Of People, Pizzas and Personalities...

Started watching "Omkara" yesterday. My Hindi is pretty limited to a few commonly-heard dialects. I struggled a bit with the dialect in "Lagaan" initially but then I got used to it. But Omkara went over my head. Plus, the audio quality was a bit bad and I could neither make head nor tails of what was being said. It was like watching a deaf and dumb movie. After "Lage Raho Munnabhai", this seemed so dark, sinister and boring. I gave up midway and went off to make "semiya upma".

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This week has been "damage vaaram". First, on Saturday, I left Cauliflower to boil on my new, shiny non-stick bowl. I completely forgot about it and went swimming. When I came back, the smoke detector was going crazy and my entire house had a charred, roasted smell. The Cauliflower looked like it'd been put in an incinerator and the non-stick bowl was beyond repair. The teflon coating was totally torn off..:(

The cover of one of my plastic containers was touching the edge of the stove and it got melted. Then, this morning, I took a shower and left the restroom door open. The smoke detector, which is closeby, detected the steam from the restroom and started screaming. Annoyed, I threw a pillow at it to ward away the smoke. Well, guess what, the smoke detector came tumbling down from the ceiling. So I stared at it a bit and then shrugged it off. Good riddance to bad stuff. At least, it won't scream at the slightest provocation!

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I was reading an article about how to be "like-able" amongst co-workers, friends, people etc....I have doubts about how a person can become "caring", "good" and "interested in other people" all of a sudden. The article also went on to prescribe a good dose of "compassion" and "helpfulness" to others.

I have always had arguments with a few friends about the basic nature of a person. My friends say that a person can change completely if the right kind of influence is there. Allow me to be a bit nonsensical here. A person is like pizza. The crust, cheese and toppings together make up the personality. Certain traits are like the toppings on a pizza. If they're bad, you can change them and the pizza is good. But the crust of the pizza is not changed easily. A person's intrinsic nature is like the crust of the pizza. You can't change it that easily. And no matter what you do with the toppings, the pizza is going to be bad if the crust is bad! Anyways, that's my opinion.

I have seen a lot of well-liked people here in Lexington and elsewhere. Certain things just come naturally to them - like being friendly and genuinely interested in other people's welfare. I don't think you can "make" yourself be a certain kind of person.