Tag tag go away

Pranay tagged me on this one but he never even informed me of it. However, the jobless vella that I am, I went to his blog during my daily blog scan (all right, it is more like thrice or four times a week now) and saw that my name figured in golden letters on his latest post.

Under normal circumstances, I would have just ignored the damn thing but the comment that Pranay made about the probability of my having already done such a thing, set me thinking. And given the egoist, self-important fool that I am, it made absolute sense to go for a tag that wanted me to list down 20 random things about MYself. I thought, "here is the chance to impress all the girls who read my blog, let me just mention that I actually am the Indian Superman in disguise" but then, not many girls read my blog and of those who do, not many are THAT stupid and finally, I am not really interested, right now (why not, will be another story, which, incidentally, does not figure in the following list of 20).

1. I am sentimental with the word spelt in capital, like S-E-N-T-I-M-E-N-T-A-L. I get touchy over small things and then make life hell for my self and friends.
2. My mood swings need no rhyme nor reason. They come and go of their own free will and till date, I have not been able to figure out one single, unifying, substantial cause.
3. I am really close to my family and good friends and ever since I saw death up close for the first time, some two years ago, I have realized how everything else pales away in comparison.
4. Unlike earlier, when I could not sleep without my dose of reading, I no longer need any sleep-inducers and can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.
5. I am pretty conscious about my physical appearance and tend to imagine more than others say or hint at, when it comes to the hair, fat, eyes, color, et al.
6. I feel that I am good at a lot of things but not exceptional in anything. It is even reflected in my academic, professional, and personal life so far.
7. Even though I am a right hander, I feel more in control through my left hand...use the left hand to balance and right hand for the job when I need to use one of my hands while riding a bike, cycle, etc.
8. In addition to my moodiness, I suffer from pangs of introspection where I am even open to berating myself aloud for things I did or did not do.
9. My toes are exceptionally long, compared to the other fingers, which is remarkable enough to be called an abnormality, in a doctor's words.
10. Out of all experiences with the specimens of the opposite sex that I have come to interact with, I have had uncountable crushes, four infatuations (including one for a higher secondary teacher), and one experience of what I can only call love.
11. As always, I still believe myself to be a romantic at heart but have grown into being absolutely cynical about falling in love, life-long relationships, made for each other stories and the like.
12. I crave for society, banter, and gaiety and often go over board in trying to make the most of a social occasion.
13. More often than not, I sleep with my mouth wide open, and body lying flat in the death posture, arms folded on the chest and no movement taking place at all.
14. I tend to remember names but forget faces and as such, have been into many embarassing situations where people recognize me on the streets but I am unable to place them.
15. In ranked order, my passions (I am passionate about a lot of things) would include event management, movies (read Hindi, read Amitabh), comics, friendship, women, sleeping, music, reading, and cooking.
16. I tend to walk with my left hand quite close to the central rest position and the right arm making lot of to-and-fro movements about the shoulder pivot.
17. I am absolutely unafraid of looking down from great heights but when it comes to looking up to something at a great height (like the top of a multistorey or just the star studded sky), I get the jitters and feel as if I will fall, even though I may be safely moored to the ground. I am also a bit claustrophobic.
18. I am given to gadgets a lot. My future home has plasma screens in every room, GPS giving the current location of occupants (somewhat like the Weasleys' clock in Harry Potter), clap sensitive or even better, voice recognition switching mechanisms, automated cleaning and maintenance, and artificially intelligent support and security system.
19. The single longest stretch I have gone without sleep has been for about 76 hours and I believe that I can do even more if I am sufficiently passionate (refer point 15) about something.
20. I am a very good liar and it comes very easily to me, sometimes even without any pangs of regret. Unless I want to, the other person can never figure out that I am lying to him/her.

People who want to follow up on this tag can do so with pleasure. For others, you need to be thankful that I am not in one of my spiteful moods today :D

From tags to...

The game of tagging people on their blog spaces has been on for quite some time and I must say that the ingenuity of the person who started it for the very first time needs to be appreciated. The very methodical nature by which he/she chose the topics for these chain blog posts, viz., books, movies, and music, is something in its own class. Almost no body would mind writing about his/her favorite books, movies or music and anyway, that is what most of us who write blogs do.

What beats me, however, is the reason why this person started the chain blog thing. In case of a chain email, I can understand the commercial motives in probably trying to earn some money through scrupulous (as in advertising) or unscrupulous (as in stealing confidential information through viruses, et al) means. But, how different bloggers mentioning their favorite books, movies, or music can benefit anyone is beyond my comprehension. The only thing that I can think of right now is that it may live up to the ego of the starter and I guess that is reason enough, or is it?

The weather outside my room being heavenly, I am currently very highly motivated for another round of the inviting pillow and mattress routine (just got up an hour ago). As such, I don't really want to get too much into the psyche of the original tagger. Instead, I will just do my job and since I do not basically enjoy getting my neck on the line, I won't specifically tag anyone. However, any of the people whose blog links exist on the left panel of this page are welcome to carry the chain ahead if they wish. :-)

Number of books I own:

As Karan, the person who tagged me said, are you serious? There are too many to have a count of. The last count I did was when I left high school and took back my books (and comics) from the neighborhood library I was a partner in. They returned me some 350 comic books, nearly 35-40 novels (of the likes of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc) and about 20 odd classics (which belonged to my uncle at the time). Over the years, there have been many additions to this collection and I have absolutely no idea where it stands right now.

Presently reading:

[Reading again]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[Reading for the first time]
Dilbert and the way of the weasel

In the pipeline:

[In my possession]
Atlas Shrugged
Fountainhead

[To buy/beg/borrow/steal and read]
Harry Potter and the half-blood prince
The Monk who sold his Ferrari
Five point Someone

Recently read:

The Da Vinci Code
Angels and Demons
Digital Fortress
Deception Point
(Yes, I was on a Dan Brown spree!)


Some of my favorites:

Gone with the wind
The immensely intricately etched characters of Scarlett and Rhett were the irresistible features of this epic saga that spanned across the American civil war. It appealed to me primarily because of the emotional strength of the female characters which is what I also appreciate in real life (all girls reading this post and swooning over its writer please note :-))

Yes Minister (and Yes Prime Minister)
Comedy at its subtle and satirical best! The television soap was good but the way readers of the book are exposed to the diaries and letters of the charcters in this political comedy is something that really completes the picture. There could hardly be any better way to portray the politics of a country as much in discussion as the UK but more than that, the treatment of the subject is exquisite...nothing banal about it at all...typical bureaucratic class at its best.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The play of fantasy and at the same time, some back-to-the-roots fight between good and evil appealed ever so much to the readers of this book. More than anything else, the book made an impression on me not because of what it presented but because of what it promised to present in near future. This has now become a hallmark of JKR's Harry Potter series: each book reveals some things and promises to reveal so much more the next time around.

Lord of the Rings
Yes, I am rather given to the fantasy bug and I really like the magical creatures and the stories of good versus evil where the good finally defeats the evil and all is well but that is how I am! The darkness of the villains in this epic, though not in the same league as you-know-who, was enough to justify the supernatural blessings that were showered upon the ring bearer and his troupe. I really digged the elves and the kings and dwarves and all the others!

Tale of two cities
One of the first classics that I ever read, it actually exposed me to the dark side of man and how even fantastic motives like liberty can turn man to monster and how vengeance can take ugly shapes. This book reduced the naivette with which I used to view the world and given the early period in which I read it, it was also the first book to introduce the ways of the west to me and was a sort of first entry for me into the European way of life and what an entry it was!