons, Guru meets Aisha, a girl full of life, suffering from terminal illness and on a spree to fulfil her bucket list, before she reaches the end of her life. While helping her to fulfil her wishes, they both fall in love with each other, only for Guru to go to all lengths possible to save her life, which he does, after taking her and her father to Mumbai. On the other hand, Rakesh Mahadkar is belittled at every walk of his life, by almost every woman he comes across, including his wife. But since he loves his wife more than anything in the whole world, he vents his frustration by killing the women who belittle him, while he craves to be a Hero to his wife Sulochana (Aamna Sharif). Aisha turns out to be one of those women who Rakesh Mahadkar believes have been a villain to him. A certain CBI officer misleads Guru about Aisha's killer saying Ceaser got her killed. But when Guru learns that it was someone else, and particularly Rakesh Mahadkar, he swears that he will make Rakesh's life a living hell. Only to add to his frustration, he learns that Aisha was pregnant when Rakesh killed her. What follows is a cat and mouse race between a former villain and the actual villain of the story.

Shraddha, Siddharth and Riteish have done a wonderful job with their respective characters. Riteish Deshmukh amazes you the most by portraying a very powerful negative character. He definitely deserves more than mere appreciation for moving out of his comfort zone. Remo Fernandes, on the other hand proves to be a very bad casting. Or rather I should say, his script was a bit out of place. the amount of Hindi words he attempts to use in his dialogues, I don't remember hearing any typical Goan talk like that. They either use Goan Konkani words or else English. But they will never try to use words like 'Jeevan'. I must say I was amazed to see a variety of expressions for an actor as terrible as Kamaal R Khan. A lot of people said that he needn't have been in the film at all. But a nasty character always needs a totally haraami friend who will push him further into the darkness instead of pulling him out. That's how bollywood films work. So KRK's presence in the film is fair enough and is best if treated as a guest appearance.

Mohit Suri definitely brings out the best in all the characters in the film, expect for Remo Fernandes. Even Aamna Sharif did a wonderful job with her role. The only flaw I saw in the film was that the ones who belittled Rakesh, always happened to be women. In a script as strong as this, it sounds a bit too obvious that the psychotic killer is never menaced by a man and he prefers killing women only. No matter how much logic I try to apply to the sense the movie makes, this one thing fails to fall in place for me. Apart from that, the script is very strong and has been treated with justice. The concept of villain has been portrayed wonderfully, in my opinion. It isn't a perfect film, but I will say it is definitely worth a 3 on 5.

Aabha Padgaonkar © Copyright 2014

[thementalfoss]

Is it 'Following' or 'Fitting in" ??

We are often taught that the driving forces of our lives are the manners and valued taught to us. To an extent that is true. But only to an extent where it decides what is right for us and what's wrong. Our elders sometimes forget to consider that sometimes wrong is, perhaps, the best for us. And sometimes, too much right makes things miserable for us. Pun intended, but conveniently apt, the loopholes to this are the trends we follow through the course of our life. Trends, that enhances the entertainment quotient in our lives. Trend, technically defined as any idea, material or otherwise, that is followed by a large group of the society. Firstly, that doesn't only consist of fashion or religion, but more than that, and most of the times, something that is barely just too basic to be considered as a trend. Secondly, and most importantly, there is no trend without jealousy.

What I mean to say here is that a person moves from trend to trend only in a effort to be better than some other person. Even if one person decides to remain loyal to a trend, the rest of them will take that person as a fool and move on to something that is better and cooler than the trend they have been following for long. I haven't really been a fashion person, but there are quite some trends that I have followed. To begin with, the concept of trend was introduced to me through the use of various shades of metallic and glittery nail colours. I was 13, and my cousin brothers were about to get married. Before I went to another town for that, girls in my school had already been going crazy over Elle 18 and Revlon. A certain girl even attempted to bring an imported nail paint to school.

Soon the fad grasped my attention, and all I wanted was my choice of nail colours. But then I realised that I had a very nasty habit f chewing my nails. I needed longer nails for the nail colour to look good. In a desperate attempt, me and my friends (who were also fond of chewing their nails), staring cutting nails out of paper and sticking them to our fingers with super glue. And then we would paint these paper nails the way we wanted. In my summer vacations that year I visited my grandfather in Mumbai. During one of the days of my stay, he took me to the market, and there, I happened to find fake plastic nails. And there, I had yet another fad to get my craze for the nail colour trend going. I convinced grandpa to buy me atleast 4-5 sets of those fake nails, so they would last me till the next vacation.

Who knew, by the next summer vacation, the trends had changed. No one cared about nails colours anymore when school reopened. What was hot now, were the remixes of old songs. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was making a remix of old songs. Some with legal copyrights, and some illegally. As for us, we liked memorizing the beats and the words, and singing those songs in our free periods. Some of us even learnt to copy the dance steps, the makeup, the hair do and the clothes of those who danced in the music videos of these songs. A lot of love stories started cropping up through the creatives of the music videos. It only gave us a new trend to follow - Falling in love. Everyone around me suddenly started finding the opposite sexes very interesting. Boys started openly hitting on girls and girls started giggling more and more among themselves.

I guess that was the reason why the school decided to build bigger washrooms for girls and boys, since everyone would rush to the washroom the moment a period would end, and take a good look at how they look before  the teacher of the next period arrives in the class. Friendship bands, Valentine's Day Cards and Rose Days came into being, which eventually gave rise to the sale of Autograph books and Slam book. By the time I was 14 and a half, and about to finish my 9th grade, Slam books became a trendy rage all over all the school in the city. I still remember, my 9th grade class teacher had frisked our school bags while the entire class was away from a P.E. (Physical Education). Amongst few others, she had found a slam book in my bag too. I was straight away summoned to the Principal's cabin. What I never really understood was why was having a slam book in my bag an offense. I still don't see that as a reason to be punished.

Anyways, the craze lasted for over two years, and eventually I finished school. I moved to Mumbai for college and embraced new trends in the new environment of a new city. Travelling in local trains was something new for me. But more than that, the shoulder long earrings sold in the ladies compartments. My pocket money wasn't very fancy then. I used to get merely 10 Rs. a day for allowance. I would save money from that and buy those earrings once in a while. Bell bottom jeans, t-shirt and long earrings - such a weird combination. Clearly I had absolutely no fashion sense back then. Soon enough, I learnt to match earrings with my clothes, and realized that those long ones went on nothing. In no time, even that craze was gone.

I had got a cell phone as soon as I entered college. It was the most basic cell phone back then, but a rather tagda one. These phones had a feature wherein you could create your own ringtone. I stumbled upon it while surfing through the many features of my gadget. When I found it, it only interested me coz I had something create in my pocket. I lost that phone in college though; I loved it like anything! Well, but that didn't stop me from creating my ringtones. I would pick up latest songs and make ringtones and share with friends. I used to buy a tabloid called JLT on the railways station. They had notations of new ringtones in every issue. I would follow the instructions and improvise them as per my convenience. But when phones with newer features entered the market, especially phones with colour display and digital ringtones, almost everyone forgot about this classy thing about the old phones.

Now everyone was crazy about FM radio. We would sit in the college canteen and listen to latest songs on the radio. Radio channels had evolved from the dead. And suddenly, where we only had the government radio channel, now there were Radio City, Radio Mirchi, Red FM, Radio One and what not. Everyone wanted to own a pocket radio or atleast a cell phone that has a radio in it. With that, what was more famous now was exchanging Forwarded Text Messages on cell phones. I had maintained a journal of all the fancy texts I received. That one I held on to for over 3 years. I collected over 2000 different texts. I would mark the non veg ones in red. Sending NVs to each other became a rage with time. And then I finished Junior College along with all the craze.

There was a lot more the being crazed about something during those two years of Junior College though. Me and my friends would hang out in Bandra, often visit CCD, buy clothes and footwear from Linking Road, Colaba Causway, etc. Orkut and Facebook came into being. Like everyone even I got a profile of my own. I bluffed and cheated with my own friends for fun. Orkut's gone now, and I still hold on to Facebook to keep in touch with my friends. We would talk about brands too, of which I knew nothing at all. In Senior College, there was only talking about various brands and stuff. But then, we all got so engrossed in our studies and projects that all of us forgot to keep track of what is trending currently. Nothing was a trend anymore. At times I think that the most fun I had in my life was while I was following these stupid trends. But now I know, I was only trying to fit in and be a part of the crowd. Trends were fun. But there's nothing like being yourself and unique.

Copyright 2014 © Aabha Padgaonkar

[thementalfoss]

Sanju Bana Sajinikanth

I don't really remember whose inception it was. We shot it twice. Once in 2008 and later in 2013. In 2008, just when we reached the location to shoot the very last scene of the shortfilm, one of our crew members lost the camera that had the entire footage. It was a huge loss. But in a way, I'm happy that the film was never completed. The guy I was in love with played the role of my husband in it. Had the film been released then, my entire department would have mocked me to death.

In 2013, everything about the film changed. The crew was different and so was the cast, except me. I changed a bit too. I grew double in size as compared to what I was in 2008. Intentionally or unintentionally, all of us invested a lot more than just money, time, energy and patience into this film. In the end, a group of friends that we had formed through out the shoot, broke and scattered in different directions. Conflicts brought on some bitter memories. But atleast for me, the sweet ones I have of the shoot days are just too sweet for me to keep holding on to the bitter ones.

The shortfilm didn't turn out to be as awesome as I thought it would be. But I realized I've done a hell much better job at acting than I thought I could. This one's for someone I know who had once criticized my acting while doing a project and said that I overdo my expressions. This thought was the reflection of his reality. I can definitely act better than him.

Last but not the least a big thank you to Lorges Gomes, a college friend and the director of this shortfilm, for resurrecting this project. (He had infact played the title role in the film we shot in 2008). Special thanks to Pratima Patil for being the only girl friend in the crew, to Jatin Mankame, Suraj Lala, Wilson Gonsalves and Darshan Kubal for making me feel awesome throughout the shoot, and to Navneet Choubey for being very flexible to act with. It was a truly awesome experience.

[thementalfoss]

The love story of a simple boy who would go to any lengths to conquer the heart of the girl he loved... Starring Navneet Choubey and Aabha Padgaonkar (Me)... #SanjuBanaSajinikanth sirectes by Lorges Gomes... Watch it... Share it... Mind it !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLtN2n-yHCU

[thementalfoss]

She looked at him sideways with mixed emotions. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to continue smiling or to break down. She just kept looking at him. And then he read the pain in her eyes and her prolonged silence. He pulled her close in a tight embrace. She burried her face in his chest and got lost in his odour. The love she once felt for him resurfaced. She knew it would be shortlived. Yet she wanted to make the most of the moment. She could feel tears running down her nose. He felt the wetness on his chest. He looked at her, wiped her tears and kissed her on her head. She loosened her grip but he held on to her tight. They hadn’t been this close, emotionally or physically in months.

[thementalfoss]

My most awaited collectible... designed by me and manufactured by #redmoments #hogwartscoffeemug #harrypottercollectible

[thementalfoss]

The #GulabGang of #EntertainmrntKeLiyeKuchBhiKarega #EKLKBK #Wizcraft #WomansDay

[thementalfoss]

A wonderful #WomansDay gesture from #Wizcraft in association with #VLCC & #Unilever... Feels great to read #WizAabha after being associated with the company for almost 2 years... :D