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March 24, 2008

About giving fundas.

Local news first, our newspaper carried this article about the cultural programs organized for Dr.Kalam's visit last Sunday! 26 of us managed to get our makeup and hair done in 5 hours! My eye shadow was a mix of shocking blue and peacock green, heavily inspired by Shrek! Much excitement!

Now that the big day is over, I am looking forward to a bunch of fun weekends - visit to the new Ikea at Cincinnati, Priyadarshini's dance performance, Georgetown kite festival! All the little things that come together to create the cultural scene of our little town. I guess these would be the moments I miss most if I were to move to Seattle or India!

Ok, enough chitchat. on to fundas! By funda, I mean something that you speak (usually while advising others) and believe that it is the whole truth and that you will never behave contradictory to your maxim. This is usually delivered when you have stated a feeling or thought of your own and the other person wishes to contradict it. And my addition to the whole scene is that the funda is wrong, mostly (I have to add that disclaimer or this would become another of those fundas that will eventually be proved wrong!)

Consider this setting. I am sharing some ideas about safe cooking and cleaning - what utensils to use, what cleaning ingredients to use and so on and the other person goes, "Gee Ramya, lighten up. You only live once! You can't keep scrutinizing everything like this...live life a little!"

Ah, a plethora of fundas, in case you didn't catch it,

funda1 -> "You only live life once!"

funda2-> "You can't keep...live life a little!"

That night, I wondered if I was indeed scrutinizing life a wee bit too much and made a list of ways to lighten up - I take advice seriously and somehow each time, when people say something, I assume they are saying it because they really (really) mean it! Anyway, several months later I find the funda giver's kitchen listed in the "safe green kitchens magazine" - model kitchen of the year! And I am told, "Oh you should really consider switching to...safer, non-toxic...blah blah!" What happened to living life and scrutinizing?! Those would precisely be the fundas I am talking about! Well, there is no such magazine but you get the point?

I could give several other examples with fundas like "I would never do that because..." and eventually the funda falls flat because the person went ahead and did just that! The problem with this whole deal is the initial funda makes you go, "Whaaa...did I really say something that bizarre?!" and you actually begin to believe that some thought ought to be given to this funda since it sounds so...point-blank and authoritative!

But, I guess "giving fundas" is in a way addictive. So much fun to declare with certainty that you would do this and not that, most certainly not! It shows such conviction and decisiveness. Not so much when you go ahead and do that instead of this but then you had fun giving the funda and no one is really monitoring your fundas enough to say "Hold it! On this date, you said this...hence proved wrong. Yeah!"

Sometimes I wish I had the time to do that. Just for the fun of it!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So much like what Bach says about alternative lifestyles being reflections in a windowpane. We do not see things as they are but as who we are after all :)

Parth said...

I protest. I doubt you'll miss those moments if you moved to Seattle :-)

RS said...

guy - bach had a point ;)

parth - :))

Unknown said...

Forgot all abt ur page after I lost my contacts in my blog page. Good to see your page staying active... Georgetown Kite Festival... Yayyyyyy!.... Pattadhaari aagum munnae Pattam eppadi viduvadhunu katthukunooom. PS I missed the whole function as I was driving back from Chicago.. Can you send me the videos (Dance and English Note song)

RS said...

Hey hari, I dont have the video yet, will send the photos of the event to you!

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