Why Do We Lie?

Everyone lies! Those who disagree are lying right now.

The different lies we tell:

1) Ones that make us feel better (Doesn’t matter that he never ever introduces me to any of his friends or talk about me, its true love!) (*nudges Sam san* doesn’t matter that you have to give him a month to bring himself to say, “I love you”, its true love!)

2) Ones that make others feel better ("No baby, he wasn’t a patch on you. You're the best I've ever had!" / "I'm a virgin, you're my first!")

3) Ones that cover our tracks ("Must be the virus floating around, I can’t make it to work. *cough cough*")

4) Ones that cover other people's tracks ("Yes aunty, we are in Kodai right now but X is in the loo, will ask her to call you asap!" *frantic dialing of X's number to inform her that mommy suspects something*) (X is with your BF.)

5) Ones that make us look good ("I've read ‘Ulysses’, I think no one uses the stream of consciousness technique better than Joyce.")

6) Ones that make others look good ("Fao San is a caring and loving individual!") (What the…! Sam san got stoned and threw up on the lawns of the Leela Palace Kempinski.)

7) Ones that are harmless ("I've read ‘Ulysses’.) (Substitute with ‘Atlas Shrugged’.)

8) Ones that are vicious ("Fao San is a caring and loving individual!") (Sam san’s father broke his leg dancing in a temple.)

9) Ones that get us sex ("I'm in a place in my life right now where I want to have fun and explore my sexuality!"/ "I love being with a woman, so sensuous and erotic the female body is!" Both work only for girls, btw) (Gasp! You didn’t mean it then?)

10) Ones we tell to pass the time (man landing on the moon!)

11) Ones we tell out of necessity ("size doesn’t matter!")

12) Ones we tell at work ("the report will be on your desk before COB.")

13) Ones we tell at home ("I haven’t met the right person yet." *boink boink boink*)

14) Ones we tell friends ("I know what I'm doing.") (Friends always see through this one.)

15) Ones we tell ourselves ("I do know what I'm doing and I'll be fine!") (Sam san NEVER sees through this one.)

A List of My Favourite Things about Chennai

To borrow a line from a character from Kannathil Muthamittal - the thing I love and value the most would have to be the earth I live on - my beautiful Chennai!

Fresh from Bombay I Thank Chennai for these:

1) Pondy Bazaar! the flower stalls, radio mirchi playing, guys stringing roses and jasmines into garlands! (the sweat, smells, and sounds of the plebeians)
2) December Kutcheri Season - the whole carnatic music world congregates and all you hear is music, the theory behind a raga, the origin of a song! bliss! (and all you see is 'Parking Full' along TTK Road for a fortnight!)
3) The bestest dosas in the world! (who's arguing?)
4) Funeral processions that have music, dancing and colour... almost makes you wanna be alive to see it. Although that defeats the purpose and all that!
5) My Girls and Boys. You know who you are! (Not counting a certain ex-best friend.)
6) Sathyam Cinemas. Do I even need to say more?
7) Zaras!
8) The smell of camphor (can't get the temple outta this brahmin, i tell ya!)
9) Our old temples. Only for the architecture, mind you. (And the cheap grass.)
10) Our film stars turned politicians - free entertainment in the form of news and politics
11) Our pretty beaches! (and the drone of "Kai anche, vai patthu". Translation: "Hand, five; mouth, ten.")
12) Tree-lined streets!

Change

Jon Stewart did a bit on Change being here and how different they all felt...
A few things America can change - Fao and Sam Style
1. Stop invading tiny countries with oil.
2. Use 'U' in your spelling. (and 'your' is not the same as 'you're'. Oh, just get an education!)
3. Dont refer to your sparkling wine as 'Champagne'. (This one's for you Dami!).
4. Stop obsessing about Paris Hilton and then be befuddled about the reason for her fame (or her BFFs'. or her BFs'. or her Bs'.)
5. Stop making Jen pregnant everytime Jolie gets knocked up.
6. Dont be pseudo religious; you cant quote the scripture on everything from driving on the right side of the road to being homosexual and have gun laws that are looser than Britney's morals.
7. Avoid meat. It is easier to explain than a law that requires ethical treatment of animals before they're slaughtered - a small rejoinder on behalf of poultry; the slitting of the neck kinda offsets how much leg room they had in the ante-chamber.
8. When you're having a world series, have the courtesy to call it the America series. (Since you suck at every sport played outside your country, we realize it is safer for you to create your own games and play among yourselves)
9. Stop treating Beckham like royalty just because you are starved for real kings and queens. You fled the kingdom, remember? Anyway, back where he comes from, he is just an East-end boy. Even his wife thinks so.
10. A 100-yr old building is not historical. The flower pots in our backyards have more history and years on them than your preserved heritage sites.
11. Jack the Samurai is not a real Samurai.
12. The indigenous people of your country are not Indians. Your country was founded on a mistake.
13. You gave Bush a second term in office. You have lost all moral right to gripe. In fact, you owe the world a lifetime of therapy money.
14. In your movies, stop making Asians and East Europeans mispronounce words in their language so you can understand them better. Iranians in Iran do not pronounce 'Omar Khayyam' as 'Aumaa Khaeyaam'.

Why Sleep Deprivation is Like Being Stoned

We've all had that moment of realisation...you're wasted, some thought creeps into your head, its so profound, you beg your brain to remember it so you can wow yourself and others when you're a little more sober.

The next day, you wake up, your head feels like mush, your mouth is dry and then the thought creeps back...your ears go red...you can’t believe something that stupid and insipid blew your mind last night! (the feeling that she has every single morning-after!)

Had a 17-hour shoot. Towards the end, it became an intense exercise in diplomacy and tact. A few thoughts that made a lot of sense then in no particular order:

{Guessing these must be the thoughts (plural?) in Bing's head. Bing, this is what happens when you can’t retaliate, we kick you down!}

Musings of the Sleep Depraved

If less is more, isn’t more less?

Everyone is a whore - I may have sold out for a regular pay cheque, but everyone sells out; only the price varies. (Solomon’s wisdom)

Limerick as a word sounds dirty - something about rim and lick in there!

You cannot fake joy or rapport. The easiest of emotions to access are the hardest to fake.

There are two kinds of people in the world, lions and zebras; lions are doers, zebras are striped, stupid and are unaware that they could aspire to be different.

Everyone in the technical side of the TV business is a zebra.

I am not. (Bravo.)

Lisa Kudrow made quirkiness look easy. Its not.

Our Monica sucks; she keeps looking into nothing and fixing her hair while we do lines. (Does she know about this blog? She can read, can’t she? Gasp! Maybe that’s it!)

TV actors in India have the easiest job, requiring nothing more than the ability to stay up very late and long.

Diamonds stacked one upon another from a funny angle look like stacks of tiny people's heads. (What was in her coffee?)

The sea at night looks very mythical. Like our how I imagine our Paar Kadal would look with Vishnu and Lakshmi reclining on that giant snake. (Step away from that coffee!)

What you crave for in the middle of the night takes you by surprise (and sometimes, home).

Dictionary of Terms

Gay Marriages are being rendered null and void after the passing of Proposition 8. I am currently anti marriage but I'm not sure how I'd react if one day a fascist law was passed that said I was no longer married to my spouse because he turned out to be Anglo-Indian (lets face it, you know thats the way its gonna pan out!)*

(Fao's notes in parentheses)

Cat - Animal I would have as a pet and dress up if I were the kind of person who liked animals
Kind - I am not (She is a Kind of misanthropic cat lady)
I - Single and uninterested in getting beaten down by a commitophobe asshole who is too terrified to say he loves my pasta
Asshole - Generally a person I date
Date - Something I havent had since the first month of the year
Year - This one has been clean, sober and filled with many many diets
Diets - A new way to suck all joy out of life (D for 'diet'. D for 'Dementor')
Life - A rollercoaster of auditions where I am rejected for looking too rich and odd jobs where I'm pressured to deliver but never receive payments on time
Rich - Guffaw (Guffaw)
Jobs - So, so many, all degrading, and none well paying
Well - A deep hole in the ground
Hole - The second part of a man I'd date (Ass being the first part. Gedit?)
Man - Someone who always sides with his girlfriend even though he knows her best friend is right (Pointed reference to an ex-bestfriend)
Bestfriend - Someone you can bitch with
Bitch - Me and Fao San! (Wotchu looking at?)

* - I digressed and ranted, but does it look like I can solve the anti-gay marriage problem with a blog?

Let the gays deal with their issues! I cant even have issues at this point! (No, that would require something she hasn't had since the first month of the year)

Why Electing Obama is Racist

Yup, we dont waste much time chit chatting.

I get that Obama is anti-bush and everyone really hates Bush! But, would Hilary have won (I know she didnt even get party support but, in a parallel universe, lets assume she did) if she ran against McCain?

Among the many black people who voted for Obama, maybe they were guided by hope (theres that word again!) that he would do something for them. Fair enough! I'd vote for a Tamil Politician (Actually I wouldnt but thats not the point) if I thought it'd help any of my issues get heard (if I had issues or heirs *hyuk hyuk*).

But among the millions of white people and other races who voted for Obama, how many were really influenced by his policies? Can anyone quote any of his campaign promises, other than the fact that he wasnt gonna be Bush and end the War?

Here's what I'm thinking happened, they looked at a black man and saw someone who is nice. They forgot he was a politician.

They said, oh yeah, he'll pass the bill to reduce gas prices and solve the economic crisis and also bring back the boys from Iraq!

This thinking is parallel to the stereotype that the black has a simple mind and cannot be conniving which led to slavery in the first place! He's a politician! He's gonna do whatever makes him popular and whatever doesnt rock his whitehouse seat!

Argue with that!

And dont tell me America isnt goint to cash in on electing a black man... hell, its been two days but in the arguments against the passing of proposition 8 (which bans Gay Marriage in the last frontier of liberalism, California) a few people have said in different words, "we elected a black man, how can we still be close minded about gays"?

How long before they come to us and say, "we elected a black man, give us the shirt off your backs!"