Is white a colour?

If you know the answer to this question please leave a comment with an explanation.

Thank you.

An earful

I guess complaining is strangely ingrained in all of us. I mean who of us has never complained or grumbled before? If you haven’t I would like to meet you.

I used to whine a lot (it must have been torture for those poor souls who had to listen to me since my voice contains the right amount of nasalness and shrillness… it makes it so much more pleasant to listen to) but stopped when people started telling me their stories of wretchedness, that was when I realized that there was a whole lot of negativity that goes around. So I put me foot down, shook my curly hair and told myself “I will curb my complaints” have to be realistic no. But I admit that I do complain when its absolutely necessary, like for instance if there’s something happening in the company and I’m against it I would voice my opinions, after all you need to rectify issues. So I’m for that kind of complaining but that too in excess could be destructive. The reason why I started on this topic is because my best friend complains a lot and I politely listen to her go and on, sometimes I calm her down, sometimes I only half listen but most of the times I want to just ask her to shut up.

Have you noticed that most men rarely complain? Sometimes this irritates me because I wonder whether they actually have any feelings, or is it because they simply can’t be bothered…meanwhile I’ll just stick to listening and smiling forcefully till my cheeks hurt, that explains the dimple that’s begun to form on my left cheek.

who do they think they are?

Every year we are invaded by a herd of interns. They hog our space, our time and sometimes our belongings like for example my chair and computer. Most of them are quite nice and I sincerely and genuinely like them. Some actually do work while others don’t let us do any, they are keener on going for long lunches, trips to the shops surrounding office or take multiple coffee breaks. But they are fun and are nice to have around. What I really don’t like about some of them is that they don’t like doing the odd job… get this photocopied, run up and down the stairs, sort this mess out, when most of them hear this instead of doing it with a forced smile they let out a loud grunt. On the contrary what they love to do is write, art direct, go for shoots and feel important. Well don’t we all? Sometimes they’re given the opportunity to work on piece, but they either find the product or client boring, or they don’t want to keep reworking till its good. So I wonder what exactly it means to be an Intern, they really must lead an awesome life. Most of them come and go whenever they please, some never turn up for work. I hate that kind of attitude and wish that for their sake they’d realise that they are interns and learn the process of being one.

It that time of year… no I’m not talking about Christmas. It’s time for the bigwigs to start evaluating the work we’ve done during the year, for next year’s award shows. Great! So its time for me to start getting my jitters. There are two main emotions that I go through during this terrible stage. One is stress and the other is insecurity.

Early this morning as I scanned my folder I started getting depressed. I don’t have a single piece of press work to submit, and the weird thing is at Chillies this year I solely won only for press work. What’s really weird and funny about the whole thing is that I’m absolutely useless at press. Strange. Checked my radio, I love radio but I haven’t got around to doing anything good to submit. There’s some hope on TV though, I have two commercials that I’ve done, which haven’t run yet. Somehow I feel awful about the final product because I tried really hard to do my best but the director was so uncooperative. Sucks!

I feel doomed, but I felt this way the last time and everything turned out fine. Damn! That still doesn’t help.

A think

Remember that in all things there’s far more to it than first meets the eye.

Yindia

The recent tip to India was an experience. We flew Sri Lankan and got really crap service, since there were 18 of us flying we wanted seats together and we made it very clear, I don’t which part of together they didn’t get, they scattered us all over the freaking plane. Once on the plane we just decided to sit together because the flight was almost empty.

The Chennai airport is terrible, the toilets are dirty and the people are rude. Outside in the baking sun it was no better. The bus that picked us up was terribly uncomfortable and we had to ride in it for 3 hours to Pondicherry. I wanted to stay awake and watch the sights and sounds around me but unfortunately the weariness overtook me and I kept dozing off a couple of times. My first take on Pondi, well it was a loud “what the hell is this”. The town looked very drab and the people didn’t look at all interesting “and where was the left overs of French colonization???”.

After a tiring journey and having to put up with the rest of the bus complaining. I was quite famished and disoriented but I still didn’t get myself all upset. We were greeted by the Course Director and promptly escorted for lunch. Our first taste of Indian cooking wasn’t bad… after we filled our bellies we were whisked away to the hotel. The hotel was really very nice with a view of the ocean and the Promenade. Soon after we put our bags in the room we were taken on a tour of Pondi against our will. First we headed to this dreadful place where boats rides were cheap. So we decided to go on one and boy was it bad. Next we went to Auroville. I loved that place, the architecture is beautiful and the handicrafts that were on sale were amazing. I left the place happy with a pair of orange crochet shoes and a paper lantern. Late in the evening some of us had to change money so we were sent with 3 guides to take us to the moneychangers. People in Pondi walk everywhere because everything is quite close by so too decided to walk and that was fun. The streets were paved with stone, like in any European country and they were lined with French styled houses. It was just beautiful it made me feel like I was walking down a Spanish street apart from the people of course. We also found a Bazaar type thing happening on the Promenade so we decided to go and have a peek. We came back to the hotel dreadfully tired, had dinner and went to bed.

The following morning we had to attend our training sessions, at times it was a bit long and boring. But my favourite that day was the SLS session. After that we had to do our book presentations, which went off well. In the evening we were taken to the Tamil section of Pondi where usually the shopping is done. The shops there were interesting and cheap. So did a little walking around and shopping.

Since our sessions finished early on Saturday we went back to the shopping district. Hung around there for a while and went back to the hotel to do our assignments. Sunday was the last day of our training programme and it was also time to present our strategy. My team did well and I was extremely happy about it. The sessions finished early so Tall one, shorty and me decided to do a bit of sightseeing. We went in the bicycle rickshaws to the Botanical Gardens and then walked around to a bookshop. Got me some books because they were so cheap. Then went back to the hotel for a nap. At 4 we were taken to that dreadful place where we were taken on the first day. From there we had to take a ferry ride to an island. The island was ok, we played volleyball and watched a ship burn in the distance. Came back to the dreadful place where they had organized a folk dance for us. I don’t think it was a folk dance at all but what really captured my heart there was that the ones who performed were street kids whom this woman had taken under her wing so that they would focus their attention on this instead of getting themselves into trouble. I thought that was a great thing to do and immediately felt bad for complaining how badly they danced. After the show they wanted all of us to join in the dance and we did, it made those kids so happy, I felt tears stinging my eyes, “really”. After all that dancing Drama Queen wanted to talk to me regarding her love life. I was quite honest and told her what I really thought of the whole scenario. I don’t know what her decision would be but at least I’m glad that I got it off my chest. We said our goodbyes to the ones we met in Pondi and went back to the hotel to pack because we were leaving early next morning.

The ride back to Chennai was terrible; we got stuck in traffic for over an hour without budging an inch. So we decided to get off and walk even though it was 16 KM to our hotel. As soon as we started walking the traffic started to move and I thought that we all going to be run over and I kept shouting and saying “I don’t want to die in India”. We escaped and got back into the safety of the bus, I’ve never been more happy to get on to that horrible metal structure. After dumping our bags at the hotel we headed out to T Nagar the shopping district, we did a bit of sari shopping and left to Spencer Shopping Mall. The Mall is huge and had quite a selection but they were quite expensive. We repeated the same thing again the next day till we bought stuff for almost everyone at home. All of us were quite happy to leave India so we made sure that we got to the airport ahead in time so there was no chance that we would miss our flight.

So on the scale of 1-10 I would rate my trip a substantial 5. Not bad for India.