Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts

Well, who are you? I really wanna know. Tell me, who are you? ‘Cause I really wanna know… [1]

[The Interview - Part 1]

General Hello everyone, this is the realities forgotten blog…
Me The blog is called Closing Pandora’s Box you twillop.
General Haha okay, my bad. I am the guest interviewer, the General. Today I shall be asking Nas some questions to discover who he really is. So Nas, why are you called the Red Devil, as illustrated by your msn screen name?
Me Okay. Well. When I was young, pre 14 years old, I used to be a menace. A bit like Dennis the menace but the Asian version. ‘Sharaarti’ was my middle name. I would play pranks on people, my attitude was carefree, and thus people would call me ‘shaytaan’, a devil. I remember once when I was 11 I stuck a spider in my teacher’s coffee because she was picking on me. Classic moment! Red was my favourite colour and hence I became known as the red devil.
General What does ‘sharaarti’ mean for our non Urdu speakers?
Me Ummm.. mischievous I think?
General Would you describe yourself as being a menace to society still?
Me Nah, I think I’m past those days.
General Okay so how would you describe yourself now?
Me I don’t even know.
General Everyone knows dude. It’s like when you’re writing your CV. Just describe yourself in a sentence.
Me Ugh. I dislike you for asking such difficult questions!
General No problem. Difficult is my middle name.
Me You have so many middle names you could be Sri Lankan.
General For all the Sri Lankans reading this, Nas is not trying to be offensive. He is just telling the truth as always. Now back to the question…
Me Haha. Okay. I like to think I’m nice, pretty good smelling and have awesome eye lashes.
General I concur. Please describe your strengths and your flaws but not in a job interview mode, but like a raw onion.
Me Raw onion?!
General Yes raw onion. Like kalunji with emotion man.
Me My strengths include that I’m clever but my weakness is that I don’t take advantage of it. I try hard at being a good friend, a good person to all, and pride myself on that. But at the same time in doing so, I become attached to people and that is a weakness.
General Nicely said. Now, who was your first crush?
Me I was thinking about it a few days ago and realised my first crushing happened in year 4. No I didn’t physically crush anyone. Anyway, I used to have a HUGE crush on the teacher of the other year 4 class. It lasted about a week because she went and married another teacher. I even remember her name. Well after she got married, I was heartbroken which also lasted about a week because I got occupied with other things and totally forgot about her.
General Oh that is so sweet. Did you ever go back and see that teacher again?
Me Well I stayed in that school till the end of year 5 till we moved house, so I did walk into her here and there. But she fell in my eyes after she got married.
General Who or what was your first love?
Me One love, one United. Manchester United. Though I don’t believe in love at first sight, that was a case of ‘head-over-chappals-at-first-sight’. *sighs*
General Haha. Now lets get ready to business.
Me You mean down?
General Yep I meant down. What are the characteristics that turn you on in person, be they male or female. I meant that in a non-sexual way.
Me I like people that are honest. Who have only have one face and are not like a coin with two. I like people with humour, who can make jokes and take jokes. I like people with opinions and beliefs and so the strength to stand up for their beliefs and opinions. I like people that are different and random. Oh and I also like people who give me cookies.
General Haha! I hope cookies that have not been a part of a contest.
Me I’m not even gonna comment on that. You filthy, disgusting, cookie ruining boy.
General So what characteristics would you like in your ideal partner and why do you think you would make a good husband?
Me My wife. I would like her to have at least half a brain. That is to say she must have some knowledge. She must be religious. She must be a good cook but doesn’t have to be perfect. If she can make haleem and biryani that would be a 1000 point bonus. I’d love to bake with her and make cakes and cookies with her and help her with the cooking too. She has to be understanding of my love of football and it would be an infinite point bonus if she also liked it!
General This is like an advert for shaadi dot com, but in the General style.
Me As for  being a good husband, I was thinking about this in the bath this morning.
General And what would be your answer? Apart from the great love life.
Me I think being the nice person I am, don’t cough…
General *coughs*
Me As I was saying. I’d be willing to compromise. I understand that people from different backgrounds will have different upbringing and standards. Just because she’s a village girl it may mean her habits, her way of living will be different to say a city girl. So, I’d understand that and also everyone has shortcomings because none of us are perfect. But I’ll never lay a hand on her. You know you hear about husbands who after a week or so of ‘be-nice-time’ go all narky and get the danda out? I would never forgive myself if I happened to hit her. I wouldn’t make her do or force her into doing anything she didn’t want to. If she made a mistake or was doing something wrong, I’d try and teach her, and I hope she would be able to teach me too. I’d also help around the house as much as I can.
General That is spoken like a true gentleman.
Me *does that thing with the tie people do when others are praising them*
General So let’s move onto blogging itself. Why did you begin to blog?
Me Well it was Supz who forced me into blogging. After Charley passed away I started writing my thoughts about the whole thing. You may remember the title was ‘For Your Story’, which I got from the pen you all gave me for my birthday that year with those words engraved on it. Well Supz saw some of those ‘reflections’ and said that I should blog about them so that other people could read and share.
General I see. What inspired your writing style?
Me I don’t think I have a set style to be honest. Some posts are written factually, others with the odd bit of humour, others are chatty and some are just conversations.
General Why do you write so good?
Me I don’t believe myself to be a good writer and therefore cannot answer that question.
General You are too modest dude. Also why is it called Closing Pandora’s Box?
Me Not modest, just honest. When I first made the blog, the hardest thing was the name. I just didn’t know what to call it. I wanted it to be clever and not something standard like ‘through Nas’s eyes’ or ‘Nas’s narrations’. I wanted it to be different. I remember reading through my brother’s history text book and came across the story of Pandora, and the box she was given by gods and told not to open. But her curiosity got the better of her and she did. And that is how suffering came into the world. And that is also where the name of the blog originated.
General What is your most favourite quote?
Me That’s really tough, I have diaries full of favourite quotes, but the first that comes to mind is one that Charley told me many many years ago. “If you cry because the sun has left your life, your tears will stop you from seeing the stars”. I don’t know who it’s by though.
General That’s a sweet quote. What’s the most important thing in your life? Is that a hard question?
Me All your questions are hard! I think apart from faith and all that, people. Especially my family which God chose for me and the family that I chose for myself, my few really close friends.
General You didn’t even mention football. Ah I feel quite emotional now.
Me Dude! You can’t have a breakdown!
General I know, it will ruin my mascara.
Me Haha! As you have all just heard, the General wears makeup.

There’ll be more questions going up soon, The General wasn’t going to let me off so easily! Have YOU ever wanted to ask me anything? If so, this is your chance. You can ask me any question you like (yes just the one) in a comment or email and I promise to answer it honestly, if I can, in the next interview post.

And with that I say Au Revior  and wish you all a very happy weekend.

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Title: Who are you – The Who

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But I've got a plan. Why don't you be the artist; and make me out of clay? Why don't you be the writer and decide the words I say?

Each person is like a jotter, the days of their life penned on the pages within. Some pages are covered in squares, each minute detail, pre-planned and organised is written meticulously in the separate boxes. Others are scribbled onto lined paper. There is some order retained in these days too, but at times when the things don’t go as planned or too well, the flow of the words can be seen to break apart, no longer comfortably hugging the line. There are some pages that are completely blank for the days that cannot be described in coherent sentences, thus abstract words, feelings, pictures or colours do them better justice. Each day our story is recorded. There are some who are able to translate these writings into the words of man. He was never really a writer, but this is his story.

*****

His eyes were bloodshot. Each askew streak of blood represented a tribulation, rarely his, that had kept him awake at night. The redness shrieked STOP, they had seen enough already. Remnants of dark bags sagged under the burdens of what he had witnessed. The French say ‘les yeux sont le miroir de l'âme,’1 but when people looked into his eyes they saw nothing. There was no light behind them that would illuminate the secrets of his soul. It was like a black hole; you could observe things that went in, but if you stepped too close and looked too hard, you too would be sucked into the nothingness.

His skin was really quite soft and smooth, except on the hands and feet. The soles had been roughened by the treacherous paths of his journey through life and the hands hardened by moving the obstacles that were blocking his way. He tried to take good care of his skin, as well as he possibly could. Deep cleansing face wash followed by a healthy layer of a special brand of moisturiser in the morning usually did the trick.

The hair on his head took care of itself. It wasn’t too long and neither was it too short. Somewhere in between; of a length through which he could pass his fingers but not long enough to blinker his vision. Like grass, it would dance to the slightest of songs played by the wind and settle down appropriately without a fuss when the music stopped. He rarely ever used hairsprays, gels or waxes except on special occasions. But even then sometimes he just didn’t bother with the effort. It was lighter than it had once been and hidden among the dark matte black streaks of white could be seen, unwanted like weeds that had invaded.

People said he looked older than he really was, but what is age? And older compared to what? He put Aloe Vera Vaseline on his parched lips to give them some shine and practiced his smile in front of the mirror for the last time. Then he left.

Look into my eyes
Yes I know I have a really long eye lashes, and no I don’t curl them.

*****

I don’t talk much about myself. It’s just not something I enjoy doing. There are a select few people who I do talk to about everything but sometimes a flicker in their eyes makes we wonder whether some of them really couldn’t care less. Anyway, that’s not the point. Because of my few word attitude, the General has a notion in his head that when I leave the walls of university, I turn into some gangster pimp with three girlfriends; muffin, AK, and I can’t even remember the last one. So to dispel all these mind wanderings of his I have promised to give him an open, no restrictions imposed interview on Sunday. That’s in two days time. Knowing the General and some of the things that go on inside that head of his, I have a really bad feeling I’m going to regret this. But it was a promise and so it shall happen. I owe two other people interviews too but I think one of them has completely forgotten.

Today the guys celebrated Dum’s birthday which was last month on the 27th. I didn’t go. I couldn’t go. I’ve been getting ill quite a LOT recently and finally got an appointment, the only appointment, today. It made me really sad.

In other news, I have made an about.me page the idea of which I found on Gian Faye’s blog, Loading Info. Her blog is really cool and focuses on the internet and all things related. There have been many instances when I have read something on her blog about a website or a program and after having done so, made use of it. You can find the link to my about.me page it on the right hand side. I have also made a twitter because my phone has a twitter app. But I don’t really know how to use it so yeah.

That’s all for today folks. Have a lovely weekend.

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Title: Writer – Ellie Goulding
All photographs in this post are from my personal photography
1Translation in English reads ‘the eyes are windows into the soul’

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