morgueville,heartland living.

Overly enthusiastic people scares me. Perhaps it is my indifference, my layward way of life or the passive persona I adopt; I just cannot fathom the amount of energy they have in them. And worse - we are talking about the military here. Whatever. They are just not my cup of tea.

Life at Mowbray is alright other than the fact I get burnt from the scorching sun, getting horribly uneven tans and aching all over from the drills and standing parades. We are sorta like the performing arts group in the military, executing acrobat moves with vintage rifles and donning tight, kinky uniforms enough to make Marquis Sade blush (Alright that's kinda hyperbolic.). The routine starts with a 1.5-2.4 km run with the vintage rifle; running at the same pace (that is left-rightleft-right..you get the jeez.) as everyone else. Or else. Proceeded by warm ups before the actual training which is enough to kill the bejeezus out of anybody, that is basically insane exercises with the rifle and thousands of push-ups. The drills itself eerily resembles Para-para with rifles. 2 sessions a day, multiply by 5. 7 hours a day. Ton-load of laundry per night from a bunk. You do the maths.

All these and more.
For a 6 minutes performance at the pre-parade segment at this year's national day.

You heard right.


[read]: Jhumpa Lahiri - the namesake
I read her previous collection of short stories 'Intepreters of Maladies' which was fantastically written. Her debut novel is sorta like the deluxe version of any of her short stories. Lahiri is the American born Indian version of Amy Tan. If you enjoy a thosai as much as a siew mai (I am trying, albeit too hard, to make cross cultural comparisons. Heh.), you will enjoy Lahiri. Well, if you know what i mean.

Gawd, just get the damn book.