The Most talked about movie in the last few weeks "INCEPTION". I do not need to give any details, but the whole movie is based on DREAMS. You either Extract or Plant some information from or into the Mind of somebody with whom you share the dream :). Pretty easy isn't it? You can read about the movie on wikipedia if you haven't watched it otherwise my blog might not make any sense to you :-P (As if it does otherwise). After watching evening show of this movie I went to bed with the thought that how did the director or writer of the film came up with this idea? What made them to make such a fictitious movie? Did you wonder about it too? I am not sure you got your answer or not but I got my answer the other morning :-) and of course I had to share it with everyone ;-). This is how it was...
I was reading the morning newspaper over a cup of morning coffee, it had a very interesting story about a bank robbery. Now it was interesting because nowadays you do not hear very often about a bank being robbed :-P. You know with all that Hi-Tech security and everything how can any fool even dare to think about robbing a bank???? That also in broad day light ;-). Oh yes it was about 12 Noon that this bank robbery was attempted. Which is generally the lunch time here in Brussels (In India lunch is usually after 1 PM). Now it would have been more interesting if the bank would actually have been robbed but then due to the advanced security mechanism it was just an attempt. Hey do not get so dull, the Man who attempted this robbery.. did I say a man? No because usually it a gang of few people who attempt this kind of robbery right? There I got you, this is the interesting pat in the otherwise dull bank robbery. The 'ROBBER' was alone. God knows what did he plan or hey what was he thinking that he thought of attempting such a Foolish act of Robbing a bank in broad day light :-)!!! Anyways the story read, 'This weird sole robber with a Long hat that was pulled right on to his face was definitely something - He pointed a Gun at the cashier and asked him to give all the cash money he had at the counter.' Of course in the process of filling the money somebody must have signaled the police about the emergency and so the police arrived pretty soon in a couple of minute (Its not Indian police you see ;-) or a movie for that matter). Any how when the police arrived our Lincoln Hat wala Robberer did the most interesting thing. While police officers were coming on to him he dared to threaten them that if they did not let him go he would shoot the lady standing within his reach and grabbed her. Probably he still did not feel any safe or may be he had watched too many movies based on bank robbery and he knew there was no escape for him.. God know what was he thinking but he did shoot.. himself.. no way he shot that lady !!!! Why on earth did he do that? Why did he shoot his only means that would given him a chance to escape :-P. Lets not get carried away by all these questions :-). Our main question here is How did It happen???
But somehow I can not let it go, that shot in lady's head did shake me and I dropped some hot coffee on me :-(. So you know the next best thing that happened !!!! It was the Birth of the concept of Movie INCEPTION :-). You see I found it.
Please trust me I am not getting any more Mad than I already am ;). I am just becoming a better Genius I already am :-D. Well it was the next morning after my movie, that I had this First level of dream where I was reading newspaper :). Which went on to the second level where I was in a bank being robbed. No points for guessing I was the lady who took that shot and came back to the second level of reading newspaper where I spilled the hot coffee which gave me the kick that took me back to the reality :-) of my morning alarm (something similar to that music int he movie) to get up and get ready for yet another Monday morning !!!. So, now you all know how the writers of the script of Inception might have been inspired to make the movie :). Please do not thank me I am sure any one of you genius out there could have figured it out on your own !!! So that's HOW IT HAPPENED at least for me ;-)...
Hello, Namaste, As-Salaam-Alaikum, Sasriyakaal... Welcome to another Episode (Post) of Neha (The NBC) at nehagupta.blogspot.com... Ooops does it sound familiar.. NO??? Lets try again.. Hello, Namaste, As-Salaam-Alaikum, Sasriyakaal.. Welcome to another Episode of Vah Chef at VahRehVah.com :-).. [If it still does not click then please type paneer pasanda recipe in youtube I am sure you will come across a clip of Vah Chef :-P] All of you out there who are wondering what the hell has happened to Neha.. Well for most of you this is no new News that now-a-days I am quite busy with all the after marriage affairs (Me & my Kitchen) and thus I get almost negligible time to post a new post :). But, now when I am here I would not take more time discussing or revealing my cooking experiments or hazards with you.. since I already have someone whom I can (legally) torment with my recipes :-P and he alone has the right to remain silent in this case :-). so now moving on to the post... COOK & GRILL happens to be a restaurant or a cafe sort of a place nearby. I have often crossed it during my leisurely walks this summer so far. But never have I dared to enter there. WHY? A Simple reason, this is Brussels and I am a vegetarian who eats eggs. So, I would prefer not to take risk and go to a place where I know I would find only Frites (French Fries) to eat :-). Here restaurants hardly offer anything vegetarian which is appetizing. Anyways that's not the point, yesterday I decided to have a cup of coffee (cappuccino) which is generally very good in all the restaurants or cafes I have been to so far. So, I took the risk and went in there. Ohh!! no chairs to sit... I mean there were chairs but not arranged for sitting.. simply stacked in a corner :-). My first reaction was that I am at wrong time.. may be they are not open yet. Silly me!! didn't notice the sign board outside saying 'Fermer' (French for Close). So I about turned and was all set to go. Just then I heard an old man advancing who said 'Bonjour Madame'. So, I tried to show off my French ;-).. I said 'Je veux cappuccino'. But now that's a dangerous territory... even online french courses warn you that if you talk to french-men in French they love to chat or converse in French. Well !!! I am a beginner at French :-(. I forgot all my warnings when I heard the reply 'Savez-vous cuisiner? Pouvez-vous faire quelques nouveaux plats?' Holy Christ!!! I immediately apologized, "Sorry I don't know much French. Only English" . The old man blinked twice in silence I doubt he understood me :-(. But he said 'Wait' and went in. Now I was thinking is the right time to run away... I can make better coffee at home rather than wasting my precious time here ;-). I turned and reached the door when again I heard 'Madame wait I know English'. Ahh.. thanks heavens :-). But what should I do, I am in no mood for cappuccino now. This was some young guy trying to talk to me in English. He said 'I am Nicholas. How are you?' My immediate reaction was to reply 'Je suis Neha. bien merci' but I controlled and said 'I am Neha. Fine Thanks'. Then we shook hands and I thought what's happening here?? I was about to have a simple cup of coffee and here I am shaking hands with a stranger called Nicholas :-O !!! Weird huh.... Can it be more weirder??? You bet ;-).. There is goes......:
Nicholas: Please come. Me: [Where & Why should I go???] Actually, I want... (interrupted) Nicholas: I know what you want. But we need to know first that you know what you want :-) .. [ yes he was smiling] Me: Ofcourse I know what I want. Why else would I be here? [Little frustrated now..tats me OK] Nicholas: Do not be angry..[Confused!!!!]
Then I was taken to somewhere that could possibly be a Kitchen of the restaurant. BUT WHY AND WHAT WAS I DOING THERE !!! Yes I was screaming that in my head.... May be Nicholas read my Mind or I did scream aloud.. on second thought it does not matter. What matters is that He said, "Can you cook something?? Or Can you Grill??? Anything that you wish to but you have only 5 minutes :-) !!!" Yes and he did have that big smile which I drew here :-P. And NO I was not smiling but making faces at this weird situation. I said or questioned myself I think, I was here to have a cup of cappuccino??!!?? Nicholas said 'Sure I can make that and in 5 minutes..only for you.. But meanwhile here is all the raw material we have and your 5 minutes start now..'. With this I was alone in that dirty filthy kitchen looking at 'RAW Material - various sorts of meat I do not know their names :-P yuck... A lot of grated cheese, Salt, Pepper, Green Chilles, Onion, tomatoes, tri colors of capscicum, a knife, a dice board, various kinds of breads, flour, semolina, curd, milk...blah blah...' I was staring, staring and trying to make sense of what just happened in last 15 minutes. I do not know my mind never gave me such a hard time re-collecting and re-organizing my thoughts :-(. By now Nicholas was back in 2 minutes with my cappuccino. He seemed to be more frightened now and said - 'You haven't started yet. The old man wants some new recipe quick else you might not get what you want !!! This shop will be closed soon if we do not have something new to offer our customers :-('. Now was the limit, I said, 'Do I have to give you a new recipe here in order to have a cup of cappuccino. Don't you guys accept money for that? No wonder this shop will close if this is how you treat your customers.' I was more furious than ever. Nicholas was even more frightened and baffled .. at-least he seemed so :). He asked me: 'You are a customer here? All you wanted was a cup of cappuccino? All this while the old man thought you are here for a job in response to the JOB AD outside the shop!!!' Well!! Can't say that old man was confused. WHY?? Because of me ofcourse, I was trying to flaunt my French at him. Then it was me who pointed to the 'JOB AD' outside the shop while I was trying to point to the 'CLOSE' sign-board outside the shop.. :-( :-( bu hu hu hu hu.... I did not know how to react, neither did Nicholas, but we had our laughs.. at-least we were about to have it just when that old man entered in a furious mood. Nicholas & old man were having their talks - this time I did not try to decode their conversation using my knowledge of French instead I was thinking.. what sort of a situation this time God chose for me to land in ;-). It is rightly said that 'Little Knowledge is a Dangerous thing :-)' And as for me.. anything can be dangerous ;-) it does not matter how little it may be. The old man said 3 Euros to me and left [cost of cappuccino I think]. Nicholas came to me and I could make out that he had time to explain everything to that old man. Somehow he seemed sad, may be because the shop was going to be closed soon. How can I not poke my nose into other's matter. So I asked him, what is it? He said.... Nicholas: Our shop was doing Okay till the new restaurant opened in next street. Since then we are losing customers. The old man thinks if we can have some new quick delicacy on our menu and a good chef since our old chef left this job we can again come back in the business. Me: The idea does not seem to be bad. Can you cook? Nicholas: Well , I can and I have a degree in it. But the old man thinks a lady does the job better. Me: Oh! but if you are learned, you can create your recipe & prove the old man wrong. Nicholas: I tried but there is nothing new in them. The old man said he can keep those on his menu but he wants something different that nobody has tasted here. Me: I think I can give you a recipe but it would be a vegetarian one since I am a vegetarian. You can show it to your old man if he approves then fine else all I can say is 'All the Best' Nicholas had the biggest smile that I had seen in the past half an hour that I met him. Now in next 20 minutes I taught him to prepare Cheese chilli veg toast & Instant Sooji Dhokla ;-). He tasted them and loved both of them. But the judge was that old man. No surprises here. He came in following the delicious aroma & tasted the vegetarian dishes. There you go.. no point of guessing that it did turn out to be not so bad day for them :-). He liked it and they decided to go for those on their main menu. :-P.... Well... the point to be noted was that they decided to change their restaurant's name from COOK & GRILL to '5 MINUTES' since they could now cook something different and delicious in about 5 minutes... For me, they had 2 cups of cappuccino absolutely free.. To my surprise the old man decided to offer me the job of chef too :-)!!! At that moment I heard a buzzer... Hey.. how come I have heard this buzzer before... No it cant be I have never been in this shop before you FOOL :) But I have heard it. No you have not.. Ofcourse not. Do not be crazy. Yes I have heard it. But WHERE??? Oh man it my Microwave oven.. So that is what is buzzing. My Dhoklas are done and for that I had set an alarm. Why an alarm because all this while I decided to take a nap meanwhile :-). Ofcourse one needs a break when thou art busy cooking & grilling all day long :-P. Now its time for me to go and get the groceries from the market :-). As I walk along, I see this restaurant 'COOK & GRILL' on the street with a sign board outside saying 'OUVRIR/OPEN'. I think I would like to have my cup of cappuccino and I can pay for it too ;-) !!! Ciao guys after my cup of hot cappuccino :-D...
P.S: For recipes you know where to reach me ;-). I am still open for the job of Chef ;-). So any restaurant owner's out there.. do leave a comment with your contact details and I will get back to you!!! Till then Happy cooking, eating and reading !!! BTW: 'Savez-vous cuisiner? Pouvez-vous faire quelques nouveaux plats?' translates to 'Do you cook? Can you make some new dishes? " To those who did not notice the title of the blog is 'What A ChAnGe' ;-)
A number of people in this world love to take a long drive... for any of the follwing reason: 1. To Relax 2. To kill time 3. To romanticize 4. For an adventure 5. In short for a purpose :-) On thursday, 18 of June 2009 even i took a long ride... Sorry but it was not a Relaxing one.. Not to kill time (certainly not on a week day when i have lots to do at office) It was neither to romanticize, since i was with my roomie Abhilasha :-).. Surely an adventure but not a welcomed one.. And the purpose was..... ummm ..aaa....h....mmm....uuuuuhhhhh.. (I AM STILL FIGURING OUT)... Actually yes.. I had to reach office !!! STRANGE right... No its not that one fine day i had forgotten my way to my office.. :-(... It was actually a day of Palki procession in Pune and the sholapur highway.. which we have to cross in order to reach Magarpatta( tats where my office is ) from Wanowrie( tats where my home is ), was BLOCKED. As in there was police all around the highway and the makeshift gates had been put up to block the crown on wheels from crossing the road... We had been intimated by our travel department that the route would be blocked so there will be no bus service for specific areas and people will have to manage on their own in case they wish to reach office on time... Well, why not!!! We go to office daily on our two wheelers. So, this was no different day for us... Except for the fact we were not aware of which route to take.. So I called up my senior to ask him about the way... and he suggested one :-).. In the morning I and my roomie got up to reach office on time. we started at 9:20 AM in the morning and followed the route suggested by my senior. To our surprise the route was free and we managed to cover a long distance without much hassle... But.. yes but.. we were stopped by a couple of policemen from crossing the bridge of sholapur higway... So we moved ahead a little and again we were stopped :-(.. we could not find any place to park our vehicle and take an auto or cross the bridge on foot. so what.. we were stuck. Abhilasha suggested some other route and since we were happily taking a tour early morning we had all our enthusiasm on high and i took a U turn back to wanowrie.. But the route by which we came ( the shorter one ) was blocked by now and we had to take a longer route to go back [:-(] this was just the beginning... On our way back we travelled over hills via corianthan club and reached NIBM after asking about 3-4 people on our way back.. By now I had covered 20 kms and petrol in my activa was running out :O.. Luckily we reached a petrol pump n i had preferred a Full tank ;).. [ kyun nahi masti to chadhi thi subah subah ghoomne ki :-P ].. petrol khatam hone se bhi rukne wale thode he the hum ;)... Newaz now we took another route to office hoping that this route would be open. We crossed MG road, Inox, reached koregaon park.. via ABC farms to Mundwa... There to our astonishment we saw a road block... :-( The traffic was stuck god knows why... and we could not move ahead... somehow i managed to crawl ahead... and reached the bridge which we had to cross to reach our office... But the luck was not favoring us... and may be god dint want us to reach so early.. it was already 11 AM by now.. and we could not take the way we knew.. instead we had to flow along with the crowd to the only exit we could see... And the best part was that we dint know where it would lead us :(... Anyways we were sure we just have to take a right turn and we will be nearing our office... So we went straight... n we went straight and straighter and straight ahead... yes we were going absolutely straight.. ( we could go nowhere else Damn!!! there was no left or right turn :( ) Then wat was at our left or right !!!????? Well dont think i am kidding but i swear there were Fields as in proper Khet on both the side of the road that we took ( Yes!!! the straight one :) ).. I am sure they were Khet as i we could see bullock cart ploughing those fields :(... Not a single human on the road... all the cars n bikes that were ahead of us had vanished somewhere i dunt know where... I asked Abhilasha should we go back but she was determined ki neha yahi kahi aage se right lenge to hum sholapur highway ko connect kar lenge.. I said ok and started speeding on that road .. oops STRAIGHT ROAD (singing.... hum tum chalne lage... chalne lage hai sang raste... ha ha ha manjil se behtar lagne lage hai ye raste :-P).. I saw on my left a milestone saying Manjri 5 km ahead :O.. ting...ting... i was like abhilasha hum pune mein the na... ye kaha aagaye... I actually stopped on my way as soon as i saw first living being there.. I asked him "bhaiya shola pur highway k liye kaha jaye" .. He was a bit far from me and made signs as if he did not hear me properly... I repeated again loudly this time "bhaiya sholapur highway kis taraf aayega" he made some signs again... :) By now I and Abhilasha had realized wat he was saying... he was making signs which indicated that " I am deaf and dumb.. I cannot hear or answer u "... OhhhhGod... by now i felt i could cry... but Abhilasha made me strong and we decided again.. to go STRAIGHT :).. We covered 5 km to reach Manjri ( A Majri Sugarcane factory and some college came on our way..) then we saw an auto coming via kachcha road on right and he told us to tak this kachcha road in order to go to hadapsar.. We took it and started going STRAIGHT.. after about 2 kms we saw a milestone saying hadapsar 4 kms :)... Then there was a railway crossing CLOSED ofcourse :-P We waited there and once it was open we went ahead only to stop and inquire about route to magarpatta. An auto driver told something like a channel near school called sadhna.. them M college or something... we went ahead following the crowd.. took a right at an school (assuming this is Sadhna school) then came a chotu sa Pul (i mean it was the chotuest pul i have ever seen in my life - tat was the channel probably to what auto driver referred) Had there not been those ropes kind at its side i wud have actually dragged my activa over it rather than driving :), Anyways... we crossed it and there was this big dhalan such a steep drop and kachcha road near M.M college ;-).. I had to go down with both the brakes pulled hard :-P. Then there was a huge climb and then again a steep slope... we managed it together and reached a Mandir.. which actually looked familiar and i knew we are nearby.. By the way by now we had just crossed the bridge which we had reached in morning around 10 :). the time by now was 11:55 AM. Within 5 minutes we reched our office after crossing a slowly moving traffic. And by 12 Noon i had parked my activa and stopped. I cant tell you how tired i was by now... my shoulders were paining and i saw that from 9:30 AM till 12 noon - In 2 and a half hours i had travelled 50 kms :P.... to cover actual distance of 6 kms (from my home to office :)) which i usually cover in 12-17 minutes. Tats it... not much thrill or adventure :) welll.. come on by now u all know wat i am capable of :-P... Sorry for boring u guys... !!!! but i had to put it down as another adventure of mine :)... Waiting for the next......
So, friends here again.. I, the favorite BAKRA of God was made a target of an unusual, unbelievable, unexpected and unfortunate (may be) event of my life. But, the best part is (or I should say the worst part is) that this time I was not alone ;-). This time I was luckily not the only Bakra but there were 6 other people along with me :-). So, lets start with the narration :-P
This all started around 3 months back ;-). We wer about 14 people who were supposed to appear for a Certification exam called "CSM Certification" - a term applicable mainly to Amdocs. CSM- Customer Service Management and is one of the major application of Amdocs with which I have been associated for the past 2 years :-). Prior to our batch there have been two more batches who have appeared for this exam and unfortunately the pass rate happens to be not so good :-(. actually the passing percentage required to clear this exam is 80%. [Ab jaha engineering ke exam mein 35% bhi pahad ki chadhai jitna mushkil lagta tha us he kisam k logon k samne agar ap 80% ka target rakh do to 50% moral down to waise he ho jata hai ;-)] Not that complicating as it sounds :-P. Well, now the next batch was decided and the preparations were about to start :-). We were supposed to start with our so called training sessions on various topics from August '08 for about a period of 1 and half month. So the training schedule was planned and implemented. The final exam date was chosen to be 22 september '08.
Actually its not a big deal to pass or flunk in this exam, but its just that it is set as one of the goals for this financial year for me and now or later eventually it is necessary for each one to appear and get certified ;-). So, i thought why not this time :-).. Hey, the thought was innocent enough its just that i forgot ki.. mere sath kabhi kuch ek baar mein theek nahi hota... Ooops dont get any ideas yaaro.. abhi tak to exam date tak he pahuchi hoon result ko to abhi time hai :-)..
So, on 17 September 08 out training co-ordinator asked us if we were all comfortable with the exam date of 22 september.. :). Yes!!! I told nothing is right with me in first shot.. so within a day or two we were told that the exam is postpponed indefinitely. :-( bu hu hu hu.. Well, I am not sad because I had studied a lot and I was very prepared this time and again I will have to reprepare etc... its just that I was mentally prepared to give exam this time and since the date was changed I will again have to mentally prepare myself for the same ;-).
Finally the date was decided to be 16 October '08 and I actually ahd to work very hard to mentally prepare myself ;) by giving 4 mock exams prior to the final one and barely managing to pass few of them and the remaining.... [ mmm aaaaa...mmmm... understood na :-( ]. Newaz, then the day came finally and we had our lunch. Since the timings for exam were from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM. So 11 of us who acctully registered themselves for exam appeared at the examination room. The instructore gave us the instructions and we logged in to the exam...
Hmm.. so now the clock ticked by and so did the time and we were looking and answering the questions with appropriate answers :-). Then checked and rechecked and rechecked and so on.. Meanwhile, we did not submit our session just navigated to different pages of questions. Ap soch rahe hoge ki ab tak kuch trajedy to hui he nahi.. this blog does not justify the title "MiSHaP" right?? Dont worry. I will tell you now. In this exam we were given a set of documents to refer to for finding correct exam. During the process of searching i came accross an XMl file and I opened it to find my answer. But... you know what.. inorder to open that XML file using internet explorer that examination session of mine was halted and this XML file got opened in same internet explorer :-(. I called upon the invigilator to look into it and hlep me. She was also shocked at such a weird situation and tried to call someone for technical help. :-P Meanwhile I tried to restore the session by choosing BACK option and hence I was successful and was able to restore the exam session. Trust me I was able to breath only after my session was restored :-). Newaz, by this time 2 hours had gone and 4 people had already left the room after finishing their exam and 7 of us had remained behind :-).
We were killing another 2 hours as none of us was interested to go back to our desk and continue with the work ;-). But then.. the actual tragedy happened. Suddenly one of us complained that she got an error message saying :"Session Expired". Later each one of us got same error as we tried to move between different pages. Now the invigilator was really tensed she asked us we had submitted our answers. But then none of us had done that as we thought that submit is to be done finally when we are done with answering. There were some calls to the technicians and it was decided that the technicians would try to retrieve answers from our session via backend and if it would be successful then we will be evaluated and results will be shown else... tha sad part is we will have to reappear for the exam :-(.
Trust me initially we didnot submit our answers just to make sure that we are scoring atleast 80%. But now we all prayed and wished that we should not have waited so long and clicked that submit button then even we would have made it on time and got the results :-). But wo kehte hai na "Ab pachtaye hot kya jab chidiya chug gayi khet..."
But one thing that the supervisor confirmed was that this particualr scenario had never occured before. This was the most weirdest exxam she had monitored :-P. Ha Ha ha.. She did not know me much and that I was appearing for the exam else she would have expected the most weirdest and unbelievable things to have happened :-). Well among the 7 unfortunate examinees was my room-mate Abhil;asha who said...ki "Neha tumhare sath hum bhi is kaand mein fas gaye... Tumhara to koi kaam ek baar mein theek hota nahi.. and tumhare chakkar mein hum sab bhi fas gaye.. [I should say latak gaye ;-)].
Well there were people waiting for us to hear out our results but when I told them about this MiSHaP they weren't very much surprised as they know when Neha is around there has to be something abnormal and unnatural ;-)!!! Surely not much surprising to my blog readers as well ;-) Ha Ha Ha :-D
Hey, its not Ohh Ccc Dis.. its called OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder :-)!!!
This time I am not here to tell a story.. Infact these are all incidents based on facts :).
Incident 1:
Ishita is an 8 year old girl, who constantly performs low in her tests and flunks them. The reason here is not that she isn't smart at studies or has low IQ or is less intelligent, the actual reason is that she is overcautious while writing in exams. She writes, rubs and rewrites an alphabet or a word untill she feels that it is rightly written. (Mind you here, not CORRECTLY WRITTEN but RIGHTLY WRITTEN). She is definitely aware of all the correct answer but she doesnot proceed to answer next question untill she feels she has rightly written the current one. If you look at her answer sheet, you will notice that all her a's, b's and c's are exactly is same pattern as if printed there.. and why not she takes all the world's time to make them so and hence ends up without completing all the answers.
Incident 2:
Varun was 3 years old when his parents noticed that their son has a weird habit. He never steps on joining lines of different tiles on the floor of any room. He purposefully jumps over any crooked line that comes in his way while walking. He also showed his irritation if he had to step on any crooked line or joining lines of tiles while he took a walk. At a garden Varun selected a particular leaf lying in a park and used to walk on it only. He used to walk in the direction whereever he found that leaf. No matter how long he had to stretch himself to reach that leaf, in this process he ended up hurting himself even but still he did not change his habit. He also used to count his steps to any place he went. And this is not just it, he made sure that the number of steps he takes is an Even number. He simply hated Odd :). In case the number of Steps turned out to be Odd then he would take an extra long or an extra short step to make it Even number. This habit of his made him appear weird, but he couldnot help it and neither could his parents treat him inspite of various attempts from their side.
Incident 3:
Shubhra is now 24 years old. She has a habit of locking the door thrice each time she unlocked it. This made her feel safe. Though it may sound strange to you, but its true. If she unlocked the door and then locked it once she dint feel safe or did not believe that it was locked. So, she used to unlock it, lock it and do this thrice before she felt safe that the door is now locked properly. She also had a compulsive habit of washing every utensil she used. Washing every bucket every time she used it. She also used to wash every tap after washing her hands and before closing the tap. She said she did not feel her hands were clean if she washed hands and closed the tap with her hands without washing the tap before turning it off.
Incident 4:
Ramya was an intelligent girl. But she was a little superstitious :). How??? Well, she used to relate her happiness with Numbers... and not just any number. EVEN NUMBERS ;).. Yes again, early morning when she used to get up, she made sure she keeps both her feet down at the same time (2 feet, even number). While brushing she used to make sure she brushes her teeth even number of times in each direction. While combing there should be even number of brushing in each partition of head. If she heard someone sneeze, she used to wait for him/her to sneeze again. Why so? well she believed that Odd - Evil and Even - Go[o]d. There is BALANCE in each and everything and only Even stands for balance whereas Odd disbalances :). Weird isn't it?
QUESTION:
While reading these incidents, could you relate yourself to any single thing? Or something equally weird has ever happened to you? This weird thing might not exactly mean the mentioned things it can be anything as weird as "Always using same pen/pencil box for an exam because it is lucky for you". "Wearing same shirt or same color for any important occasion/meeting or interview".
ANSWER:
In case your answer to above question is "YES" or you could pen down any single such weird habit or so called superstition then I would say it is very Normal. Yes, studies have revealed that every average human being goes through a phase like this. BUT, surely for the above mentioned cases, the severity of these incidents/habits and weird behaviour is BEYOND LIMIT. As long as you can control these habits (Weird habits) and they are not harmful to you or any one else, its acceptable. In case its not controllable and is BEYOND LIMIT, then it means that you are suffering from OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Its not that scary as it sounds. But then there are cases where this is actually treated and medications are given to the patients.
Well, now you must be wondering why the hell in this whole wide world this girl decided to leave her masala stories n scripts and diverted her attention to such a topic :-P. Now, here the reason is that I just watched "As Good As It Gets" - Where Jack Nicholson is suffering from OCD and is a bigoted romantic novelist. After watching the movie I did some google serach on OCD because I could find out many weird bevioral patterns in myself. Then I also took a test on OCD - to determine if I am actually a patient or not :-D. To my relief I scored 10/15 which suggests that I am quite capable of becoming one :-).
Newaz, I would love to hear from you in case you also turn out to be suffering from OCD like me (HE HE HE :-D) or even worse, you are a psycho like me to take this test just for FUN :-).
