M.P. Sharma's Blog, page 7

Quit Complaining, Will You?

Most of those who know me will attest to my incessant love for my country of origin.

I consider myself lucky to have never been confused about my identity and heritage because it was the only consistent part of my being throughout my travels across international man-made borders (but that’s another Blog Post).

What does irk me though, is our (and I am prepared to get some, scratch that, quite a bit of flak about this) continuous requirement to constantly whinge about why everything that is untoward in India is the government’s fault.

I’m not here to discuss my political viewpoints or actively promote any particular party but what I would like to just throw into the spanner is the novel idea of a country being made up of, wait for it, its people.

What makes up India or Australia or whatever country you’re currently in is NOT a representative party but people like YOU.

So, the next time you’re about to go on a rampage about why “X” is happening in your country and why it’s “YOUR GOVERNMENT’S” fault, take a step back and think about what you’re doing to exasperate or reduce the effects, the implications or the cause/s of the issue/s.

As an Indian with a distinctly Aussie flavour (and a sprinkling of British), I often wonder about what I’m doing to effectively combat the issues my countries are facing at the moment, do you?

Let me know below! :)

Why clumsy people shouldn’t get pierced

I had ten piercings before I got an industrial one in my right ear over the weekend so naturally, you could hardly be blamed for thinking that I should know better by now, right?

Wrong.

How the hell anyone with two fresh, brand new holes in their ear would decide to go and get the phone cord intricately wrapped around their newest piercing after being as “experienced” as I am in this department is beyond me. Really.

The excruciating pain experienced is one of those rare circumstances where words will miserably fall short. The term vivisection, a humungous understatement. It was like having The Little Mermaid’s main villain, Ursula’s tentacles wrapped around my ear for an eternity, refusing to relent unless I gave her my soul.

Just take the ear, will you?

If you can’t colour in, we don’t want you!

This is what one reputable Australian literary agent told me the other day, well not those exact words but pretty close.

I got a detailed email from a Literary Agent last week saying that although he loved my idea and thought the premise was breakthrough and needed to be written he had pretty much given up hope on writing getting the respect it deserves in the 21st century, at least in Australia.

The top best seller in Australia at the moment. Wait for it. Drumroll. Colouring books for adults! Haha!

I’m sorry, I can truly not compete. I give up :D :D :D

14 reasons people should Google Indian before asking us these questions!

Let me just point out at the outset that some of these hilarious remarks are a little over the top for added effect … but not by much.

If I had a penny for every single time strangers slow down their sentences in case I don’t understand English, well let’s just say, I could quit my day job and write full time!

Apparently, the more tanned you are is in direct opposition to your ability to string coherent English sentences together :D :D :D

My granduncle was constantly asked whether we still lived in trees back home to which he would aptly reply, “of course we do, we just get up there with escalators. Climbing trees is so yesterday”. Why anyone would actually believe that was a suitable question to ask a lawyer living in Europe for ten years is beyond me, but hey … each to their own I guess.

Dear Germany … You Rock!

Thank you, Germany.

For reminding the world that your present, (or your future), does not rest on the atrocities of your past.

I wish so many things after witnessing the genuine outpouring of human sympathy in your country, like how the rest of those in the World with more would follow your outstanding example with the refugee crisis.

I wish we would understand that if there were truly meant to be borders, we shouldn’t have one, created implements like ships and planes that would allow us to explore this truly beautiful planet we (for the most part, badly) rent or two, comprehend that Mother Nature would have built up boundaries before we ever got here.

I also wish someone had told me that Love Thy Neighbour meant “I’m going to help bomb your place to smithereens, eradicate your culture and then say you can’t come to my place”.

I am truly shameful for our actions and turning a blind eye to your good while never forgetting your harrowing past.

I, for one, am voting to change the word humanity because as far as I can see, humans have to be one of the most inhumane species on the planet.

Though an idle mind is a devil’s workshop, a well tuned o...

Though an idle mind is a devil’s workshop, a well tuned one is positively magical

Know how to Bullshit …

These were one of the first words our Journalism lecturer uttered to us bright eyed, raring to go Journalism enthusiasts when we joined University.

“A good journalist can bullshit about anything”, he blasted over the microphone in the cavernous lecture hall as we sat there gawking at how someone in a “teacher’s” position could so easily swear in a mock classroom. I know, I know, boy did we have some catching up to do on reality!

Anyway, this story (although pretty pointless as well) has nothing to do with my wild and unrestrained journalism days (let me live the fantasy okay?).

I decided to put this theory to test with my gym instructor after hours of targeted researching on the net over the weekend (basically just bumming around really) on how exercising is really and truly detrimental to my health. Turns out my gym instructor, in addition to being allergic to sanity, happiness, content taste buds and a well rested skeletal structure (just to mention a few) is also highly allergic to apparent, well researched “bullshit”.

Either that, or I’m not as good a journalist as I think -_-

My vocabulary has been distilled down to four letters: D-...

My vocabulary has been distilled down to four letters: D-I-E-T.

And no, it doesn’t stand for diet, though I am a little creeped out right about now seeing as I just realised Edit and Diet are made up of the same letters!

I hope it’s not a sign from the universe but considering I have been doing little more than sitting on my ‘you know what’ and editing the crap out of my novel, I’m going to bet the contents of my pocket it is.

Which, in case you’re wondering (because why wouldn’t you?) includes a worn out (literal meaning – pristine copy) of my exercise program, a half chewed/licked Violet Crumble and a recycled chewing gum.

I have no idea why no one ever wants to gamble with me.

First draft, done and dusted!!!

SO…I finally made it.

There were a few moments that were touch and go but in the end I got there, which is the only thing that matters, right?

My first and a half draft (because I’ve been semi editing along the way. I’ve already been bitten once with The Last True Blood where editing is concerned and no, it had nothing to do with writing about vampires) of Un-Belonging has been completed, just under 80,000 words which I am happy about because all my previous novels have been so much more longer. If nothing else, I now know I can write something short and sweet. Don’t snicker :P

Now the editing phase has begun, du du duhhhhhhh (that is meant to sound horrific and horrendously, spine chillingly terrifying). If I could have only sang it to you in my “melodious” voice, I wouldn’t have to explain the emotive reaction you should be having right now.

Once this first bout of editing is done, I’ll get some beta readers on the task.

Hope you’re all well. I think I’m going to go have a strawberry milkshake as a celebratory drink on my lonesome. Oh the perils of writing, it’s so isolated, at least that’s what I tell myself when my friends mysteriously remember their last load of washing that needs to go on the line every time I venture going out with them. I like to think it’s my cranium’s splendid ability to think that sets me apart from the rest. Eh, what can I say, I’m a positive, everything is peachy type of gal.

Now, I can really hear you snickering.

Bartender-ing Indian Style!

Many Indians will often state how Punjab is the soul of humour in India.

I have no idea why.

Before I’m bombarded with hate mail though, let me just state right here and now that I’m half Punjabi so you know … I’m entitled to make fun of myself though I really do think this guy is immensely cool but then again, that may just be the Punjabi in me :D