Confessions of a mathematical society president

My parents didn’t take us, when we were Kids to see many movies and the few that we did get to see in the theatre were always kiddy movies (like keeping your cell phones off, not taking hyper kids to the movies is a courtesy my parents very firmly believe in). So the three of us were pleasantly surprised, when my Parents returned from a shopping trip one evening from which the three of us had been excluded (Ok…… in hindsight it looks they didn’t believe in taking us kids out, Period.) with tickets to the Night show of a movie called star wars.
They tried explaining the premise to me “stars and lasers and wars…. Lots of fun!” and I remember trying to picture the movie in my head as we went to the theatre “twinkling stars in a night sky, occasionally a laser beam would emerge from one star and go hit another star which would disappear ……. Lots of fun!” (I really hadn’t seen many movies then). It was my first night show, my first grown-up movie, my first movie with action and violence and a real true Villain, who actually managed to be villainous and not comic relief. That night I fell in love with Movies for the second time (the first time was when I saw Singin’ in the Rain on TV).
And there was so much more to come, finding out that Darth Vader didn’t die in the first movie, that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, that Han Solo Didn’t die in the second movie, that Leia was Luke’s twin sister and that the prequels I waited for, for so long and so eagerly, sucked. But once a star wars fan, always a star wars fan. And Star wars geek I remain to this day, I was after all the girl who had a crush on Lando Calrissian (not Luke the guy who was supposed to be the hero, not Han who stole the show and became the actual Hero). Lando? Who you ask? Precisely I reply. To those of you who are equally clueless about Luke and Han…. I don’t know what to say.
In my grandparents house down south there are many important traditions which must be honoured or else consequences faced. Absence from the sacred early morning pooja for instance will invite the wrath of all your dead ancestors upon you, to make noise, or disturb the peace during the even more scared post-lunch siesta will earn you the wrath of all your living ancestors. On one particularly long sojourn down south my mother began to tell her three hyperactive daughters (perhaps that’s the reason we never got taken out anywhere) the story of the Lord of the Rings, a new episode every afternoon in order to keep us amused and quiet so that the rest of the household could sleep. To cut a long story short, I eventually got around to reading that even longer story, a several hundred times. I have read the companion book Silmarillion thrice and made notes and family trees to keep things in track. I can tell you both the names of Aragorn’s Sword, what Minas Morgul was originally called before the evil lord Sauron took over it, I can recite some of the poems in the Books and most of the dialogue from the movies. To amuse myself in situations of boredom, I make lists of the cast members of the LOTR Movies. I can name 30 of the top of my head! How many can you name?
This summer my sister introduced me to Anime. I fell for it hook line and sinker, I sat up all night and watched 25 episodes of an anime called “Darker than Black”. I marvelled at it, I woke my sister up at 2 in the morning to discuss the significance of the last episode, cried like a baby after one particularly touching episode and when it ended I lost no time trying to find out what was the next anime I should move onto.
And it was as I sat at 5 in the morning, my head spinning with BK Nimarishi, mediums, and the very, very cute protagonist (I totally have a thing for chinky eyes!) that it hit me, the only thing holding me back from total geekdom was the fact that I was not (also) a Trekkie.
That was then. I just saw Star Trek the movie last night. I liked it. (John Cho is the cutest! His eyes……….).
Its official! I am the female Raj Kuthrapalli. Minus the IQ and mathematical aptitude (I became president of the mathematical society on sheer geekiness). And with a longer and even more unpronounceable name. After a night of serious introspection and much contemplation I’ve come to realize that the only thing keeping me from dressing up like my favourite characters and attending movie premieres or conventions is the fact that we don’t have movie premieres and conventions in India. Anyway I’ve almost made peace with myself (writing being very therapeutic) all I want right now is a pair of prosthetic pointy ears for it to be complete.