Busy-ness...

I know that isn't a word but that's the closest I can get to describing my life over the past two weeks. First, college started. Which in itself was a huge step up from the previous utterly jobless week. And, the Bangalore Open (oops... I can almost hear my sister correcting me - "Sony Ericsson International 2007, Bangalore") came to town again. Missed it last year on account of board exams the next day, and wasn't going to do that again! Thanks to free passes, I think I attended the tourney every day (including qualifiers!) except on the Wednesday, and I enjoyed the whole thing thoroughly. [In case you haven't heard me showing off already, my sister was a ball girl at the open!] I learnt a lot of things at the tournament, actually. I saw the entire stadium get a complete facelift. I saw foodstalls being set up. I learnt that the 55 rupee tickets actually gave a much better view of the match than the 165 rupee tickets. (Of course, the 275 rupee tickets gave the awesomest views!) But the most ... I dunno, surprising? Shocking? Interesting? ... thing I learnt is that Sania Mirza is highly unpopular. Not only with the officials, linespeople and ball kids (here, unpopular is an understatement!) but with the general public as well. And it's realy no wonder. Because besides her overrated game, she's got a terrible attitude. All the ball kids at the open were called for a tennis clinic with the players. Apparently, the Uberoi sisters were extremely extremely sweet to the kids (to the extent that they actually asked to be called by their nicknames, and kept giving high-fives to the ones that played well!). Basically, all the players that were there (Santangelo, Kostanic-Tosic, Obziler, the whole enchilada) were really sweet to the kids, except Sania. [My sister reminds me to say she was really sweet whenever the cameras were rolling.] She even showed the finger to one kid during a match! Lol... Sania or not, all of us loved that week!
And then, back to college in full swing. Before I realised it, tests are just around the corner! (12th of March - almost the ides of March!!!) So before you grumble about how infrequently I update my blog, do remember all that I've been doing!

Old Soul!

I was watching American a couple of weeks back and Simon Cowell told one of the auditioning girls that she had an 'old soul', that even though she was just seventeen, she looked like someone straight out of the sixties. I really didn't pay too much attention to this comment till about a week and a half later.
We were driving down the road when I saw this huge poster advertising that someone or the other was slated to perform in Bangalore in a month or so. Again. (Bangalore just seems to have these artistes, both international and Indian, swooping down here all the time!) And, as always, I didn't have any inclination to see that performance. "Why don't any of my favourite artistes come to town???", I cried out loud. I began to name a few that I'd love to see performing - the Beatles, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Jim Reeves... By which time, it struck me that all the above mentioned had one thing in common - they were dead. (Or atleast partly dead, i.e., the Beatles.) Trust my luck!
Then Simon's words came back to me in a rush. I thought it over. I realised that I too have an old soul! Here are the symptoms:

• As already illustrated, I love old music. The older, the better. And this applies for Western as well as Indian music. Because I've been brought up on a diet of my parent's music, and have always loved these songs. They are absolutely timeless!
• I also love old movies. My uncle sent across a few classic movies for my grandad to watch. He hasn't had the time to watch any of them as yet, but I've made sure I've seen them! I was mentioning to a friend the other day that I'd just seen a Bing Crosby film that afternoon which I absolutely loved. He hadn't even heard of Bing Crosby! And the film was so ancient that you could barely see or hear what was going on in certain scenes. But I loved it all the same. There's a charm about these films that you just can't find in newer ones.
• I love the clothes they used to wear back then. I really do. I wish there were more shops around selling plaid skirts and Beach Boys shirts and poodle skirts. I still live a large part of my life in capris. (Some of my friends have already been unlucky enough to see my tie-and-dye peace hippie-ish tee!)
• And lastly, a lot of my ideas seem to be quite old fashioned. I personally don't find anything old about them but a lot of people find my ideas quite funny. I'm very often told to 'grow up' or that I 'now live in the 21st century - it's high time your ideas grew a litlle more modern'. But the fact of the matter is that that's just the way I am. Call me old fashioned and I'll say thank you!
  

Maybe someday I'll grow out of it. But I hope I don't. I've heard my parents talk so much about the 'good old days' and I used to scoff at them. But I now realise that some of the stuff that the Stone Age had to offer are far better than their counterparts today.