Secrets are supposed to remain, er, under wraps, you know? Hide in closets, or in dark attics, or wherever they like to hide. The really successful secrets will probably hide in plain sight, but the point is, we never find out what they are.
Not any longer. BlueMist has tagged me to reveal ten secrets about myself. I am wondering how one goes about revealing secrets. I mean, how do I know what they are?
There are many things you don’t know about me, but I don’t know them myself, so we are all good there. Then there is the stuff that everyone seems to know about me except myself. Like, I realized the other day that I am actually quite dim at times. You know, IQ of a chimpanzee and all that.? I mentioned this to R, but it turns out he has known this for a long time. Looks like it was a secret only to me 
Okay, so you are now going to sit me down and explain stuff like the Johari window and say that all you are interested in is the stuff that I know, but you don’t know. And I know that you don’t know, but though I write endlessly about myself in this blog, I haven’t written about it. That stuff.
So that’s what you want. I think. So here goes:
Ten secrets you didn’t know about me (and trust me, you don’t really want to know either):
1. I hate talking about myself. I am sure you don’t know this, especially since I am always talking about myself on this blog, but it’s true, I really don’t like doing it. So next time you roll your eyes at some post which is solely about myself, you should feel better at the thought that I really don’t like doing it! And imagine, if I actually liked doing it, how much worse it would be!
2. I can also be a good listener. Once, I sat in a bus in Delhi and listened to a stranger tell me her entire life story. I guess she was bored. I wasn’t.
3. In school, I would write hilarious poems that parodied the textbook poems. I once wrote a parody of Ogden Nash’s “Confessions of a born spectator” that my class loved. It was called “Confessions of a class teacher.”? Unfortunately, I have no idea where it is now ? Which is perhaps just as well.
4. I know several Indian languages. This is what happens when you keep moving around the country. You want to make sure you understand what your classmates are sniggering about, just in case it’s about you. Oh, and especially if it’s about you.
5. I live in suburbia. The roadsides have grass (though no cows), and tall trees and birds and all those things. But you have to drive miles to get a bottle of milk.
6. I would like to go trekking again in the Himalayas. The last time I did that was so long ago I have probably lost the patent rights to that memory.
7. I will read anything. All sorts of books, of course, and medical journals (I am not a doctor) or scientific research papers (I am not a scientist or a researcher). I am the one who blissfully buries herself in the bacteria-covered magazines in dentists’ offices. I even read the paper that they make paper bags out of and those paper cones in which they sell you roasted peanuts.
8. I don’t drink coffee. This makes me a minority in a country of coffee drinkers, and like all minorities, I am discriminated against. Every hotel room I go to has three different varieties of coffee, but most do not have a single tea bag. Worse, I am not even sure whom to complain.
9. I have a green thumb. No, I don’t mean I smashed it against a door hinge. I mean metaphorically, you know, growing things. I don’t mean the growing of strange organisms in the refrigerator, though I have found that I can be quite good at it too. I mean, it’s a great experience to plant a ten foot tall tree and find that not only has it survived, but it has soon grown to fifteen feet.
10. I don’t watch much television. This is why I don’t write long reviews of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”. Of course, it might also be because I am afraid to find out.
That’s such a relief – I have actually finished this thing!? I deserve a nourishing drink right now.
But before that, to tag five people…I hope know you guys are better at doing this than I am..
Dipali (now that she is back to blogging!)
Happy revealing!
Tonflourbroab
Savvy Aggarwal
Maria
Arindom Borah
erydaytrams
Just saw the tag – will do it soon. Well, I don’t drink coffee either and coming from Madras that is an anomaly I guess. (Shhh! that was supposed to be secret #1 and guess it is no longer a secret, now, hmm… Can I cheat
)
hehe, like I really know the meaning to “secret”
Will do.
Nice@greenthumb. I’d like very much to borrow it this summer
Hey, you also own a time machine. I mean,”a bottle of milk”? 1950s? Do they still sell milk in bottles?
//Also, we need more precision. How many languages do you know and which ones are they?
LOL! You sure have a way of bringing a smile to a reader’s face! But, of course, that’s no secret!
A-Kay: I can imagine the curious looks you get. I can see them thinking “What! A Madrasi who doesn’t drink filter coffee? I am sure she also reads the Times of India and eats rotis twice a day!”
rads: You want the green thumb for your garden, right? Not for your refrigerator?
km: Well, I can see you have an old-fashioned view of a bottle
Merriam-Webster defines a bottle as “1 a: a rigid or semirigid container typically of glass or plastic having a comparatively narrow neck or mouth and usually no handle“. So the gallon of milk I buy is in a bottle! (ok, the type with a handle).
The languages? I will save it for the next tag, which should, at this rate, come in any moment now
Mystic Margarita: Thanks! And welcome! First time here? Or have you been lurking long?
Hah! I am a coffee drinker, but only because I was brought up in TN, and whenever I go back home to the northeast especially Mizoram, I face the same discrimination over there because everybody drinks only tea.
By the way, even in Delhi, it was really difficult finding a roadside wallah that sells coffee, unlike in the South.
guilty of everything except 5,6 and 9. unless you call pune a suburb, in which case guilty of 5 as well. and i have a sprained wrist and thumb which is green technically speaking, so guilty of that as well. hmmmmmmmm… did u float around in kumbh mela en route to himalayas by any chance?
Lekhni
I keep on wondering what makes them to share these things.
Thank you so much. it was sweet of you to take up this tag despite of the fact that you don’t like writing abt yourself.
I can relate to 2,8,10. I also land up many times listening to family stories of people whom I may not meet again in life
kima: That’s true, at least in South India, they do have tea everywhere. Why is the world divided into coffee and tea places? Much worse than Windows and Apple, or IE and Firefox.
A Cynic in Wonderland: Wow, I see we have a lot in common! I guess that also includes the inability to stay away from blogs (ours and others) despite sprained thumbs
Take care!
BlueMist: I love listening to others’ stories, so I have no problem there. What I dread much more is the part when they decide that I should also start disclosing all about myself just because they did!
Ah, I almost envy you your languages, could never pick them up inspite of living at a certain place for more than three years.
So I stick to English and Tamil most of the time.
And you don’t like coffee? *Sniff*
I can’t go by without my ten cups a day (blame it on my mum)
I can so relate on that coffee thingy. I am the only one finishing up the tea bags in the kitchen here. And whenever I go, the coffee jar is empty!
Good Listener? Remember Karla Saaranen saying, ” Being listened to, is the second best thing in the world.”
chennairamblings: Ten cups of coffee? That seems like a lot! Although, this report in NewScientist suggests you may be drastically reducing your risk for heart disease! So don’t blame your mum, maybe you should thank her
Adithya: It’s the second best thing in the world for the talker, right? Not for the listener
I also wonder, what’s the best thing then? And what are the first and second best things for the listener?