7.3.06

Things as they are

1. It was two full hours of being soaked in soap water that did it. Nowmy beloved mobile is lying with its maker. Literally so. The service centre guy keeps telling me every day to call up the next day. So I have become a dedicated caller to the Samsung service centre. The chances of it coming back to life however seems pretty bleak. For the time being colleague SB has bailed me out by lending me her spare but stylish Nokia. But the few days that I had to spend in the absence of my phone made life hell. I was even paranoid about getting into our office lift, which if you are ever unfortunate to get into, is guaranteed to make you sweat. Well, whenever I happened to be alone stepping into it, with the doors closing in upon me, I would send a silent prayer up.

2. Have you ever come across a Rs 1-lakh coffeetable book? I did. Ritu Beri just launched hers. And as she announced the price of 'Firefly', her book, the entire room fell silent. And beat this: A limited 100 editions of it are being sold from the Louis Vuitton's flagship store in Paris. Yes, as la di la as it gets. Only its preview and 'informal' launch was by the hammy Akshay Kumar. Quiet an unusual 'friendship' we have there. When a journalist asked them about their friendship, Ritu hemmed and hawed and passed it on to Akshay. "Oh we just met through a common friend last year," said the actor who tried his best to be standoffish.

Ritu's faux pas at the event went somewhat like this. The shutterbugs were as usual crowding around Ritu, Akshay, when Ritu made an appeal to them to disperse and allow the event to start. She said: "I know it's your honour to be here but please wait for some time. I want to get started with the event."

3. She: "Age doesn't matter. Does it?" He: "It does, between the legs". She can't stop laughing.

This is an excerpt of the conversation between Bipasha Basu and Amar Singh. A hot Bipasha with an even hotter boyfriend calling someone like Amar Singh 'sweetie'. Indeed a sorry state of affairs.

4. This is for all those of you who think I have a real cool job. There are times when I am made to feel oh so sorry. Like when I went to interview the Bombay Rockers at Elevate recently. I was called at 10.30 pm. They made me wait till 1 am. I should have walked out, but the thought of walking out on a story kept me sticking to the turf.

When Thomas Sardorf and Navtej Singh Rehal (the two guys of Rockers) walked in with their producer Janus, 10 minutes after 1, I was seething. To the point that I bit out: "How can you guys be so unprofessional?" Mr Producer was clearly taken aback at being told so. His excuse was he had not been told about the interview. Liar. The PR guy had it from me though he tried to appease me by saying sorry a thousand times and ensuring me of getting interviews with them the next time. "I don't think I want to meet them again. Even film stars have never made me wait so long!" was my indignant outburst. But really, at the end of such along day when I snuggled into bed, I never felt more blessed.

5. A funny incident. I was at the place of a model, AW, shooting her wardrobe. She got a call on her landline. "No my parents are not home.You cannot contact them. You want a contact number? Why, will you call them up in Australia?" Suddenly I heard her shouting sternly into the phone, "Phone rakkho! Phone rakkho!" She resumed her conversation again. After hanging up, she looked at me and explained, "These bank people I tell you! This person who called up asked in a very timid voice, 'Ma'am are you asking me to hang up?'"

6. If it goes on any longer, I will probably hallucinate. I swear I will. As much Obelix craves his daily dose of boar meat, Jughead dreams of Pop Tate meals, I want my chicken. The other day, three friends of mine and I went for a Chinese dinner. While two of them hogged on their chicken manchurian, me and the other girl feasted on veg manchurian. One of the chicken hoggers said: "I don't think I was meant to die eating chicken."

Amen.

7. The other day my parents called. This is what they had to say: "Mamma if you want to stay single all your life, there's no problem. We will come and stay with you there."

10 comments:

shyam said...

Heheheh.. talk about common incidents in our lives.. I've just survived a parental visit (much better than what I thought though), where, after my final rejection of the 'get-married-and-settled-soon' idea they too wanted to move to Delhi.

Was there for the Bombay Rockers concert and I guess the normal Elevate way of doing things is to start the guest artist past 12, which I can recollect happening at least once before and good lord they ran away after 10 mins! It was generally a sad scene, even on the terrace people were lounging around to hard house/trace. Really weird.

I hope your mobile gets well soon though.

First Rain said...

Absolutely hate-hate-hate people who have no sense of time! You have a very trying job - maintaining your temper after all that - I'd have punched them or something.

I am quite fed up of being a forced veggie too so, Amen!

Here's to a revived n retrofitted cellphone!

Anonymous said...

be like me and support our poultry industry through these difficult times!
Also, if anything is going to work, your parents are trying it... your parents are cute but this has to be the worst threat yet! :-)

thalassa_mikra said...

I heard about the Ritu Beri book. Putting the book in the Louis Vuitton store is not that big of a deal as she makes it out to be. Vuitton is huge in Asia, so I can see this as their way of nodding to their Indian clientele.

The Parisian couture world is so utterly clueless about good Indian design and aesthetics, than I can imagine them feting Ritu thinking that she represents the best of Indian fashion. These are people who cannot think of Indian style beyond mismatched colours and kitschy embroidery. Being as talentless as she is, it's amazing that Ritu's cultivated such an ego.

Awww, I feel your chicken pain, I haven't cooked chicken in ages either (eating cooked chicken is fine, handling live or raw chicken is not)

Jay said...

Hope you wrote awful things about them.

Ron said...

Er, I TOTALLY sympathise with the trauma of being mobile phone-less. Its like losing a part of your hand. I felt the same way when mine fell under the elevator and had to stay there overnight till the mechanics came and retrieved it. But why was yours in soap water for 2 hours!!??

Aar shotti chicken chada khub jhamela hochche. Forget vegetarian Chinese food(which is horrible), I cant bring myself to eat vegetarian pasta or sandwiches either. So my eating out options are extremely limited these days. Dont know how long I can continue like this!!!

AB said...

Codey: Omigod you had a similar threat from your folks! My bro has come up with a solution. He has advised me to say yes to their threat. Like sell the house and move in with me...'You will see how their own scheme backfires,' he says.

Thanks. I need lots of good wishes for my poor phone.

First Rain: Retrofitted... hmmm...now cool as that sounds wonder how it would look...

Moth: Imagine my depression when they said this! My mother has warned me that moi horoscope says that I am going to have be majorly sick this year...With such an ominous thing hanging over my head do I dare...But I am sure of one thing when I go to Calcutta I will definitely try out my favourite Kentucky's.

Thalassa: You should have seen the docu she prepared on herself. You couldn't blame me for sniggering at it really.

Jay: I would have loved to. But I decided to not give them any publicity at all.

Ron: It was in the pouch of my bag which really needed washing... Come when we meet in Cal we must hog at KFC, no?

shub said...

hehe...so sweet ur folks are! :)
and...what were you trying to do...give th phone a good wash? ;o)

AB said...

Shub: The 'good wash' has completely washed out my finances:(

Anonymous said...

hahahaha......I have to say that is the best threat I have heard coming from parents.....If you don't get married we will come live with you forever and eternity....wow :-P
Speaking of which, my parents are coming to visit too. And for an indefinite amount of time. which I am actually looking forward to cuz I haven't seen them for close to a year and a half.