Ooh! What a Lovely Day!

Amid

• exchanging almost 15 e-mails with Penguin Publications and tracking the whereabouts of Ant and Dec's book, an autobiography titled "Ooh! What a Lovely Pair!" (a particular someone would like to call it harassing, but I call it customer-relations)
• going to college in district buses (scrambling around and fighting for seats. Honestly I should dedicate a blog entry for that one. Very entertaining, but very tiring. Especially if you don't get a seat for the 2 hour journey)
• and cramming my head with technical information and praying it would stay there for atleast the 2 hours of an exam duration (And I write 4 a day. Woopie!)

yes, amid all this, I got a call that afternoon from the bookstore informing me the book is here waiting for me in a neat parcel. It had successfully made its journey right from South East London to Delhi to Hyderabad and now its waiting for me to take it home from the bookstore next street.

I wanted to say, like Ant did when he got his Special Recognition Award way back when he was 27 and when he least expected it & left the audience in stitches, "Is it after 9 o'clock? Shit!" (If your brain is whirring: Why did he ask if it was after 9 o'clock? Because that's when the watershed ends. And he could swear openly on live telly. Didn't you know even that, you fool? I didn't either. So I got told off on youtube when I asked)

I realized that unfortunately, the store clerk wouldn't be left in stiches, or even find it the least amusing to hear me swear. And it wasn't after 9 o'clock anyway. It was mid-afternoon with a corridor filled with four hundred people. But I swore. Slowly. After ending the call. I could've jumped from the top floor for all I cared.

For most of you.. Wait, let me rephrase that. For all of you wondering who are these brilliant people a lovely girl like me (who's very hard to please) could be an admirer of, it's these two guys: Anthony David McPartlin a.k.a ANT (left) and Declan Oliver Joseph Donnelly a.k.a DEC (right).

They're everything I always wanted to be. As a person. Nope, not an A-list celebrity doing light-entertainment on British national television. I'm more sophisticated.

No, what I should've said was more emotional and live telly is too nerve wracking. It's not my cup of tea, if you're getting my drift. I don't like being in the lime-light. Honest. Not that it hasn't got anything to do with how horrendous I am at handling it.

One thing I was bent on making very clear was that I was not an Ant & Dec fan. I was an admirer of their personality. I admired them for how down-to-earth they are and how they enjoy what they do and do what they enjoy. And they're absolutely hilarious. Lovable & cheeky were two words associated with them all the time. No matter what happened, they kept themselves going. Their awards cabinet sums them up.

Obviously, one check of the thesaurus showed fan = admirer. Oh what the heck. Who am I kidding? I've chased their autobiography from London to Hyderabad. It's the first & only single customer copy in India bought specifically for me by Penguin Publications, India. Am I proud or what? And yes. You can officially call me a fan now.

Anyway, back to business. On hearing the news, my joy knew no bounds and I was bouncing with enthusiasm and braving the sea of people to make my way to the bookstore.

On the downside, the 2-hour wait can have its our repercussions. With the bookstore just a couple of kilometers away, I suddenly had a brainwave. I think I coined that up just now. Brainwave = Brain hit with a wave of anguish and desperation. Something on lines of: "What if there's another crazy Ant and Dec fan who's spotted the book in store and bought it immediately? Obviously. the store clerk doesn't recognize me. What if he thinks I'm that person?!"

I needn't have worried. The store clerk definitely recognizes me. Plus, nobody in Hyderabad has ever heard of Ant and Dec, except when it came from me. And I mean NO ONE.

To make a story that could go painfully longer than the river Nile, or so to say, to cut the chase, I bought the book, went home and started reading it without even meaning to. I was looking at the pictures and thought what's the harm in reading the prologue and pretty soon I was on to Chapter 2.

"Well, this is the big moment I had dreamed about every single day. What am I waiting for?" And from that moment, I forgot there was something called a physical world.

In case you're wondering what the whole deal is about: thats Ant (on the left) & Dec (on the right). And the book in their hands is their autobiography, the most awaited book of the.. Well, lets just say a really long time. For me, that is.

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Finished the book a couple of hours ago and lost track of when day become night and into day again in the process.

I still can't believe I have the book in my hand. I've got all the essentials for a perfect shoot. Me, the book, a lovely dress, the right location and a perfect pose. The only thing missing is a camera. Shame. I was hoping the little lack of it wouldn't damage the significance of the occasion. It did. Just a tiny bit.

No matter though. I'm absolutely thrilled and can't believe my eyes every time I look at the book. I'm going to finish reading it again before my family realizes I've missed dinner, breakfast and lunch yet again and condemn me from further reading. Or my sister tears it apart or hides it. She used to take the mickey out of me earlier. Now that I have the book, she could be a monster.

(But she wasn't. She was a sweet little thing and left me to deal with my newest treasure. She knew it wasn't wise to cross my path at such a critical juncture. Clever.)

So, without further ado, allow me to take leave. And pardon my over-zealous and, yet again, a very lengthy post (Sorry Sagar! I'll work on it the next time). At the moment, I'm chuffed to bits! Go on. Celebrate! Atleast for me! Look, its such a lovely day. Come on, do you need a better excuse?

Have a great time.

Deepti Richa.

PS: No. I don't fancy Ant & Dec. Although I admit they are very lovable, but our relationship is very professional. Purely on a personal basis. Or a personality basis, rather. I just totally admire their persona.

A journey of the Soul: To be or not to be.. A twittering e-bird.

Needless to say, it all began with a mail from Twitter after many months of dormancy since I opened the account.

"Susan Boyle is now following your tweets on Twitter."

Waaaaaaaaaaa.........?!!! THE Susan Boyle?! I wanted to say, "What in the ruddy hell...?!" but it seemed quite inappropriate for a blog. So I settled down to "What in the Whole Wide World (to be referred to as WWW in the future) does following your tweets mean?!"

"What kind of social-networking site makes Stalking legal ?!", I seethed with anger. "And that too, from Susan Boyle?!" (It wasn't really her, I later realized to my utter horror and dismay :( Susan Boyle on my tail.. Boy! What a Dream I Dreamed).

I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

And so, I re-directed the question to my very-knowledgeable and higly reliable source, Sagar. I found him online, and decided on the spot its better now than later. How do I start, I wondered.

"I dont like this twitter much ", I began predictably.

"I love twitter!", he replied. I sat up on my chair.

"Why? What's so interesting about it?" I wanted to know.

"I am following some people who have really interesting tweets. Shashi Tharoor, Barkha Dutt, Amit Verma.. I'm following them." he answered.

"And how do u know they're the real ones?" I demanded.

"They are. Atleast these are." he responded. Oh very well, thank you. I just have to rely on the face value of these profiles and their tweets. And what's with the noun "tweets"? Birds tweet. People, unfortunately, don't. Why not call them "chirps" then?

"Check out some Bollywood stars. You can google Bollywood stars on twitter, maybe u can find some news article on them." he advised. These, I'm afraid, are the last people whose lives least interest me. So, I decided to ignore that piece of suggestion.

But it did give me an idea. There are certain people I'm certainly very interested in. Like Ant and Dec, my idols. I poked around, and found their twitter profiles. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be fascinated by twitter much either.

"There! Drop this nonsense now and get on with your life. This is just e-loafing. A complete waste of time!" the wiser me admonished my not so wise self.

But one look at my friend's tweets made me change my perception completely. Come to think of it, I always wanted to find out information and latest technology from the WWW (Whole Wide World, remember?) and tell it what I know or think, and the funny side of everything.

"Yes yes. Show-off. Only you don't know any sort of information on any kind of technology. And you certainly don't see the funny side of that-many-things. The only things you can see are in the field view of a key-hole!", the not-so-wiser me made a wise-crack.

And so began a hot debate on whether to start "twitter"ing or not between the Wise Me (WM) and the Not-so-very-Wise-Me (NWM).

WM: Maybe. But I could start now. You know, with productive friends, Twitter could be highly productive.

NWM: Ah! The words "Twitter" and "productive" don't go much together, my friend. According to Wikipedia, most of Twitter's content, making up to 40% of tweets is "pointless babble".

WM: Well, doesn't that means the rest 60%, which is also the majority, is NOT pointless babble then?

NWM: Uh. Well, yes, one could argue that. Tell me, what exactly is this twitter?

WM: Well, it's a social networking site where people tweet each other.

NWM: And why would you want to "tweet", considering that you are very-abled homo-sapien?

WM: Well, unlike you, there are many people out there who have very interesting things to say. And it would be fun getting to know what exactly people think. It's also a chance to show the WWW (Whole Wide World, in case you forgot) how interesting you are. Do you know we can talk to celebs one-on-one here, and not feel inferior about it?

NWM: Well, first of all, as interesting as I might be, why should I let the world know what I think? I like to keep my thoughts and actions to myself, thank you.

WM: Because if they are interesting the others would like to know. As similar as you like finding out interesting stuff from other people.

NWM: Agreed. But why would I want to talk to celebrities? And, how can I be sure if the tweets are from the authentic celebs?

WM: Does it matter? Celebrities or not, they share the same planet with you and they very much appreciate anything interesting or informative.

NWM: Duh!! Haven't you heard of Lindsay Lohan? Paris Hilton?!

WM: OK. What are the odds of you coming across Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton?

NWM: Uhmm.. Next to a hundred million, I think.

WM: I rest my case.

NWM: Alright, but what are YOU going to do on twitter? You're neither interesting nor informative.

WM: Well, I think the use of Twitter will change all that.

NWM: I think it'll change you into a complete nonsensical-senselessly time wasting-egotistical-irksome-prat!

WM: And.. How different is that from now?

NWM: Yeah. True. Not much. But why would you want to make that public? (Hmm.. A wise question. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice in a day)

WM: Well, If the world thinks that way, so be it. I am who I am. N I ain' changin me self for 'ny one.

NWM: Don't you think you'll waste a lot of time on it and become one of the 40% pointless babblers? Or worse, what if you get addicted? (That's 2 in a row! Time to get stupid, again)

WM: Yeah. You're right. I trust you'll keep a check on me.

NWM: Yes. As I must.

WM: So, should we start "twitter"ing then?

NWM: Only if you promise me you'll remember you're not a bird. (There! Oh.. you're sooo not wise)

WM: I promise. That was smart though, thinking of the troubles i could get into using Twitter. You're a wise chick.

NWM: Yes. I am indeed.

Wait, now that's got me confused. Which one of me is wiser?