If it's (as Jane Austen said that) true that one half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other, it's also stands that one half of the world cannot understand the pain of others. Why else would someone like Amitabh Bachchan be donating wads of Rs 100 and Rs 500 bills to fat priests in Tirupati? To earn blessings for the newly-weds? Couldn't he have just cast a look at all the poverty around him.
True, we cannot alleviate poverty all by ourselves, but then every drop counts.
Flipping through the newspapers, it's ironic to see right on the adjoining page featuring the preparations for the wedding, a man dying of malnutrition. And equally heartening to read about the simple gesture of some students from St Stephens' to take care of the treatment of a tea stall owner suffering from cancer in the urinary bladder. To the extent that though not completely healed, he is back in his stall and living life.
And as the story aptly concludes: Hope floats.
18.4.07
Come sing along with me
*Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay, um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Supercalifragilistic expialidocious...*
Hummmm...
Remember those early school days when you could sing it out loud with your classmates? Maybe because you loved watching Mary Poppins over and over again *sigh* When life was kind of uni-dimensional. Getting hold of that bottle of grandma's tamarind pickle and slipping under the bed and finishing it off. Sneaking off your brother's share of Toblerones, Aeros and Mars and eating them till you felt sick and having to finally throw half a bar of Toblerone. Why? For if you got caught with one of them, the spanking would be bad. Anyway you would have gobbled them up by then.
Reminiscing does make one feel so happy. What at the time seemed particularly heartbreaking and sad suddenly seems to make one laugh in retrospection.
Back to the present, the world has suddenly shrunk.
The office has shifted. To a place where we don't need intercoms. We're all within hollering distance or should I say whispering distance of each other. But all my friends are around me, so I am happy. The room is very peppily done up in orange and lime yellow. There's a canteen here -- yippee -- that has food cooked by guys who have broken away from the Andhra Bhavan canteen. If I sound overtly excited, it's because our earlier office had a small pantry which sold only soggy samosas and kachodis.
The list in the canteen is runs long. It serves hot and spicy fried chicken cooked Andhra-style, chicken biryani, upma, dosa, idli, yadda, yadda. So we have been taking frequent food breaks, gorging on syrupy bread halwa and daal vadas along with filter coffee.
Life is pretty yummy and rummy at the moment.
Supercalifragilistic expialidocious...*
Hummmm...
Remember those early school days when you could sing it out loud with your classmates? Maybe because you loved watching Mary Poppins over and over again *sigh* When life was kind of uni-dimensional. Getting hold of that bottle of grandma's tamarind pickle and slipping under the bed and finishing it off. Sneaking off your brother's share of Toblerones, Aeros and Mars and eating them till you felt sick and having to finally throw half a bar of Toblerone. Why? For if you got caught with one of them, the spanking would be bad. Anyway you would have gobbled them up by then.
Reminiscing does make one feel so happy. What at the time seemed particularly heartbreaking and sad suddenly seems to make one laugh in retrospection.
Back to the present, the world has suddenly shrunk.
The office has shifted. To a place where we don't need intercoms. We're all within hollering distance or should I say whispering distance of each other. But all my friends are around me, so I am happy. The room is very peppily done up in orange and lime yellow. There's a canteen here -- yippee -- that has food cooked by guys who have broken away from the Andhra Bhavan canteen. If I sound overtly excited, it's because our earlier office had a small pantry which sold only soggy samosas and kachodis.
The list in the canteen is runs long. It serves hot and spicy fried chicken cooked Andhra-style, chicken biryani, upma, dosa, idli, yadda, yadda. So we have been taking frequent food breaks, gorging on syrupy bread halwa and daal vadas along with filter coffee.
Life is pretty yummy and rummy at the moment.
10.4.07
Random ramblings for the day
Things go wrong. At times, it becomes so difficult to know where it goes wrong. Like it is at the moment with two individuals I know. Both seem to operate on a similar modus operandi. Seriously. Like calling you at their own sweet will and then expecting you to be ready to take them up from where they left.
The first one, VS, used to call only at night and land outside my door at say 2.30 am. And given how impulsive I am, I would go out for coffee and night walks with him. One day he suddenly stopped calling. After about five months, he called me one night and wanted me to go partying with him and his friends. I agreed. Like a fool.
Cause what happened that night quite took me aback. We partied. His friends were fun. In between, I happened to dance with one of his friends who is a photographer from Bombay. He was really cool. Photographer dude was the kind who sits quietly in a corner looking like a brooding duck. But he did open up gradually as I kept raving about Bombay to him. "Appearances are deceptive," he told me in between. And I realised what he meant soon -- that is when he joined me on the dance floor. He could really groove. We bonded.
VS didn't like that. And it is not as if we were seeing each other or anything of the sort. Later while driving me home, he suddenly dropped a line: "I know all about ND". He was talking about a common friend who had asked VS's friend about him on behalf of me. And that friend had obviously twisted things around a bit while telling VS about it. VS was apparently really upset. Which is why he explained, he had done the disappearing act on me. And he asked me something really stupid. "Were you trying to make me jealous by dancing with my friend? I have been two-timed twice before. So I should know". The rest of the time, I tried to find out what he was so upset about, but he wouldn't let on. So I stopped.
And I have decided to be a hundred miles away from such a complicated character. Just the kinds who can make you understand in a trice what the term 'mindfuck' is all about.
Then came another such individual. One with an inflated ego. Who apparently works frightfully hard for a living. So I told him that I too work hard, that my job has its pressures too. He has been asking me out on dates, cancelling, disappearing, asking me out again, and again disappearing. It's almost like I am a doormat.
Whatever have I done to deserve such louses!
In the meantime, some things are still running along the same track. Like my shoe jinx. Recently I was running about for my stories at the fashion week, when to my horror, one of my pump shoes gave way. And while I was walking on imaginary heels, loudmouth photographer RS had to draw attention to it. To which one of my fellow journos exclaimed: "Hey now you are a model!" (a silly one, but yes he had a reference. His line was drawn from last fashion week when one of the models had to walk without heels. The heels of one of her stillettos came off while she was walking down the ramp).
This incident prompted friend S to recall the time when I had to come back to work in Dhoni's bathroom slippers. "You could get Dhoni to sign them and you could auction them on e-bay!" S's brilliant idea would have worked because it was more than a month before. Life, however, has changed since then. Both for Dhoni and me. And let me confess that I had chucked the slippers last summer.
Then gym friend G tried to fix me up with a former model-turned-artist friend of hers. I was quite horrified because it brought this feeling of deja-vu along with it. That of S and her hubby making me meet one of his friends who is an actor. This time though my other friends accompanied us. And we all had a blast -- getting drunk and dancing our feet out.
At times, it does seem like I am waiting for something. But what is it?
The first one, VS, used to call only at night and land outside my door at say 2.30 am. And given how impulsive I am, I would go out for coffee and night walks with him. One day he suddenly stopped calling. After about five months, he called me one night and wanted me to go partying with him and his friends. I agreed. Like a fool.
Cause what happened that night quite took me aback. We partied. His friends were fun. In between, I happened to dance with one of his friends who is a photographer from Bombay. He was really cool. Photographer dude was the kind who sits quietly in a corner looking like a brooding duck. But he did open up gradually as I kept raving about Bombay to him. "Appearances are deceptive," he told me in between. And I realised what he meant soon -- that is when he joined me on the dance floor. He could really groove. We bonded.
VS didn't like that. And it is not as if we were seeing each other or anything of the sort. Later while driving me home, he suddenly dropped a line: "I know all about ND". He was talking about a common friend who had asked VS's friend about him on behalf of me. And that friend had obviously twisted things around a bit while telling VS about it. VS was apparently really upset. Which is why he explained, he had done the disappearing act on me. And he asked me something really stupid. "Were you trying to make me jealous by dancing with my friend? I have been two-timed twice before. So I should know". The rest of the time, I tried to find out what he was so upset about, but he wouldn't let on. So I stopped.
And I have decided to be a hundred miles away from such a complicated character. Just the kinds who can make you understand in a trice what the term 'mindfuck' is all about.
Then came another such individual. One with an inflated ego. Who apparently works frightfully hard for a living. So I told him that I too work hard, that my job has its pressures too. He has been asking me out on dates, cancelling, disappearing, asking me out again, and again disappearing. It's almost like I am a doormat.
Whatever have I done to deserve such louses!
In the meantime, some things are still running along the same track. Like my shoe jinx. Recently I was running about for my stories at the fashion week, when to my horror, one of my pump shoes gave way. And while I was walking on imaginary heels, loudmouth photographer RS had to draw attention to it. To which one of my fellow journos exclaimed: "Hey now you are a model!" (a silly one, but yes he had a reference. His line was drawn from last fashion week when one of the models had to walk without heels. The heels of one of her stillettos came off while she was walking down the ramp).
This incident prompted friend S to recall the time when I had to come back to work in Dhoni's bathroom slippers. "You could get Dhoni to sign them and you could auction them on e-bay!" S's brilliant idea would have worked because it was more than a month before. Life, however, has changed since then. Both for Dhoni and me. And let me confess that I had chucked the slippers last summer.
Then gym friend G tried to fix me up with a former model-turned-artist friend of hers. I was quite horrified because it brought this feeling of deja-vu along with it. That of S and her hubby making me meet one of his friends who is an actor. This time though my other friends accompanied us. And we all had a blast -- getting drunk and dancing our feet out.
At times, it does seem like I am waiting for something. But what is it?
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