Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The middle name tag

The intrepid Dotmom has handed me the middle name tag.

The three rules to be followed are:
a) The rules must be mentioned in the beginning of the tag.
(Um, why? They'd work just as well at the end, wouldn't they?)


b) You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
(Well, I don't have an official middle name, although I do have a christian name that exists in no official record but my baptism certificate. Having spent a large portion of my life denying knowledge of that name to my husband and friends, you don't think I'm about to tell you, do you? I thought not. So I'm taking the easy way out and choosing Moppet. Also, I'm in a nostalgic mood today, so I'm going to match off the letters with random details from my past)


c) At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

(Oh dear, I think I'm one of the last people doing this tag. Still, tagging:
M
adMomma,
Orchid (whenever she comes out of hibernation),
Parul,
Parul again (just kidding!),
Enigma's Sunita (I know, that's cheating, but I don't know anyone else with an E)
Tharini)


Ok, now that we're done with the rules and stuff, let's get down to business.

M - Maruti 800. Suzi, my first car and first true love, was seven years old when she was given to me on my 18th birthday. She was a very basic model with no air conditioning and no sound system, so on early morning drives, I would just wind down the windows and sing loudly as I drove, feeling the cool breeze on my face and hair. Heaven!

O - Oleander bushes. When I was a kid, my family lived for a few years in a small oasis town in north Africa. In the Sahara. All the buildings in the campus were set around squares lined by Oleander plants in pink and white. Although it was drilled into our heads that they were poisonous, I liked them. They brought colour and life to the dusty grey environment of the campus. It was a happy, carefree time in my life, and seeing Oleander plants always brings back lots of warm childhood memories.

P- Petticoat. What I wore when I went swimming with my granny and cousins in the river (it was more like a large stream, really) near our house in Kerala. Petticoats are thin cotton shifts and are usually white, so once they get wet, they're pretty much useless as body covering. But this was a village, the times more innocent, and it didn't matter to anyone, least of all the bunch of us, splashing, jumping and dunking each other in the stream.

P - Pageant. Yes, I was actually crowned Miss (my school's name) in class X. I got a cheap little crown and a sash and everything! It was at our farewell party, and I had put my name down as a joke, mainly to clown around on stage. I was shocked and hugely embarrassed when I won because I was (and am) under no illusions as far as my looks go. Today, being marginally better groomed, I'd say I'm average looking, but back then as a teenager, I was all bones and teeth and hair, certainly nothing like any beauty queen you've ever seen! Embarrassed as I was, I knew why I had won - they liked me. The judges were a mix of teachers and juniors from school, and I made them laugh with my silly answers to their questions and my refusal to take the whole thing as seriously as the other girls did. I learnt that day that there is such a thing as 'inner beauty', cliched as it may sound, and that there are still plenty of people in the world who can see it.

E - Egg puffs. I've never eaten any as good as the ones made by Real Bakery in Hyderabad. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water. I have searched high and low in every city I've lived in since, and eaten a lot of substandard egg puffs as a consequence, but have never found anything that came close to the Real one.

T - The Mask of Zorro. The first (sort of) movie date I had with a guy. It was pouring that day, and we got drenched just getting from the open car park to the cinema hall. And despite being so wet that any movement in our seats would produce embarrassing squelching sounds, we still enjoyed the movie. And I remember we had hot drinks and snacks at a little cafe nearby afterwards.

Ah, those were the days.

19 comments:

the mad momma said...

aiyyo, I am not having a middle name at all!! will either go with Mad, or the name my mom wanted. thanks!

Timepass said...

So you are an ex Miss (School)..wow..LoL on Petticoats...

Anonymous said...

Jeeezzz... I miss the Maruti 800. Trying to recreate the magic now, by buying one myself.

Still remember how impressed I was that you had your own car, and refused to overtake from the left. Hyuck! And for the record, that was the first ride with a friend driving the car, so was thrilled to bits, and to put it in this age, felt like the song 'Pathshala' in 'Rang De Basanti'. Ok.. ok.. I'z exaggerating, but that day I felt so kewl, I'd have sprouted wings and flown... :-))

Savani said...

awwww. moppet's mom. now you have made me nostalgic. wonderfully written.

Sukhaloka said...

Wow.. that was a lovely post. Tags sometimes tend to bring out the best in bloggers, don't they now? :)

Squiggles Mom said...

Aww that was so sweetly written. As usual you made me laugh with the pageant thing and end up with a sweet smile on 'inner beauty'.
I haven't bathed in a petticoat but shorts yes.
Sigh... those were the days.
I came around to see if I could tag you on this but I guess not. There's no one left to be tagged :(

Anusha said...

such a lovely way to do this tag! petticoat! had a good laugh over that - it reminded me of the village heroine in the 80s tamil movies, who'd go bathing in the river with her giggling friends.

Anonymous said...

Inner beauty!!??? Woman- you've enough and more of the good ol outer beauty as well...and loads of inner beauty too of course :)
and moppet DOES look like you, so good for her!

LOL at the petticoat- i cant believe we used to wear those things!! :)

anusha

noon said...

Lovely post. As always. And enjoyable. Petticoat - brings back memories. I did that too as a child. Actually got yelled at by an older lady who was bathing in the river for not being modest enough...as a 6th grader.

Choxbox said...

lovely - the way you did this tag!

Maggie said...

MM: Mad is too short. Do the other one, na?

Timepass: Yup, I'm a beauty queen, working for world peace and all! ;-)

Tony: Aww, I know sweetie. Fun times, fun times.

Dotmom: Thank you for the tag. It was great fun to do.

Suki: I know - some tags are like the little grain of sand in the oyster that creates a pearl.

Squiggles Mom: Shorts would've been smarter, but they just didn't occur to me at the time! :-)

Kodi's Mom: LOL! We were not quite so demure, I'm afraid!

Anu: Aww, thanks! She looks like me, you think? A little? You just made my day!

Noon: Really?! Oh dear, that old lady would've have burst a blood vessel if she'd seen me and my cousins then!

Choxbox: Thankoo!

david mcmahon said...

I grew up in India and have very fond memories of the Maruti 800!

One of my closest friends gave his aunt's Maruti a VERY rigorous test drive!

Sue said...

My mother never learnt to swim because my grandfather insisted she swim in a sari if at all... of course, these were the public baths, not the local stream!

Nice post. You don't write nearly enough about pre-Moppet days. (Yeah, yeah, I know what the blog is called.)

Fuzzylogic said...

You got your own car when you were 18?*flash of jealousy* the first car at our home was also a maruti 800 and no,my dad never allowed me to touch it until long after I completed my graduation and proved to him I would not harm his beauty.
First movie date and dripping wet?Ahem..ahem!Just kidding ignore me:)
I used to gripe about the petticots after growing up and discovering how they dared to dress me up in them!But true the mention of it brought back lot of sweet memories for me too:)
Very neatly done Moppet's mom!

By Deepa and Supriya said...

o.k girl you had to do this to me..didn't you :(...will see what I can do :)

Maggie said...

David: Hi and welcome! My uncle had a rather low opinion of the 800. He used to say that it was dangerous to park it under a tree because the bird droppings would dent the roof! :-) What sort of a vigorous test drive did your friend give his Aunt's car?

Sue: Yeah, my mom and the older girls would swim / bathe in the river wearing their lungis or cotton towels. I never managed to do that, they'd come undone too easily and that was even worse than the transparent white petticoat! :-)

I enjoyed doing this tag but overall I'm not so comfortable writing about myself - it feels vain.... Plus Moppet usually gives me better material to work with! :-)

Fuzzy: Oh, I knew I was a really lucky girl, and I made full use of it!

Orchid: Yay! I can't believe it worked! So nice to see you around. Anyway, I know you're busy, so no hurry on the tag - it'll be a nice and easy way to get started again when you do get back. Hope all is going well.

the mad momma said...

tagged. avenged.

Shobana said...

Moppet's mom,

I was reminded of the same as Kodi's mom...LOL and very beautifully written and Congrats on being crowned Miss X..urrrmm..belated wishes that is! You are making my mouth water for puffs now...

Shobana
http://mybabynaren.blogspot.com/

Parul said...

Good stuff I say! Swimming in petticoats is better than not being able to swim at all, the latter being The Regret of my life.

Tagged twice I am, will work on this soon. Trying to oust the Delhi trip out of my system currently!

You oughtta do more posts like this one.