Roommates from Hell

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                -Albert Einstein 

I am sure you have read my blog post over a year ago – The roommate from Dumb-land, about the most stupidest girl I ever met. I was new then, just a couple of months away from home, still new to the concept of how idiotic people can be. But now, believe me…….after staying away from home for over 18 months, the number of colourful characters that I have met has just hit the roof. When Dumb roomie No. 1 left, I thought there would be no one who could match the amount of absurdity she displayed. I was so wrong. Since then, I have had to deal with people who have driven me to the edge of insanity.

Well let me begin with the ‘Super Geek’. I have literally never in my life seen someone studying so much. Never remember her being without a book ever. All she used to do is sit on her bed and study. When I used to open my eyes in the morning, she would be studying. Even while sleeping, the last image I used to see before closing my eyes was her lean frame bent over a book that probably weighed more than her. She used whip out a book from the bag, the moment she entered the room.I will be genuinely surprised if she doesn’t end up a CEO of some big-shot company!

Then came the ‘Slow One’. Everything she did was a zillion times slower. for example, she used to take nearly 20 mins just to get food on her plate. How much time went in consuming it, don’t ask. I used to feel sleepy even by looking at her. I could complete a leisurely power nap in the pause between the sentences she spoke. I swear I have seen turtles who are faster than her.

She was followed by one I call ‘The Skeleton‘. If you are thinking the name represents her physical appearance, you are not entirely wrong but it was much more than that. Picture this: You are lying on your bed. It is past midnight. Only a dim zero watt bulb is shining. You are not able to sleep so you decide to watch a movie on your phablet. Suddenly you hear a sound that makes you look up…..and…you see all horror in the world. I find her sitting on her bed, staring at me with big red eyes, laughing, moving her head sideways and singing a sentence over and over again in a language I did not understand. Her back is bent, her arms and legs twisted at an awkward angle (would have even put ‘Linda Blair of The Exorcist’ fame to shame). It did not take even a second for me to run out of the room and bang on my neighbour’s door. After accumulating all the courage I could gather I returned back to my room only to witness this scary spectacle twice more in the same night. Needless to say I spent the entire night sitting on my bed, too scared to even lie down and (believe it or not) chanting the Hanuman chalisa (A Hindu devotional hymn) over and over again! Whether she was actually possessed I know not. Although I am surprised I didn’t went running down the road to the local church and demanding the priest to perform an exorcism.

Thankfully my ordeal lasted only for 2 days. I had sufficiently spooked my landlady to show this girl the door. I was now hoping for some normal person to come to stay. But instead I got ‘The Question Mark'(Miss QM)! The name says it all. She painfully reminds of Dumb Roomie No. 1 from the original post….Only she is a 1000 times worse. The day she came to stay, she began unpacking her stuff at 10 pm in the night and then proceeded to show me every single item she took out of the bag followed by the question, ‘Where shall I keep this?’ EVERY SINGLE ITEM (you all are sane enough to know what that might include). Imagine being shown about 50-60 random things in quick succession accompanied by an annoyingly shrill voice. All this because, she has never stayed away from home and does not know where stuff goes. (Has she ever heard of something called Shelf or a Cupboard? I doubt).

 

She is also apparently obsessed with hair – What shampoo do you use? What conditioner do you use? What hair oil do you use? Why are your hair so silky? What hair-cut is this? How do you make your hair grow? (WTF). Luckily I am not the only one who suffers. She asks this question to every girl in the building. She even asks me how much each of my things costs and proceeds to make a not of them in her book. Like, how much does your phone cost? How much do your iPod cost? How much does your laptop cost? 

Then, her knowledge about facts is even more bizarre. For example, she thinks Sherlock Holmes was created by Agatha Christie! (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must be laughing his ass off in the writer’s heaven). Explaining cricket to an American or a person who has spent his entire life in Antarctica, would be more easier than explaining it to her. Or for that matter, any sport.

Every morning and night, she learns multiplication tables! Yep, you read that right! It begins with 2 times 1 is 2, 2 times 2 is 4, 2 times 3 is 6. So on and so forth. And by the way, she is 24 not 8! (Girl, what the heck where you doing in the first grade??)

I could go on and on but my depleted brain cells do not allow too much stress these days. In last 18 months, I have had 10 different roommates and apart from a couple of genuinely sensible ones, the others have all been bimbos. Like literally. I will end this blog with the explanation Miss. QM gives for her short height:-

(In her own words): “You know why height is short? When I was young, I was very very fat. Even my parents used to make fun of me. So, I began dieting from age 10. I began eating less and less food. So my body did not get any nutrients and my height never increased.”

The roommate from Dumb-land

Bad to worse

I am all for stupid and dumb. I sincerely believe these people improve the quality of life and enrich the world with their presence. I, myself have been called a dumb blonde on several occasions on twitter by people who possess the sense of humour of a wet sponge and unable to gauge the difference between a sarcastic comment and an actual one.

I know people usually have a problem with their roommates on the factor of cleanliness and believe me, I was the one that believed that yes, it is indeed the worst possible difficulty to deal with….until I came across ‘dumbness’, which let me assure you drives me up against the wall at all times.

On the exterior, if I say my roommate is calm and sweet…..I would, definitely be lying because she is not. And every day I have to listen to the gyaan that can pretty much confound even the best of scientists and give scholars of the world a heart-attack. For example, Did you know that ‘Calcium is the deficiency of protein‘? Yes, this is only the beginning of what I am subjected to. And my years of scientific education suffers a massive blow.

Then she proceeds to tell me that Testicular cancer affects women! I seriously doubt her anatomy at this point and begin researching articles on google of whether any science teacher from her home-town has committed suicide in the recent past.

If that was not enough, I am told that looking your face in the mirror at night and in the morning can lead to it’s disfigurement, which has made me write ‘mask’ as the number one commodity I am supposed to buy in the list of items I have compiled for weekend shopping. I mean seriously, if people consider me cute now….I must be extra-ordinarily stunning 25 years back but ruined my face over the years as I continued looking in the mirror.

If you thought the statements she makes are tolerable, wait till you hear the questions she asks. And every time when she does indeed opens her loud mouth to ask, I silently curse God for giving me the self-restraint that makes me impossible to strangle her and shut her up. So with a brave smile on my face & my evil heart planning her downfall, I listen in mock attention as she asks my advice on matters which even 6 year olds will consider stupid.

Should I drink milk first or have breakfast first? – A question on which she ponders for a minimum of 50 minutes and asks me 5 times, after which she proceeds to call her mom, dad, uncles, aunts and grandparents as the family together tries to solve this perplexing mystery that has chided humanity for ages. At this point, I am certain – stupidity indeed does run in the family.

If the entire family finally reaches the consensus of having milk first, I get asked another question – How many tablespoons of Bournvita should I add to the milk? I tell ‘One’ and then proceed to tell her of how more than one tablespoon of Bournvita can cause mental retardation in the long run. This answer is greeted by genuine horror on her face. (I cackle with laughter inside over a small victory, which in reality is very short-lived).

She claims she follows cricket but has absolutely no idea who Shikhar Dhawan or Sir Jadeja is. She has never heard of Dilshan and Jayawardene, thinks Vettori still leads the Kiwis and when I talk about Cook, she actually believes he is some real cook that travels with the English team to cook their meals (Haven’t told her about Buttler or Broad yet).

I swear my brain-cells commit mass-suicide every day and my grey matter is depleting at an alarming rate. By the end of this year, I will only need to color my hair yellow to suit the part of a dumb blonde. Each time I enter the house, I dread the statement/question that will rob my brain cells of their innocence and take me one step closer to becoming an imbecile. I cover my ears with ear-phones to listen to songs as I cower in fear of getting attacked by this barrage of nonsense. But morons have been granted the super-power as her obnoxiously loud voice filters in asking me whether she can put glue on her laptop to make it stick to the laptop stand as she doesn’t like to remove it everyday. My eyes un-focused and quite resembling to that of a murderer continue to stare ahead pretending not to hear. My teeth grind in frustration and my hands curl up in fists waiting to deliver the sucker punch.

Pray for me fellow internet addicts, as I fight for my sanity…..every day, every hour, every minute…..until I am asked just like now even when I am writing this down – What happens to people born on February 29th? Do get they get stuck on being one-year olds until four years past? (FacePalm).

Note: This post is neither made-up nor make-believe. By the end of this year when I finally start tweeting/blogging/facebooking such equally idiotic rubbish, it will be proved. I have very little time left….until then, all I can say is – Did you know that the fruit orange was actually named after the color orange and they refused to name apples red because they come in green too and…..hmmmmm…shucks…I forgot, what she said about the watermelons……

RESOLUTIONS OR REVOLUTIONS!!!

Well, all of us, in fact, the entire world begins the new year with a LONG list of resolutions. And, the most common one, lose weight, lose weight and lose weight.

Dieting has become an instant fad, not only among youngsters but also among the older group too. I sometimes don’t understand, whether it is “DIETING” or “DIE-EATING”.

Come on, new year is a time to chill out. Eat heartily. What’s the use of placing all sorts of restrictions on your eating habits?

Some other people go one step ahead in making resolutions. They are the ones, who pledge to quit or minimize smoking / drinking. January 1st……it’s such a convenient time of the year. A year, that they spend on countless cigarette packets and hell lot of alcohol bottles. And, as soon as the year seems to be ending, “I am going to quit smoking” and “I won’t drink more than 2 pegs”……such dialogues begin. The first month of the year is followed very religiously and then slowly, the devil takes over….

Work-ridden people are starved for more holidays and more quality time with family. Their resolutions last for a long time. I mean, enough for one nice holiday. The kids are happy, the wife is happy, until……the cell-phone starts ringing. 😀

Waking up early, is a big pain in the neck for half the population in the world and so is going to bed early, a huge problem to solve. No doubt, they make sweet and simple resolutions. But few days in to it and you realize, that habits are hard to break. Breaking alarm clocks is just so simple…

Messy people wish to get organized. They spend hours in cleaning stuff and getting everything in order. And finally, when they are done, they don’t remember where they put the things. A dis-organized place seemed so accessible in getting what you wanted! Now, have to litter the room again!

Short-tempered people like me make wonderful poetic resolutions, that we’ll never lose our temper on silly matters. We’ll count up to 100 when we are enraged, so that our anger cools down. Well, even before we reach 10, we are boiling up. We control our anger till that time and suddenly it dawns upon us that letting it out will make us feel much better than now.

Sulky, pessimistic people opt for a resolution that they will stay positive in life, enjoy it to the fullest. They go on amazingly well for quite a bit of time. But, suddenly start wondering whether something is wrong with their life! And ofcourse, no life can be perfect, so why even try to make it so???

Students want to perform well  in school/college, teachers want to be more cooler, parents want to be friends to their children, children want to be big very soon, teenagers want more freedom, youngsters want new boyfriends/girlfriends, some want to fall in love, some want to get married, others want to break marriages, some more others want extra-marital affairs, most of them want money, a considerable amount of people want fame, some want beautiful face, others want a sexy body…….there are millions and millions of resolutions.

The funny part is, everyone wants to be a part of the normal tradition and make resolutions. But they seem more like revolutions to everyone. Getting out of the comfort zone and wanting something that you wish to have but will have to slog for it.

I have never known anyone actually making and keeping the resolution throughout the year. There might be such “weird” people living in this world. But, thats alright. It’s normal.

OK. Get-Set, you all get ready too. Here comes the new year. Make resolutions. Break resolutions. Whatever you do, just enjoy this life to the fullest. You live only once! Who knows, there might never be a next time….

HAPPY NEW YEAR. MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.

UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE

Understanding people is perhaps the most complex of all arts, being well aware of the fact that sometimes we are not able to understand our own selves.

Many people and most Aquarians may be well-acquainted to this acclamation as any person falling within the limits of the Aquarian sun-sign is as unpredictable as the Indian Weather Bureau, which seems to predict the weather for other countries rather than India for their every forecast seems to be unreliable as any Indian Prime minister’s mind, who has a tough time deciding whether Pakistan is a friend or foe!

Among many such unreliable issues is that of any Indian batsmen batting, which seems to go on fine (in fact, exceptionally fantastic) when batting against strong teams but ridiculously falters against weak ones. As if Tiger Woods is taking his first practice lessons with the bat (instead of the golf club), painfully crashing the hopes of millions of Indian cricket team fans who love to watch the ball being hit, ‘high and far’, instead of ‘low and near’. (Maybe, that’s why Indians have never been able to understand golf!!!)

So, don’t you think it is difficult to understand oneself and others when such unreliability is corrupting  this entire country. These days even I go on interpreting people’s words in the exact opposite way and am surprised as to how I succeed, as, people do tend to change or rationalize their thoughts so often and begin to curse exactly those ideas which once, they themselves regarded as epitomes of truth and maturity.

Ironically, I may be wrong to some extent accusing Aquarians of being unpredictable when, we Taureans nurse our obstinacy as carefully as an injured body part; faithfully stating that ‘stubbornness’  is the most essential virtue conferred by God on mankind and it’s a privilege to have it running through your veins!

But then, we can never have a Caparicornian diplomacy, or a Cancerian smoothness or not even a Piscean confusion…

Our lives have become just like everyday newspapers. As is the 365 days (sometimes 366) of the year repeat themselves over and over again. Just as a sizzling news, situations remain the same; only people involved and the time and place differ. History, does repeat itself!!!

Making way through all these current problems, ‘humor’ may be the only solution to them, now that even ‘prestigious’ people like ‘us’ try to take things as lightly as possible ultimately realizing that, it doesn’t matter whether world changes or not, but there is always going to remain an element of HOPE which will faithfully support our imagination and careless attitude.

Now that I know, surely Life isn’t a bed of roses but then, it isn’t a sea of thorns, either!!!!