First post of 2007 - 5 Things You Didnt Know About Me

And wouldnt you know it, it's a tag! :) This time thanks to one of my favourite babblers - er, bloggers :D - Witchy Angel. She's so right when she says that tags are a brilliant way of talking about your own self and your own likes/dislikes... but the even more fun part is getting to know more about other bloggers! It makes things that much more "real" when they talk about everyday stuff.

Now we've established all that, let me get on with the 5 Things You Didnt Know About Me:

1. The song "Kurai Ondrum illai" - written by C Rajagopalachari and sung by M S Subbulakshmi - always reduces me to tears because of the throbbing emotion in MSS' rendition. What a song, what a singer. Still on the subject of music but on a somewhat different track, I dont listen to all my old favourites (old Hindi film songs, Carnatic classics by the older generation of performers - MSS, Maharajapuram Santhanam, etc) as often as I used to when I lived in India - they end up making me feel sad and homesick, not necessarily for India itself but for the memories of people and places and life associated with those songs. Doesnt mean I never listen to them, it's just not as constantly as I used to. And never when I'm blue.

2. Nowadays I find that given a choice, I almost always settle for Indian food. Specifically, South Indian food, preferably home made - if at all possible, by my mother or any of my aunts. Not that I dont eat food from other cuisines, because I do, and I enjoy it too. But more than a few days of non-Indian food fills my (waking and sleeping) dreams with really basic things like "thayir sadham and narthangai".

3. I didnt have a proper "best friend" all through school. One girl who had similar tastes in books and movies went to another school after a year, and things were never quite the same thereafter, although I tried my best to "be normal". There was one guy I admired because he was the only one who could match me (ok, beat me - sometimes) in English and general knowledge... but I didnt get to know him properly until after he'd left for the States! Long-distance best-friendship. Talk about irony. It was in college that I finally found a friend who seemed like my twin in terms of likes and dislikes, and even then it was she who made the effort at first. I wasnt lazy, just introverted.

4. I sleep with a light on if I'm alone at home at night. I have a very vivid memory of waking up in the middle of the night (this was quite a few years ago) and getting completely disorientated because it was pitch dark. I literally couldnt see my hand even though I was staring at i. I didnt know which direction I was facing, I couldnt find the light switch, I kept bumping into unyielding walls and furniture that shouldnt have been there. It seems silly in retrospect, but I got quite panicky because everything was so different in the dark. It actually felt like a nightmare from which I couldnt wake up.

5. When I'm woken suddenly in the middle of the night, I am capable of being perfectly lucid, can answer questions and even carry on a normal conversation - none of which I remember in the morning. Strange but true.