One Fine Day

These are Chic Times

2011-04-05T16:09:00.005+05:30

Okay, so the Wills India Fashion Week kicks off tomorrow afternoon with its Autumn/Winter 2011 designer collections. I am always happy to see clothes and more clothes. But fashion weeks put me off. They are so about snobs making their rounds dressed in ridiculous frippery which they want to pass off as fashion. When did fashion become thus? I had always thought about fashion as something that should make one look well turned out, not a nincompoop, for heaven's sake!

But I have been thinking about my own wardrobe and I do have a few wants this summer.

The poor wardrobe has been lying un-replenished for some time now except for a ruched jersey jacket that was an absolute steal from Bizarre. I have already worn it some three times – over a dress, a pair of slouchy harems and atop a long skirt. Yes, it is my It item this month.

Also I am eyeing these: Hats. The fedora. The top hat. The wide-brimmed straw hat or even the bowler. I want them all. It’s time to devote accessory space to the dedicated milliner! And ribbons, flowers, feathers, gauze – the trims -- are more than welcome to cap it all.

A black lace dress. I have been craving for one more since last year. Get it tailored or search the fashion stores high and low. I have one already though. A lovely nude coloured lace dress with tiers on its skirt that I picked up from Promod last season. The fit is almost akin to that of the famed Hervé Léger bandage dresses! But to satisfy a bit more of this feminine craving, I had my boy get me a pair of lace stockings – in the palest of pink hues and in a sexy black. I am so looking forward to wearing them.

Hair rollers are my new quirk. I am wondering about getting them. The thing is I have been watching That 70s Show, yes that hilarious and risqué show, like everyday! And if you have noticed, the ladies in the show have lovely curls that make them look so cute (Kitty, Eric’s mother) and sometimes pretty (Jackie played by Mila Kunis).

An electric blue raw silk dress. It would make for a nice formal look.

A midnight blue/teal draped gown. This would look delicious. But here's my woe -- which designer can give me the right fit within my budget? The last time I ended up paying more than five grand to this half-baked designer, I had on my hands a horribly cheap satin purple gown that fell so badly I wanted to cry. To this day, the above mentioned fellow says I have to go to his studio for a free dress to wear during the fashion week. Rest assured, after that gown disaster, I have always wanted him to vanish, at least from the fashion week venue and after-show parties.

A pair of blue aviators and another pair of classic golden-rimmed black aviators.

A pair of Aldo heels, a pair of platforms and a pair of shiny shoes to wear to weddings.

Handloom weaves – a Paithani or a Banarasi – to wear at weddings. And to complete the look, a maang tika in kundan.

Oh this list has me excited. Now to get cracking!

The bite of the new

2011-03-31T23:34:00.001+05:30

It feels awful. When things change, they can be so difficult. I have always been resisting change I guess but there are times when you just have to give into it and sit back and watch it allpanning before your eyes. And if things work out, then the going gets good. And if doesn't, I pack my bags. What is it going to be -- I wonder.

O Walt Whitman!

2011-03-22T22:08:00.000+05:30

"Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?"

The Have Tos

2011-03-22T13:59:00.000+05:30

It is good to have less work to do once in a while. For example, sit and browse through blogs – blogs that talk about random stuff really, spout out quotes, recipes, fashion updates or put out individual pieces of life for you to share.

In doing so, I am re-discovering old passions that I have to rekindle.

The first thing I do next month is go and buy myself an oven. I have to, have to start baking. There is a rare joy in blending batter, tasting it raw, savouring the buttery flavour and then watching all of it swell to perfection in the warm insides of the oven. Baking eggs. Or grilling a piece of fish in lemon and butter and herbs. Oooh I am so kicked about it.

It’s been ages I have danced. Maybe it is time to re-join my jazz classes. And this time around maybe – just maybe – I could execute the most perfect pirouettes and those painful looking splits.

Spanish. I have to learn it. Love it somehow because of the simplicity with which I could pick it up from random online classes with a voice called Maria.

On another note, I have to build on my sari wardrobe it seems. Practically everyone around me is getting married and the only good sari I have is the one I bought for my own wedding. It is a beautiful mustard colour Benarasi sari with paisley motifs. I do not know if I will get to save it up for my own. The thought of it never fails to make me wistful, even though I know I shouldn’t dwell upon it.

Destiny is funny. I do believe in it. Because at times there is no way you can push things. They just happen or they do not.

But in the meantime, you just strive. Strive to find happiness in the small things in life and dream that one day you shall have it all.

As a Chinese proverb says: "If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come."

That Icing On the Cake

2011-03-21T17:23:00.000+05:30

A little note: This is not a love post. It’s time to lay them to rest awhile.

No, this is an ode to my abiding passion for cupcakes. Cupcakes that have been my comfort food ever since I stepped inside that most luscious bakery called Theobroma. When I first laid my eyes on them after a long day of sauntering around Pali Hill, they made me think, “Oh look, food for the fairies!”

There they were, these pretty little things with delicate, sugar sprinkles on them.

Unable to resist their charm, my friend S and I quickly chose a cupcake from beneath a glass cover with great anticipation. My first spoon of it happened to be of the portion peeking beyond the icing ( You see, I am deadly scared of stiff, sweet icing. You could kill my appetite with them, even if it calls for a teeny weeny bite).

“Give it a try, come on!” said S. After some convincing, I gingerly bit into the icing.

It was love at first bite, yes. And what a pure, delightful love it was. It was the kind of flavour, a perfect mix of the salty and the sweet, that had also made me fall in love with caramel popcorn at once at a cutesy popcorn stall in Disney Land. The icing was made of salted butter -- it was most decidely not your run-of-the-mill unsalted buttercream icing.

Now I cannot eat just any cupcake. I have tried my fill of an array of them out there. In malls, niche bakers, bakery shops...

But today ND, my coffee-and-what’s-happening-with-our-lives-yapping companion (we go out for a cuppa cappuccino almost every day), called me from outside office. She had baked a batch of cupcakes.

My input had been that she use only salted butter for the cupcake icing. And guess what, it was the cupcake I had been lusting for all this time! It was perfection as I sunk my teeth into the tiny little round thing with the pale white icing, topped off by a gazillion colourful sprinkles.

And even though ND has promised me another batch tomorrow, I cannot wait to get my very own oven. To start baking.

So here’s to dreams of fluffy white icing and buttery doughs!

Love at first sight?

2011-02-01T14:51:00.000+05:30

Of late I have been reading the weddings column in the New York Times. It fills me with a curious joy to read about how couples met, courted each other and finally took the plunge. And of course that photograph of the lady in white, often in elaborate ruffled gowns, staring into her guy's eyes with like a world of love and happiness in her own.

So I was reading about this particular couple who met through a dating service and have just got married. The woman who is a pediatric dentist was skittish about meeting yet another guy, she said, till she happened to go on a drink date with this random guy. He turned out to be so handsome and dashing that she was pretty bowled over.

But a few minutes into the evening and she noticed a small dark thing between she said, tooth number 12 and tooth number 13. And yes, our lady pointed it out to the astounded man that he had a cavity and that he should keep off Gummi Bears. She referred him to another dentist and it did turn out to be a cavity.

Six months within dating, his habit of gorging on junk food got to her and she too ended up with her first cavity!

How's that for an unusual and cute love story. And so woman of her to have pointed out a flaw right in the first meeting*wide grin*

A Letter to Giulietta

2011-01-18T12:42:00.000+05:30

Dear Juliet,

I wish you had lived to spend a life with Romeo. Tragedy makes for great romance? Only for others maybe.

The other day I snuggled up in my quilt and watched a film called Letters to Juliet after a night of sipping on Prosecco. My senses -- of romance, wistfulness, longing – were all at their zenith, yes. It began with an American girl reaching your land with her fiancé for a pre-honeymoon. There, while her fiancé is busy with wine auctions and truffle hunts, our girl set off on her own in Verona. She soon arrived at that balcony, where you were supposed to have spent time being wooed by Romeo Montague (or should I say Montecchio…)

The sight which she came across had me mystified. It was of scores of women sticking notes on the wall beneath the balcony. Some weeping, some sitting and musing while writing notes. Others sobbing hysterically. One of the weeping women blubbered out to our girl that it was a tradition of women writing about their love stories, their love problems and any matters related to the heart to you, Juliet Capulet. And oh, there was a male tourist rubbing his hand on the right breast of your bronze statue. Lucky for him, you could not land a tight slap across his face (apparently there’s a rumour that rubbing one’s hand across your breast would augur good things!).

And guess what, there were a bunch of women who called themselves your secretaries. They sat and actually wrote back letters to all the girls who posted those chits on the wall.

I was charmed. I found out the next day that there indeed exists a club called The Juliet Club in Verona that replies to letters mailed to them by mostly American women. I am now looking for a book that has been penned on it by some Friedman.

But it set me thinking. If I were to write a letter to you O Juliet, what would it be like?

I would probably write about my love story to you. And I would wish for you. A better life with a better ending. A happily ever after with everybody leaving you alone to make or break your own life.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time...

2011-01-11T16:23:00.000+05:30

A few things which somehow are very simple and when I say it, you will probably laugh and say hah, these are what I want too. But do you really want them? Because I do. I have lived my life wanting them.

Ever since I could think about my life, I knew I wanted to be independent. By that I mean, I wanted to live on my own, have my own mobile phone, a place of my own, a car in which I could whizz around. But somehow it never occurred to me that I could have any of those.

You see, I am quite the lazy human being. I might have wanted those things, but I lay back without thinking of where I was going. A heavily ambitious cousin of mine once asked me when I was in my teens, “AB what do you want to do in life. Where do you want to go and what do you want to do?” My brother overheard her and said, “Oh AB goes where the river flows”. And he sniggered. Well that brother, however much I love him at the end of the day, was always a bit of a moron.

So life went on. I graduated and I sat for a random journalism school exam. It brought me to Delhi which I thought was completely life taking its course. It had no input of mine except sitting in that dank hall in Calcutta University with a pen and a paper and no will really to make it. My father and my brother made sure I came to Delhi even though my mother was adamant about not letting her daughter, who had lived all her life at home, from venturing outside the city.

Then these things happened. I did get my own rented place, I did buy my own phone and I did get to live on my own. Along the way I realized I did not really need a car. I am happy reading my books on the metro (which has changed my life a full 360 degrees) while plodding my way to office and back. After all, there are some things which you let go of occasionally as you adjust to life as it happens to you.

In between work, I have been traveling, something that I have always wanted to do. It might not be the extensive travel of the keen jetsetter, but the going has been good. I could not ever imagine walking underwater in Mauritius with the pattern on the zebra fishes match my bikini top (yes, what a coincidence, right?!), patting a python in a snake temple in Malaysia, getting oil-soaked for a Shirodhara treatment in the green environs of Kerala, seeing a panda chewing on bamboo shoots in Hong Kong, or simply sitting in a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka feeling the serenity soak into my very being. It’s been surreal.

And then while I was dating randomly, because I never could find that one elusive thing in my life, I met you. It was again surreal. The most beautiful thing that could have happened to me. We dreamt of a life together and now from nowhere, there seem to be a host of complications. Complications which we are thrusting upon what we have. Which makes you doubt about whether you want to even be with me, decide dates for our wedding, answer the world about my status updates…Why is the world so much with you?

But let me tell you about my perception of life. I just want love. Love with an intensity that leaves me breathless. Love where I do things for you not because I am trying to prove a point. But because that is what I want to do, and where I want to be. Where I cannot think of anything beyond you. Where I want to see the world with you, live with you, build a home together, laugh together, cry together, share our dreams together. I want to wake up beside you, every day of my life.

Do you feel the same way?

When everything seems bleak...

2011-01-04T15:39:00.000+05:30

I think it is so refreshing to come back to my blog. It has always been my favourite ranting space and I guess it will always be. Small mercies after all.

Have you been weak ever? I seem to be turning weaker and weaker when it comes to taking decisions. So here's to a new, trying-to-be-stronger me.

It was for a random holiday quote (yes, I have to still make inane calls for those and beauty quotes still, which makes me think that it is probably time I moved on in life) that I called up an art curator. One of those random calls which out of the blue make you happy. Something I have not been for some time now.

So I am going to hold on to this rare feeling. And hold on for better days.

When back with my books, nothing compares.

2010-08-12T12:08:00.000+05:30

The days are coming to an end as it always does. Day after, I return to Delhi (I am visiting my home in Calcutta), back to that awful humidity that makes me feel like I have developed an extra layer of skin. Sigh. And thus all good things come to an end.

It is pleasant in Calcutta and surprise, surprise… the humidity here scores lower than iu Delhi. And let me tell you what a relief it is to live without that extra layer of dermis.

Most of my time is spent reading in my cool library room that is tucked into a corner, up above the floor where my parents stay. The dark wood of the wall-to-wall book cabinet, the light sky blue of the walls, the balcony that once used to be covered with bougainvillea flowers but now is home to those beautiful fragrant frangipanis... It is the only bit that seems to have survived the general air of disarray in the house.

The books are still there, the Ernest Hemingways, the well thumbed classics, some Mills and Boons (yes, relics of my teen years), the green cover bound Scarlet, the copy of Little Men which I had whacked from my school library eons back and which smells all musty and yellow. I wish I could carry my library room back to Delhi.

How I have always treasured it. From the days I could bang the door against my mother and not open it, having been quite an unsocial creature, when relatives walked in to the living room. And my parents expected me to greet them with hospitality and sing songs on my harmonium. Arrgh.

Then one day my mother battered the latch. My banging-door-do-what-you-will-do attitude died that day. I might have been mad as a bull and raged like one as I even tried to block the door with a chair. But it never worked.

The funny thing is the latch is now in place and I revel in the feeling that no one can invade my own personal haven.

I am over the moon. My boy returns.

2010-06-08T16:56:00.000+05:30

Usually whenever he calls on the way to an airport, it is mostly on his way to some other place. Hardly ever Delhi. And this time he comes back for good. It’s like I need to slap myself to figure out it’s for real!

It’s amazing – this feeling of vaulting over the moon and back. Especially since I have been working hard.

On a desperate last-minute cover crisis, I had to fly to Bombay last week. I had in mind a filmmaker. Surprisingly he agreed to the interview while every other individual was falling through.

Travelling, unavailable, shooting, impossible public relations executives -- there was never enough reason to get me pulling at my hair. Don’t ask. I was at the pinnacle of frustration.

On Thursday afternoon I was on the afternoon flight to Bombay where I landed and immediately fell for the city all over again.

There is a je ne sais quoi about Bombay (however much you hold its humidity against it!). Could it be the sometimes quaint alleys that remind me of Calcutta, the old-style architecture at places or the good-natured bustle about it? It is difficult to put a finger on that something.

My evening started with shopping at a Bandra store that surprised me with lovely floral dresses and jumpsuits and consequently at an ethnic shop where friend S and I browsed minutely through the clutches, tops, kurtas, rings, bags they had on the shelves. Oh the high of mindless shopping!

Now S lives in Pali Hill that has lovely cobbled pathways. I think it charmed me straightaway. After downing some fizzy lemonade at a tiny coffee shop, we hit the roads smoking Menthol Rush and talking nineteen-to-the-dozen as dusk gathered.

That was when S suddenly spotted an old school friend of hers across the road, walking at a brisk pace with some woman. Old school friend G turned out to be an aspiring filmmaker. While they were chatting, I was amazed to suddenly see above-said woman trotting away into the distance. In the meantime G invited us to his pad for an intimate gathering of friends and the promise of a vegetarian dinner (which of course extracted evil cackles from us).

He also recommended we sit at Elbo Room nearby. So we walked down there. It turned out to be a small bar even though I had expected to be a teeny weeny shack – given the fact that they promote it as a singles’ bar and encourage singles to frequent it. Nonetheless I noticed only groups of friends and couples. The music was up my road – fun pop and rock -- and the menu was cute. We guzzled away on beer and munched on Fish Orly.

Two pints and we decided to hit G’s place. The idea was to get under the skin of his woman friend and let out the bitches in us. “We have been good girls most of our lives A. Let’s do it,” said S.

So soon we were standing at the doorstep of this flat in Pali Hill with a row of Chinese lanterns lighting the narrow corridor. The door opened in a second and I instantly thought B-grade actress M! In a very sexy cocktail dress with cowls and a cavernous back, M led the way in.

Thereafter I was entirely asinine. G plied me with another mug of beer. I didn’t find it in my heart to say no to a host. Though it turned out M was the host (they are clearly in a live-in and he refuses to talk about it openly). I have this sneaking suspicion that she was the vegetarian.

It was a gathering of six. One of them turned out to be a bellydancer who also farms organic vegetables on a certain rooftop in Bombay (people never cease to amaze me with their entrepreneurship) and another a Shakti yoga teacher.

The evening was surreal as soon I piled my plate with loads of linguine. Mistake.

The first bite and I wanted to scream out. There being no cheese to counter the overpowering taste of the pesto in it – it was akin to digging into linguine with turmeric. Plus the dishes had all organic vegetables -- the likes of which I have never heard of. One of them being Marca. That's the only name my beer-sozzled brain could latch onto.

Yes, I need sympathy. S refused to help me out with it after one forkful And she insisted I finish soon.

Meanwhile having got on quite a bit with the beer, I was in a strange complimenting mood. I started with the Chinese lanterns, carried on the appreciation to her wine goblets and did not even leave the terrible linguine alone. Let this suffice: Sheesh!

The next morning I was off for my interview at Andheri. But not before S made me watch part of the ghastly film, A Nightmare on Elm Street. I cannot imagine that it is the nth remake of the 1984 classic. So after watching a serial killer called Freddy Krueger flaunt his four bladed talons for like eternity (though in truth it was barely 40 minutes into the film) and dipping into yummy cheesy and caramel popcorn, I was off.

The interview itself lasted two hours. Said filmmaker was great to talk to. I have this vague notion that he is a womanizer too. He quizzed me as no one I have interviewed has ever. Then it so happened my collegaue asked me to confirm whether he has a happy eye!

But my afternoon began as I made for Carter Road.

There is this point where the road from Saint Mount Mary Church suddenly dips into the sea. The sight of the vast expanse of shimmering silver waters in the distance -- it made me catch my breath.

S met me at the Café Coffee Day on Carter Road and after tucking into a light lunch there, we tucked into Theobroma fare right after. Needless to say we were gagging at the thought of food. We tried out Theo’s Vodka Chilly Cake (disappoints) and a tiny cupcake dressed up with beautiful swirls of salted butter (thumbs up). The platter of cupcakes in fact put me in mind of little fairies in flimsy dresses flitting by and putting little cupcakes on the counter for us.

It was my second evening in Bombay and the last. S took me to Carter Road where we sat watching the sun set into the sea and lovers sitting on the black rocks. But then suddenly S had a brainwave.

The doggie park on Carter's Road . It was doggie lovers’ paradise. There were all sizes and shapes of dogs. Fat labs to surprisingly friendly boxers called Attila, rescued strays sitting seriously in a corner because they were new to the park and hence feeling shy, and adorable Irish Setters who couldn’t get enough of sniffing up chocolates. Sigh.

I am back to my longing for Bombay phase.

Haunted by the mango mouth

2010-05-20T17:36:00.000+05:30

That said my mouth has Not suddenly become the size or shape of a mango please. It’s these little red things that have shown up around my lips. They are awful (which is an understatement if you ask someone who has to wake up and see red every morning literally...hmmpph). I have suddenly realized that I am pushing 30 and that my hormones have started acting up -- one of my colleagues kindly pointed out the same.

It has to be them effing hormones. I mean nowadays I pick daintily on my mango. Hardly like the greedy little thing I used to be once upon a time when I would sink my teeth into it, work my way to the aanthi (the core), suck on it like my life depended on it and go all messy with the juice dribbling all over.

Gah! It’s disturbing to have a bowl sitting at home beckoning away. Maybe I should have them before I give the mango a slight respite. Hmmm…life is full of tough choices ;)

Now I think I shall run to Khan Market and pick up those lovely toasted multi-grain sandwiches stuffed with chicken ham and egg and devour them while working on a story at home. And sip a pecan-flavoured cappuccino to go with it.

Till tomorrow, love and happiness!

Dark chocolate overdose

2010-05-19T01:25:00.000+05:30

So much so that I can feel it still at the base of my throat. Even though it is 70 per cent dark. Grimace.

I am shaken. Or have been since the past 24 hours. Something happened that made me think about a lot of things. How all my life I have been avoiding something and how all your worst fears in life actually come to haunt you. Why do they, you think?

I have also been too much into things. So have decided to lay it less thick. Hope it does help me. Like wondering as to why someone sounds upset about some of the things I said even though they hurt me more than he can imagine. Not that he would understand.

They say if you give respect, you get it in return. Is that true? Wonder...

On a random note felt horribly nostalgic and tearful thinking of a day and a trip years back when I was in my late teens. Yesterday I had been rubbing some Moroccan Rose lotion into my hands at night when I was swamped by memories of my trip to Chandipur on Sea (it's in Orissa) with my parents.

We had checked into a resort kind of a place where there were these basic but beautiful huts. Our hut was strongly redolent of roses. Thereafter we lazed around on the beds soaking in the smell on a hot afternoon, followed by a lunch where they served us veggies with rice and accompanied by fish. Somehow I have never been able to stomach the kind of fish they serve you at coastal areas near Bengal and I remember how much I cribbed that afternoon to my parents.

Oh god I miss them so terribly. We have grown so far away and most of it is my mistake. I missed them more than anything yesterday suddenly when I realised how much they have indulged me in life. Including not being accountable to them or anyone. Not forcing me to confide in them or anything really. They have really let me be. Wonder if the rest of my life will be the same. If people will let me be.

And I miss my parents, the young them, more than anything.

Oh these sinful days, may they come around the corner more often

2010-05-15T17:09:00.000+05:30

It’s the weekend again! And I couldn’t be happier at this point. The last few days following my shopping binge have been absolutely fun-filled.

First of all, I visited the penthouse of this well-known couple for a story on their fantastic home. The amount of natural light that filtered in through the bay windows and the beautiful patio that stretched out on the first level of it, just stole my heart. I want a house like that. Filled with daylight and happiness.

Oh and things were so much about art installation inside that at one point I almost mistook their pet, a very ugly French bulldog called Dude, to be a piece of installation too.

Midweek I was filing the above story on a tight deadline and feeling oh-so-stressed-out. But with wrapping it up came sweet redemption – a night of karaoke with my two girl friends at a new karaoke joint in town. The theme was retro Hindi, something that I heart.

How many times have I stood in a discotheque and hoped for retro! I have realized that I can move my body more sensuously when I hear those throaty Jawani Jaaneman and Laila O Laila-like numbers. The deal is that they make me feel very diva.

Of course I have been fighting in between with my boy like crazy. But been making up immediately and falling in love over again. The thing with fighting is that it makes you realize that you cannot really live without the other, without feeling ill inside. And he says something about our catfights. “We might fight a lot, but we also love each other that much.” It makes me smile.

Anyway, the other day I got a call from a communications person of a certain hotel saying they were holding a chocolate making workshop. And she immediately thought of me because of all the times she had seen me talk to the pastry chef with zest. I was delighted.

It was today.

Now getting up early on a Saturday is a bitch I agree (but so is it any other day, isn’t it?). Thereafter I spent the better half of the morning and the afternoon getting chocolate educated. How do you temper chocolate and how do you shock a chocolate mold? How do you make sure you never have air bubbles lodged inside your truffles?

And all of this was with couverture chocolate (couverture has a high percentage of cocoa butter which makes the chocolate honey soft), so we got nibbles of it too in the form of little dark pellets and sugar free blocks of dark and white chocolate. You would be surprised – at least I was – to find that sugar free chocolate was pretty good.

My neighbour was an elderly lady with a fine old-day accent and great enthusiasm. She was chatty. How couldn’t I like her and her love for chocolate? She turned out to be a Bengali when she spoke to her husband during the break. And we bonded. As we also did with the others in the class during lunch.

So over a lavish lunch of butter and bread, baked fish fillets, creamy corn and spinach and kebabs, we chattered away. None of us, it turned out, had really made chocolate before. There were at least a dozen of us. Among which was a mother-in-law who had come with her sweet and pretty daughter-in-law in tow, two sisters-in-law and even a young guy whose hobby it is to bake.

It was cute to compare notes on our levels of cooking. Some like me were ultra lazy but it was our common love for food that had us there I guess.

Once we got back to our class, the chef was cajoled by the above-mentioned women into taking a hands-on class next Saturday. And success was had. So, yes we are on for another chocolate-bonding session the coming week. I am drooling at the thought of making my own ganache and pralines soon. Amen.

‘When emotionally unstable enter no shops’

2010-05-12T13:55:00.000+05:30

Someone said to that effect once. A shopping-friendly person. And I, I remembered it just today after an evening of doing just that.

The background to it was built up with mayhem at work. Now there’s something about me that just detests feeling low. About anything.

I needed retail therapy, desperately at that. So with the aim to lighten my poor, overburdened heart I stepped out to Select City Mall (the only mall I heart in the city). And havoc I wrought!

Waiting for my friend to arrive, I happened upon prettiness at that French brand called Promod which I initially thought was so Indian. I was first introduced to it when I picked up a dress from Sarojini. The tag read Promod.

I was left wondering how on earth such an Indian brand could have come up with such a chic thing till I realized it was French all the way. Ooh la la!

I staved off the decision to use my credit card at Promod. Somehow I did.

My next stop was Mango. Here I made some four trips to the changing room. By which time I had tried a ruffled, chiffon dress in a bright orange colour with floral prints, another beige dress prettified with tiny blossoms and yadda yadda. Till I fell in love with a floral printed beige top with a drawstring at the waist, an olive coloured short skirt and a third, short and tight pencil skirt in navy blue. These three I promptly fell in love with and owned thereafter.

Friend P was amused by the maniacal glint in my eyes. She miraculously enough was not moved to buy anything. She is a glutton for all things that relate to shoes and dresses.

Next we moved on to Promod (yes, I retraced my steps) where a beautiful lacy dress in a tan colour beckoned to me. Wearing it was such sheer poetry, the way it flirted with my knees and hugged my silhouette, I could not say no.

Our last stop for the evening was Aldo. A pair of gladiator heels there did the trick. I am wearing them right now and they feel like heaven on four inch heels.

I was so excited, I could not stop chirping. I guess P must have been tired of my constant chattering and scanning shut shop windows. Was I on an overdrive! She led the way to Big Chill where we sat down and pecked on a lovely smoked chicken salad. Luscious strips of smoked chicken that were laid on thick with slices of parmesan cheese and iceberg. A bit of a sour/sweet sauce drizzled on top perfected it.

We sat and discussed life, and love, and us. It was so relaxing. I have met P after the longest time. A few years back, when she was not hitched and living in a paying girls’ accommodation, I would be crashing over at hers all the time after an evening of movies and gallons of food. And we would talk into the wee hours of the night and arrive at work very late in the due course of things.

Things change. We do have our together times even though it is few. But it makes it all the more special. Right P?

What's going on?

2010-02-19T14:51:00.000+05:30

I have no idea. Really. I have been ranting and raving and saying things which make no meaning.
I am upset. And I don't know about what.

So I just ravished a huge bowl of Chicken Biryani. It did do its part. Make me feel a bit more human. But I have been wondering. It's amazing how one thing/ incident/ person, affects me so that I start tainting others with it. And that is so frigging unfair I know. Yet I have been doing it. Saying a whole lot of hurtful things to my guy.

I know none of what happened is his fault -- whatsoever. I have been however absolutely mean to him in saying certain things which I did not mean from the core of my heart.

I never knew I had so weaknesses till now. It's a bit scary. It puts me in mind of those lines from the Abba song 'Lay all your love on me':

I still don't know what you've done with me
A grown-up woman should never fall so easily
I feel a kind of fear
When I don't have you near

To top it all, a sore throat is on its way to bring me down.

And I am such a cribber. What will come of me?

No matter where they take us/ We'll find our own way back

2010-02-17T16:37:00.000+05:30

Have you ever sat in a room and wished you were just somewhere else, anywhere else, but there?

I have a few of mine first up.

Last night however could have stolen the cherry, the cake, the stilettos, everything in the blink of an eye. Because how does one react when one feels non-existent in a roomful of people?

The evening started at an open-air wedding of a friend of my boyfriend A. It was a slightly nippy night and I was happy. Delicately -- draping a sari necessitates the need of being feminine (not that I am complaining!) -- weaving my way around the tables in the open ground and spending time with A’s various school mates, I was at ease. I guess I turn into a chirpy bird when I like people.

A’s parents left in some time for home after being assured that I would be dropped of by his close friend. So there I was chit-chatting with some couples. It is funny isn’t it, how randomly one connects with others without having any real connection. Isn’t that the real connection, than one with others which turns out to be forced?

Then somewhere the evening took a downturn. A nose-dive of sorts. An ex of A appeared – she is a part of the same school circle of friends. Now there’s a tiny bit of history to her and me. I have heard quite a bit about her from A and I have always been in sympathy with her. But it seems that she has been averse to meeting me even though she split with him years back. It irked me I guess.

I realised that when without thinking much I hugged her at a cocktail party. Punch me, box me, slap me. I do not know what came over me. I did not like the fact that no one introduced us at that party. Her reaction was muffled. She refused to acknowledge me thereafter and the night of the wedding, she completely looked through me.

That’s the point from when I wished I was not there at the wedding. Thereafter the party shifted to the newly wed couple’s hotel room where I was dragged beyond my wishes. The reason being A’s friend who would be dropping me home. The entertainer was a guy, a starlet of sorts, who deems himself to be a Romeo, a Casanova, a stud, have what you will. The surprise part was how everyone in the room was so taken in by him, to the extent that he even stepped on the newly weds’ bed. Evermore I could not relate to any of the conversation.

I was an outsider and never did I feel it more.

While sitting in a corner, leaning against the wall and feeling particularly weepy, I saw this one boyfriend taking particular care of his girl and never leaving her side. It made me feel even more alone.

Probably the best thing would have been to just not hung out long with them. Who knows? But there are things you learn from every experience, don't you?

My friend N says that people are different. Not everyone can make you feel wanted and neither do they care particularly about how you feel when you enter their clique. “We live in a world where we usually meet people of our kind you know. Those we relate to. And the moment we step out of that cocoon we feel out of depth. It does take all kinds to make up this world honey.”

My thoughts on last night: That there are people you cannot trust and there are people you can. And that you have to trust only yourself to take care of you, no matter what.

P.S.: I also had a Sex and the City moment – that I am blessed to have the friends I have and for the human beings they are. So here’s a round of Cosmos to them!

My Friend Mohan

2009-11-11T16:01:00.000+05:30

I met him today at the Kerala House. Where he serves up Malayali food.

I landed up there with all my colleagues – 12 very hungry beings – ready to pounce on whatever came our way (The usual gag at work is that everyone fasts from the night before when one has a birthday treat coming up the next day. The way we eat would convince you of it).

This was my treat for my day which happened to be on November 9.

We got in as guests of a Member of Parliament and thereafter behaved not unlike a bunch of famine-struck baboons. I mean the younger lot.

Because the big dining table was occupied (which was rightfully ours), we settled for whatever came our way – small square tables of four with real heavy wooden chairs.

Soon the food came rolling in. Big, fat brownish rice accompanied by veggie dishes that had my mouth watering. The side dish was piled generously with ‘thoran’ (cabbage with lotsa peas and coconut grinded finely) and ‘thiyal’ (this was my favourite, it had eggplant cooked beautifully with spices and sour tamarind).

There was pale yellow, watery gravy that was poured by one of the servers on the rice. It was called the ‘pulissery’ that came with chunks of green papaya. The yoghurt base was the reason I guess it was inordinately sour. And even though I love sour -- I mean I heart sour --but this was Sour.

Where Mohan comes in, of course, was this. He was bringing us plates heaped with papad. And he had the sweetest, kindly smile that touched me. He brought us a fish curry with tender ‘surmai’ fish pieces cooked in a thick, yellow coconut curry. It is one of the most delicious fish dishes I have ever had (not to miss out on my favourite ‘shorshe ilish’).

So when I get greedy, I get greedy. You cannot cap my greediness in any plausible way. So I wanted more fish. Mohan said, ‘Sorry, no more.’ But in two minutes he arrived with a baby plate containing two pieces of fish, fried to blackness along with onion and tomato rings and plonked it on my plate.

That swept me away.

Soulmate.

2009-11-10T21:57:00.000+05:30

I have finally found you. Or you found me. I don’t know which it is. But the one who seems to love me, understand me and kiss my three heads and make it all better.

So this is for you. If you are reading.

We met in a bar. Across a little pool of people, standing and sipping disinterestedly on a martini, a whisky, a vodka cocktail – whatever wooed them, in that dimly lit bar.

I saw you. A young boy (gets you worked up, I know sweetheart!) in shirt and trousers and oh so cute with this quiet, aloof air about him. You had come down for some sort of internship it seemed from somewhere in the States and I was kind of dating/meeting (don’t know how to describe it) another man.

It was one of those evenings where I seemed to know no one else except your and mine common friend. And I was starting to wish I was somewhere else. Then somehow we got talking. Exchanging notes on the band playing at the bar. Innocent little notes with no agenda I believe.

The evening wore on and said common friend took us to another pub. On the way she made me sit next to you in the front passenger seat. We chatted. I liked your smile. You kept cribbing about your mother’s ‘chick car’ – a cute hatchback – about it being not your style really. This time though I really enjoyed myself at the pub.

There were all my former colleagues at the place, dancing and snacking and drinking. I promptly joined in, in all the fun. Then I turned back when one of them asked me about you and found you standing alone. I wanted to be standing next to you. So I stood right where I wanted to be. I think somewhere that that was where it all started. This wonderful feeling that seems to be taking me places I never dreamt of going.

I remember how Carrie Bradshaw (you know the fabulous her from Sex and the City) took off on that word soulmate. ‘Two little words. One big concept. A belief that someone, somewhere, is holding the key to your heart. And your dreamhouse.’

And I cannot but help think of you.

I wish I knew…

2009-10-10T23:27:00.000+05:30

What I want to do – spend time in a farm learing how to churn natural cheese, set up a shack by the beach, sell chocolate and churros in mini skirts and plaid apron, collect wild flowers and sell them in a quaint flower boutique up in the hills, train to be a professional yoga instructor, or just continue doing what I do best, catch power naps every now and then.

Whether I believe in God.

Why is it so important to live in the past. Isn’t it we who determine in what tiny ways it should live and for how long?

Does it hurt to listen to reason?

When I shall get that next ride in one of my most favourite rides since childhood – the ferris wheel. Feel the wind in my hair and the exhilaration in my being.

If I would get to tie the knot the way I want to.

Do we believe what we choose to believe or what is in front of us?

Does the world conspire to make you happy or sad or does it give you shots at both and keep you yearning for more happiness and more happiness till it seems there is nothing left but to drown in that feeling?

How to make you understand without having to say it loud every time.

Is this is IT?

When all this waiting shall end. It seems to be lasting what seems like eternity.

Do you often think like I do?

What do we have this time around? Hmm...

2009-09-01T01:50:00.000+05:30

I see the moon peeking out from behind the roof of the front-door house. Looking nothing less than a ghostly galleon but with a quite resplendent, ivory halo surrounding it. And I watch it for a few seconds soaking in the beauty of it and wishing things. Like being with him, sipping wine on the verandah and just relaxing with no tensions or any troubles whatsoever for a few hours.

I can feel it in the air. The season’s changing. You know that feeling of pujo in the air. When the sun grows extremely bright during the day, but somehow the air touching the face is not burning or (worse) killing humid. So yes, I wonder how pujo will be this year. Every time it is a kind of a ritual for me to attend the family pujo back home in Calcutta. But now that I have already gone back once for E’s wedding and have to return for my London cousin’s wedding reception towards the end of the year, I guess it has to be spent in town. In Delhi. A tad bit different it shall be, I believe.

I have always thought that nothing can approximate the flurry of it in Calcutta. Truly. Right from the elaborate pandals, the amazing array of devi murtis, the extremely enthusiastic crowd of young and old dressed up in their new saris and kurta pyjamas tripping on from pandal to pandal stopping maybe for a quick phuchka by the roadside or waiting for the bhog to be served up. The constables in their black-trimmed white uniforms at every juncture, trying to control a traffic that refuses to go nowhere with most of the roads blocked, the pedestrians trying to cross quickly to catch up with the other lot of friends who have crossed and reached the other side and happen to be hollering to them vigorously to get over here already. The young college goers catching up for gossip, oily egg rolls, cheap Chinese and eye candy at Maddox Square.

It all makes me so nostalgic.

And you know what I love the most – the bitter sweet ending to it. I hate the feeling when the four days, like, fly by. But when I get home with my cousins and relatives, on this huge truck that carries us all the way back from immersion/bisharjan of the idol on the ghats of the Ganga, we get back to this super delicious dinner.

Wait. There is a proper build-up to it.

We begin my seeing this dead Hilsa fish that hangs on the door. Psst: It brings good luck. Then we all sit down for some last mantras chanted by our purohit moshai. Followed by bijoy dashami (during we touch our elders’ feet) which I basically get through with at breakneck speed to get to the amritti (in Hindi you know it as imarti, except that the Bengali version I believe is big ass).

There’s more in store. My favourite part. Main course. Hilsa. I concentrate and how. No distractions here. We call it the shorshe ilish -- the Hilsa is cooked in shorshe (mustard). Oh it is mindnumbingly delicious. I often forget that one should not overdo stuff (that old-and-oft-repeated-by-my-mother idiom, yes). Well, I go through three pieces of the fish at one go and even though sifting the bones out of the flesh might seem impossible to you, I don’t mind it as long as I get to gorge on it.

It’s making me mouth water.

The final parts to the dinner wrestle for favourite place in my list of loves. It includes the family’s traditional durga doi (watery yoghurt flavoured with lemongrass) and the tauk (a drink made of tamarind water). I down shots of these with as much as zest as I down those of say Bailey’s with crushed ice. You got me there.

Well, it seems that all I got to do now is hold on and see how it goes this year.

Caramelcustard is back to what she likes doing a lot...rambling

2009-06-16T23:38:00.000+05:30

So many months have gone by. I have missed blogging. I have.

And so many things have happened. Mostly I have travelled, found new loves, lost them, found others, been gloriously happy, then again desperately sad, at times wallowed in middling peace only to venture into disturbing bouts of depression. I have bought tons of books, read tons (have tons more to read), officially got addicted to coffee, drank gallons of wine, bellydanced with Lebanese and Greek bellas to the tune of margaritas and Arabic music and got hooked to yoga.

Oh yes, I have also met a new breed. A breed of married men who like to philander. They have no qualms about it. Things are very clear here. They want to have ‘a good time’ and return home dutifully to wives and children. Ewww. Tacky. Steer clear I say women. I mean they have been there all the time, it is just that they never crossed my path. It makes me shudder with cynicism.

Soon I turn 29 -- towards the end of this year. Gives me the heebie jeebies. What will this birthday bring I wonder, besides of course another year as a gift….

But as I meet a lot of 25-year-olds (mostly men), I have been wondering, has the world suddenly turned 25? I mean where are the older men? All taken, they would point out. Or turned gay. Hmmpph.

Anyway, the last two weeks have been good. They seem to be looking up. I am up till late at night and I wake up groggy, but happy and content. The question is that I question the permanence of it all. After all, I have always watched happiness being rationed out.

Ands while we are on the topic of happiness, am happy for my other former flatmate getting married. She marries her sweetheart in August. It is sweet their story. Let’s say, people do fall in love and see it to the end. Though as a matter of fact, it really is the beginning.

There was a time when men were kind, And their voices were soft, And their words inviting...

2009-04-19T00:12:00.000+05:30

...the very words have me crying tears, tears of shame and pride, as I watch a frumpy old lady take over a dais even amidst ridicule and mockery. To watch the audience look at her with contempt for even daring to come on and take part in a talent show, to witness the judges shake their heads with barely hidden contempt again. I mean so much of contempt.

And then she just sings the first line and you feel the hair on your arms stand out.

You must be wondering why I am reacting a tad bit late. I mean I guess it is several hours late! But you see, I have almost given up watching news AND reading news. So I am pretty cut off from all that is going on in the world except for when I happen to glance up at the giant plasma screens in the gym showing snippets of the news on CNN or NDTV, or of course when my colleagues happen to be discussing current events (and I happen not to have my ears plugged with my ipod headphones). I am pretty much insulated from the world at large. Not a good thing I know for one who is in the business of reporting. But hey, I write for lifestyle! Thank god for some mercies.

So it was only yesterday or the day before maybe (I am not so sure) that I watched CNN reports on singing sensation Susan Boyle. Initially I thought it was a spoof. And I kinda forgot about it. Tonight however as I finished watching a film and started surfing, I suddenly remembered. I keyed her name into YouTube.

And I couldn't stop the tears as I heard her beautiful voice pouring out the words I Dreamed a Dream. I felt incredibly proud of her at that moment.

Why do we almost always judge a book by its cover? I know I am guilty of it too many a time. So what if a person is frumpy or fat or ugly or not perfect looking? Does it really take away from her personality?

And how did Susan indeed answer that. I am overwhelmed.

So that's how I feel right now...

2009-01-14T22:55:00.002+05:30

I have spent my day today in inordinate boredom. Sitting in front of my work terminal, staring at the screen, making a few calls for a story, going out for coffee, getting tempted to stuff my face and then return to resume staring at the screen.

There’s this sense that I am waiting for something. Is it what I think I am waiting for, is it something other than that I am waiting for without knowing about it or is it just that my senses have been put to sleep to the extent that they are choosing to be fanciful to shake themselves up.

Because even when I get back home and sit on my bed, settling into the comfort of my blue fat cushion and turning the pages of one of my favourite writers -- Amitava Ghosh – I feel like I need to do something else. It is unsettling.

What better time than to wrap up my Goan tales, only there’s so much to tell that I think I would be sitting up all night!

As a follow-up to the previous post, I have to start off with saying that the rest of the days there were spent in a haze of drinking and dancing and walking by the beach.

It was the hedonist’s holiday.

Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to work in a beach town. I mean after work head off to the beach and let the salty breeze of the sea ruffle the day’s worries away.

Hardly have I not received a message from friend S (he of the casino manager fame) in the middle of a boring/harried/contemplative/happy day informing me – Hey, sitting in Rudy’s Shack, sunning myself and listening to the waves, with a few bottles of Budweiser by my side, OR hey, just woke up from a nap and going to down some more beers, but tell me how does it feel to get back to the grind, my dear?

Thoughtful fellow, my friend S. It is with him that I put up in Miramar. It is his fridge that me and my friend raided in the wee hours of the morning after we had come back from a night of hectic shaking our bodies to the music at Mambo’s, where we were mostly to be found if not tanking up in Cocktails & Dreams.

And if perchance we were not at Baga, we would be sitting on Anjuna Beach in Zoori’s grabbing a quick bite of juicy mushrooms stuffed with fried blue cheese that would be quickly enough washed down with wine. Following which we would hit the dance floor at Paradiso with a vengeance.

On other nights, the party was at Butter and Shiro’s in Candolim. All was well till the night of the 31st or it might even have been the morning of the 1st. When at some point my drunken senses reeled under the discovery that I was not holding my beloved blue cell phone in my hand.

All teary hell broke loose. While on hindsight I cannot help guffawing at the thought of howling over a phone, at that moment my anguish knew no bounds. I caught hold of C and sobbed my heart out over the loss of my precious little, useless but attractive phone.

In the background all I could make out in my bleary eyed consciousness/semi-consciousness were three guys hovering around helplessly. One of them being an Aussie guy who had befriended me the first night of our binge drinking session in Baga and the other two being similar friends of my friend C. I think they were genuinely taken aback at the angst one can display one losing a mobile. The others had left by then. They lost out on the drama afforded by me and my mobile.

A few hours later as I entered S’s apartment somewhere in the early hours of the first morning of 2009, I was curiously content. Something had happened to make me let faith in. Faith in something good. That when you lose something, you also find something.

The days they make me float and the nights they make me fly

2008-12-29T16:15:00.000+05:30

Just had a cup of delicious peach n passion fruit yoghurt and a piece of toast. Feel like a human again.

After a Gorilla’s Fart, Vishal’s Kiss, Mr Mesh, B-52 and three Roses later I had turned into an airy fairy being. Oh how we danced the night away at Mambo’s a after a stopover at Cocktails & Dreams – my favourite bar in Goa. It is right in the heart of Baga, next door to Mambo’s. All those above mentioned cocktails were downed there, one after the other of course in no particular order.

Now let me recommend the Gorilla’s Fart to you. It is a banana drink flambéed to perfection. This is how it was presented to me. Vodka (and some other spirit which I am a bit erm about) poured into a small martini glass with three slivers of banana floating in it. Next the cute waiter comes in the picture. He lights up the drink and while a blue flame hovers over the drink, he makes you slurp it down in a go. The sexy touch is him spooning in the slivers into your mouth.

Now instead of pouting and licking it up and doing the siren act, I was doing the goofy one trying to prevent the slivers from falling apart outside my mouth.

A bit of a recap before I proceed further about the drunken glories of airy fairy being.

A few months before, on one good day, a group of my friends decided that we would be there in Goa for the year end. Surprisingly everybody fell in with the plan. I mean you do know that when there’s a group planning an outing, party or anything really, there’s always the odd one out pleading their way out…

All tickets were booked. Though three of us, C, N and me, first would spend two days in Bombay and take the Volvo to Goa.

Then came the security alert which changed things. Family and friends started warning me over and over again. I thought about it actually even before the alert was set off -- about Goa being one of the prime targets for bastardly buffoons.

What made me determined not to cancel my plan was that otherwise these people would win. In their business of terrorizing. It’s a business after all. Literally, a bloody business.

Ah, I digress.

Things were a bit iffy with my friends. I even got upset with C when she kept telling me about the beach parties being banned. I told her, ‘If you want, you can back out.’ Both of us were miffed with each other post that statement of mine. But hey both of us finally made it.

N had to cancel her ticket cause she says her office cancelled her leave the day we were taking our flight.

On Christmas eve therefore, bleary eyed I set out with our group for Bombay. They took the next flight to Goa while C and I stayed back in Bombay as was our plan. She went with her friend to Andheri and I took off to my former flatmate’s place in Lower Parel. Since E was not in her apartment, not even her hot pant wearing flatmate, I was left on my own. Not that I minded it at all. I am such a loner anyway.

That day I rested, mooched around the apartment, ordered a salad and napped.

Don’t you just love that feeling about being on a holiday?

In the evening, I took the train to Andheri to a college friend’s place in 7 Bungalows. At some point in time, he says the place was supposed to have had just those many bungalows. Hard to imagine what it has given way to. A concrete jungle…Now catching up with college friend was good till he tried some amorous stuff. I put him in his place well. I mean he was this very good friend of a guy I liked a lot in college. I couldn’t have done otherwise.

The night though was spent with a date in Firangi Paani in Andheri itself. He was cute and shy. And also younger (I either seem to be meeting men who are in their late thirties or those in their early twenties of late). But he was mighty chivalrous -- a wonderful change from people I usually meet.

As the night wore on, he lost that shy touch to him too. There were those usual questions about past relationships and things gone awry and what one looks for in a guy. Now the boy was in earnest. He came up with pretty predictable stuff but to give him his due he wasn’t boring. Let’s see where that goes.

At the end of the night in Firangi Paani, I loved the chocolate liqueur and Bailey’s shot we downed. In between I had told him I wanted to wind up the night with chilli ice cream from Bachelor’s on Marine Drive. But I had the feeling that he had forgotten about it. So was kinda disappointed till he bought a bottle of wine for us on the way back to Lower Parel. And then he said, “Hey the ice cream’s left!” I was super happy then.

The chilli ice cream was had. Was it hot! You must try it and tell me if it catches your fancy. It tastes very good – ala that fatty and milky taste. Then it suddenly hits your throat every moment it slips down.

Wasted night. But nice night.

The next day was spent with C and her friend who is a great street shopper. I love street shopping, so she was my favourite person at that moment. Flip flops, pretty sandals, chic flats, nice lingerie and even a summery bed sheet (the previous night I was so drunk I kept a hot pressure cooker full of popcorn on E’s bed sheet and lifted it to find a round black mark on it) – after that lot we sat at this small eatery in Linking Road called Just Around the Corner. The salad bar was commendable. I mean even C, who is a veggie, had a whole lot of options.

I also met an old school friend at the station from where I took a train back home. That was the night we left for Bombay in a Volvo from the Andheri highway.

That was one journey that started out with giggles and more giggles and yet more giggles when a man and his girlfriend –both of whom were dopeheads – got onto the bunk atop us. Hold on…it was not us who were doing the odd girly giggle. It was them.

Oh how they giggled after they had drawn the curtains. It made everyone squirm in their pants. It made us giggle too till it got pissing off.

In the meantime, I was popping peanuts at an alarming rate. I finished a big pack and got onto another one that was jeera flavoured. It was compulsive munching that refused to be given up on even though it was not exactly my favourite flavour. I guess it was the lack of something to do (the lights were too weak to allow me to read, the conductor took it upon himself to get inspired by C playing music on her mobile phone and started playing corny ones on his own, I didn’t feel like plugging in the headphones). So I was hankering for dinner which finally was some omlette at a small dhaba. Yeah sounds exciting right?*grimace*

While sitting at the dhaba we noticed these three guys – attractive but cocky – hanging around. One of them was particularly weird in light of the fact that he kept going to one of the seats in the place and kept sitting, lying down and putting his legs up in the air. Definitely did not look like yoga to me.

In the middle of the night we were suddenly woken up by the sounds of extensive puking. Something tells me to stop poking my head of curtains in Volvos next time. Because this time when I suggested the guy (that same one of the weird postures) to ask around for some anti-nausea pills, it behove that I also agree to his friend asking us to exchange seats. They were right at the back. Which was really uncomfortable and the air conditioning vent was right above our heads. I froze that night. Nonetheless next morning when the guy thanked me, I could not help pointing out to him that he had motion sickness and that he should have carried appropriate pills with him. His reply made me know that he was probably one of those youngsters who have just started working and decided to bloom with their new-found economic independence.

Saturday morning we were in Panjim. And then delivered by friend S, a casino manager in a five star in town, to his apartment in Miramar. It's very nice -- his place that is. Clean and well done up.

Thereafter started our Goa sojourn. Which I think I will write about in my next post. It’s time for a power nap before we hit the beach.

Lusting for moments long gone

2008-12-22T19:45:00.000+05:30

I am in the mood to write a long, long post. It must be the contentment that comes from devouring a cheese burst pizza and washing it down (if one can call it that) with a bar of dark hazelnut chocolate. In short, the sins of gluttony that I have not indulged in some time.

Life this month has been nothing short of a dream. It has made me believe in a fairytale all over again. Now before you rush off thinking in terms of a prince charming and all, I must pull you back and beckon elsewhere. Some place where there can only be happiness.

Travelling does always tend to make one so beatifically happy.

This time I found romance. In a teardrop shaped island we all know as Mauritius.

I found it high up in the mountains while literally flying up and down rocky and flat terrains on that fat four wheeler called the quad bike; on the beach watching ice cream trucks playing tinkling music pull up; on the bed of the ocean walking in between coral reefs; through the portholes of a submarine watching marine life pass me by while staring at a ship wreck.

Let me confess though that the romance was dented a little when I was informed on surfacing that it was not some wreck lost decades ago – merely the skeleton of a ship sunk specially for the submarine tours.

My first impression when I landed in the Mauritius airport after a seven-and-a-half hour flight was that I was in a little India. There were Indians all around. I even heard a Bengali twosome chattering away. Since I was a guest of the Mauritian Tourism Board along with three of my co-travellers, we were taken care of by the tourism authority. So right from being escorted through immigration to waiting in the premium lounge while our luggage was being collected, it was a smooth sail.

Before I had started for Mauritius, a friend of mine who had come back black but ecstatic from her time spent there had ranted on and on about it. But I was still not prepared for the beauty of the island to intoxicate me so.

Firstly, sun bathing and swimming is not all that you can do here though you could easily spend hours taking in the postcard quality of the blue waters. The hues change. From turquoise they turn pale blue and aquamarine and further into the horizon it becomes a brilliant sapphire.

The point in the horizon where the waves break happen to be where the coral reefs are. The reefs that protect the island from deadly storms like the Tsunami. Here the waves don't crash on the beach. They make love to it, lapping it gently. You realise you wouldn't dread slipping into it even at night for a quick dip.

I was staying at the Le Pearl Beach Hotel (not a high-end option, but at 110 Euros for a night it is well recommended) on Flic en Flac beach. It is one of the most popular beaches in town boasting a lengthy coastline.

The view from my room was gorgeous. It opened onto the pool and a cabana that is right on the sands a few metres away from the sea. Lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves, I could only think of all that lay ahead.

My rendezvous with adventure began on Belle Mare Beach. It was where we donned our swimming gear and was spirited off by a speed boat to a platform in the middle of the sea for an underwater walk in the sea. So there we were putting on rubber slippers while being briefed on how to indicate whether we were comfortable underwater or not (you cannot hear the next person down there). And just as we entered the waters while climbing down a ladder that led down into the bed of the sea, lantern-box like helmets were lowered down on our heads. The water never rose above the shoulders.

Now I have done it already once in Goa on Vasco beach. The waters there were murky because of the silt from the river muddying up the sea bed and therefore all I remember of it is a scary translucence. So as the first few seconds of panic was replaced by awe when I found my feet on the bed of the sea, I told myself, 'At last, the real deal'!

The best part about going for an underwater walk is that you don't have to be a swimmer. Take a cue from me. I can barely swim to save my life. But there I was, walking around attempting to touch the reefs and being thwarted by the safety diver. He did however deign to let us feel a straw coloured, pink rimmed sea urchin that he plucked off the reefs.

In the mean time, another diver gave us bread crumbs to hold out to the zebra fish that swarmed in by the dozen and nibbled at the crumbs with gusto. Let me warn you, those little things can give nifty little nips. I eventually surfaced with a fish bite or two.

The rest of our day was spent at a lagoon island, Cerfs, near the town of Trou d'Eau Douce. A speed boat put us on the Ile Aux Cerfs beach that surrounds this island off the east coast of Mauritius and therein began a surreal experience of paddling in the warm waters of the lagoon and at times pawing through the sand not unlike a crocodile. In fact, in some time the lagoon almost resembled a communal bathtub of sorts.

After that we speed boated our way to the gushing waterfalls of Grande Riviere Sud Est. How beautiful it was, flanked by emerald green carpetted towering cliffs. And the occasional sighting of the white-tailed tropicbird (you see it on the tail of Air Mauritius).

Parasailing over the sea and getting our behinds thwacked at least two dozen times in a minute as we took the tube ride were the exhilarating highlights of that day. I happened to take the tube ride twice over. The second time around I was in expert company – a hot Creole guy with a diamond stud on his nose who did all kinds of feat while all I could do was busy hold onto the sides of the raft.

Lunch turned out to be a lazy island-style, barbecue affair on a deserted patch of land in Ile Aux Cerfs itself. A meal of fish, chicken and coleslaw was accompanied by glasses of the local rosé which was heady enough to make me join the black dancer and sway to the rustic tunes of the guitar and drums played by the locals. Let me observe in between that the Creole men are great flirts. But their language makes it all seem very romantic. The Creole patois is mostly derived from French you see. So when they greet you with bon jour and whisper admiring nothings into your ears, you truly feel like a goddess.

I divert.

What took off the effect of the rosé like in a second was walking back to our speed boat. Somehow we stepped on all these sharp as hell stones. I have never in my life walked on such stinging stones. It seemed like I would never reach the boat that day. On top of that, the clown that I am, I actually took off my flip flops to walk barefoot thinking I could leap nimbly over them. So of course when I tried to push the flip flops back into the water under my feet, they kept floating and floating away!

We visited another island yet another day. The Île Plate or flat island, off the north coast, famous for its lighthouse built around the mid 1800's and still functioning. Apart from that it has a graveyard dating back to the 19th century when people were quarantined there by the British.
Cruising our way to the island we passed the small nature reserve of Coin de Mire (Gunner's Coin). But I remember it as the 'sexy hole' – our catamaran navigator's christening for it -- there being an opening in the side of the steep cliff.

The day on Île Plate was thereafter spent in a hot haze of sega dancing (introduced by African slaves during the French colonial period), drinking Champagne, feasting on lobsters with Xavier Luc Duval, the vice prime minister and minister for tourism. He was very good looking and a flirt at that but it is probably island living that makes even a minister cordial enough to join in dancing the sensual Sega with colourfully dressed women twirling around in their elaborate skirts.

That same day I also chanced to meet Anais who in the course of our conversation told me she had just won the Miss Mauritius 2008 crown last month. So poor thing got very embarrassed every time I introduced her to international journalists as the beautiful Miss Mauritius. At one point she even thought I was a lesbian. Yikes! I almost fell back into the water when I heard that. I had to hurriedly assure her of my straight straight heart.

Our other list of water activities took us to Mont Choisy. Here is where we went for a Blue Safari submarine tour. The submarine dove 35m under water and we stayed underwater for 40 minutes. And as I said the only thing down there -- the wreck -- that caught my fantasy was a faux one!

If you ever happen to be in Mauritius, you got to try out the Blue Safari's other innovation. It is a sub-scooter which you drive 3m underwater in a twosome. It is the brainchild of its director, Frenchman Luc Billard, who has taken out a patent for the sub-scooter. And hey, if you ever want to get married underwater, he can arrange for that -- a wedding in a submarine with Champagne and lunch.

In between these adventurous experiences, we had some cultural and heritage tours thrown in.

Anything historical has me hooked, so it was fascinating to walk through the botanical garden at Pamplemousses where the French used to grow sweet potatoes to feed the slaves with. I would recommend the giant amazon lily pool here.

Now right opposite the garden is the oldest church of Mauritius -- that of St Francois d'Assises. In its compounds, is a statue of the French Paul & Virginie. The plaque beside it was written in Creole which while it sounded so exotic on the tongue of the Mauritians, was hopeless on mine. It fell on Bimal, our driver, to come to the rescue with a translation and say that they were a pair of star-crossed lovers who were drowned in the sea.

Another must-see in Mauritius is a tiny chapel with a red roof in Cap Malheureux, the northern most point of the island where a general landed his troops when the British swooped down on the island. What charmed me was the holy water basin fashioned out of a giant clamshell.

We also got to visit L'Aventure du Sucre, a museum spread out over 5,000 sq m in the grounds of the Beau Plan sugar factory that closed shop in 1999. I had expected it to be somewhat of a bore, but the tables were turned on me. I couldn't stop clicking pictures of old barges, de-humidifiers and bagasse purifiers. It was an insight into the soul of the country – sugar that at one point was its economic mainstay. Now it has been replaced by tourism.

On the other hand was a stop at a shipping factory. The island's craft is to build model ships. You see them all around in souvenir shops but be warned that they fall apart within a short time. But if you get one from a shipping museum like the one we visited at Floréal, it lasts you a lifetime or so they say.

Our other stops: Troux aux Cerf, an extinct volcanic crater which you get to see from an elevated point (it is 85 m deep), the second biggest statue of Shiva in the world at Grand Bassin in front of which one looks like a lilliput (I have pictures to back me up on that) and the seven coloured earth at Chamarel. The last of these had us gaping. It is an astonishing phenomenon what with blue, green, red, yellow, purple and various other shades coming together on dunes. It is said to be an inheritance of the island's volcanic past.

On the evenings that we got free from the bustle of our water sports and historical excursions, we would attend the cultural evenings which were part of the ongoing International Kreol Festival 2008. It was an opportunity to witness rich multicultural performances at heritage spots. Since the Mauritian people are a mix of African, Chinese, Indian, Muslim and French descent, the dance forms reflect each of these cultures.

One of them, the 'Sware Metis', was at the Citadelle overlooking the city of Port Louis and the harbour. The fort which once was used by the British to watch out for riots in Port Louis before the abolition of slavery has now become a hub of cultural evenings. Our evening there was about downing local 'rhum' shots in flavours of coffee, vanilla and sugarcane accompanied by delicious canapés and watching a fashion show choreographed by famous Mauritian choreographers.

The other we spent at the Le Morne village to the husky sounds of the ravane, a wooden circular musical instrument, around a bonfire. Since it was difficult understanding most of what transpired at the 'Sware Tipik' show – it was entirely in Creole – I spent the evening drowning my language sorrows in bread-crumb fried chicken served up with a red hot sauce by an African mamma.

Le Morne however fascinated me with its history. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was once a hideaway for runaway slaves. The story goes that once when the police travelled to the rock on Le Morne to let the slaves know that they were free, the slaves misunderstood them and jumped off the gigantic rock to death.

If there was something of the old to savour, there was something new to try out. My date that night was this incredibly hot Mauritian, married sadly.

To get back to the nightlife in Mauritius, it is mostly concentrated around the Grand Baie area. My hotspot on that Friday night aptly enough was the Buddha Bar which sizzles during the weekends. The music varied between R&B and Techno and while dancing I observe that there were quite a few kids around. The other nightclub which caught my eye was Les Enfants . I didn't get to experience it though. Gotta keep something for next time, right?

One of our final adventures was walking with lions and petting cheetahs at the Casela Bird Park in the Black River district. Let's say it is an experience of a lifetime. There are very few places where you can settle down next to a lazy one-year-old cheetah and feel the joy of him purring and turning over his belly to you to be stroked. The one who charmed me was Bwana. He was too big to be brought back home or I surely would have risked it!

The encounter with the lions even though they were only 6 month old cubs – Chiara and Kimba – were less personal. We did get to walk with them over a long trail that passed through a leafy glade and a gurgling stream but we had to be on our guard. They were pretty frisky and even though small in size compared to a full grown lion, their paws would make you think twice before getting too up and close with them.

All this was topped off with quad biking in the mountains at Le Domaine de l'Etoile, one of the largest estates on the island. It has rich birdlife, lush valleys, and vanilla and coffee plantations.

After a brief session of archery and a typical Mauritian meal, I sat at the helm of a quad bike with aforementioned hot Mauritian as my pillion rider. What a ride it turned out to be. I had the thrill of flying over the mountainous and flat terrain, but overconfidence often gets the better of you. That is when you ram into the bike ahead driven by a honeymooning couple.

It took a split second for it to happen. I guess that is how accidents take place. Oh how I wished at that point as the in-charge barked at me that the red earth would just open and suck me in. It was an awful moment that lasted for the next half-an-hour. I could barely talk and when I had to, I would sob. I guess it was the shock and the fact that something could have gone terribly wrong had the couple hurt themselves bad. It made me wonder of all the times I have been quick to shoot off my mouth and spew venom at people who cause an accident.

But the hurry of returning to the hotel, packing for the flight that night while also getting ready to dress up for the evening kind of took away my troubled thoughts. And while I walked to the all-night concert near the Le Caudan Waterfront in the city of Port Louis, I could feel the tension ebbing away from my shoulders.

As I write about it, I can say that nothing gladdens the heart more than to dwell on beautiful moments.

With all the sun and the salty air, I was the girl on the beach with a golden brown tan and more. My knees are skinned, my feet are sore, I look nothing less than the smoked marlin I had the last day there.

But I wouldn't have exchanged it for any other experience – romancing the island and having it romance me back.

When it's time to open the door...

2008-12-18T16:06:00.000+05:30

I am awake, Divya. Here's to waking up from a deep slumber.
Once in a while it feels good though. I guess I was busy turning life’s pages…

Divya's tag stated two rules:

Firstly this that I tag five people all of whom have to respond to it. And that none of them can tag me back or anyone who has already done it.

Secondly, you do not like any question here, make your own.

It starts now:

1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be?
Castrate him. To which effect I would have to always keep myself armed with a huge pair of gardening shears. So let’s say this was a knee-jerk reaction.

A more real reaction? I would want to know why. Then walk out the door (Of course, these are all hypothetical. I hope the day never arrives for me to find out what my really real reaction would be).

2. Whose butt would you like to kick?
One who takes the high moral ground. If anything, I have realized with time that it is easy to judge. Try walking in one’s footsteps.

3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Ah this one makes me giddy with anticipated delight.

Let’s see: Own a shack on the beaches of Goa (nowhere else would do for me), spend six months tending to the shack and spend the rest of the year in a villa in Italy nestled among luscious wine groves.

4. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Why not? If I could, I would.

5. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
To love someone and be loved in return is so rare. It is something that is so blessed.

6. How long would you wait for someone you love?
An eternity.

7. If the person you like is secretly attached, what would you do?
Secretly attached to whom? Me? Why, I would swoon with happiness and then get up on my feet and land a slap on his face. What was the point of keeping it a secret, eh?

8. What takes you down the fastest?
Thinking. Often over trivial details. And yes, a bad tummy!

9. Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time?
In a beautiful little villa on the beach making home and working from home. I want my home to be my universe and the universe to be my home, let’s say.

10. What's your fear?
To be alone all my life.

11. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
I am greedy. I want best of both the worlds. So I will compromise a bit here. Married and 'well-off'…

12. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who would you pick?
Oh bugger! I would be singing Torn Between Two Lovers…

13. Would you give all in a relationship?
There’s no two ways about this!

My all.

14. What's eating you now?
Is he in earnest when he’s writing poems for you…

And here are the 5 I want to tag:

Sonia
ABY
Saltwaterblues
Nish
Essar

Are we really sensitive, 'hypo' sensitive or simply 'hyper' sensitive?

2008-09-30T01:07:00.001+05:30

I have been thinking about it for quite a few days now.

I know the blasts happen to be quite a clichéd topic for most of us. I mean they are happening so often that you would be forgiven for describing them as ubiquitous.

What made me actually start gathering my thoughts here is coming across two things today.

First of all, I had a packet of food with me this evening to give away to some needy person on the streets. As usual, whenever I have such a packet, I never meet anyone to hand it over to. So I gave it to my auto rickshaw driver and asked him to pass it on. Now the packet very obviously contained food, it smelt of food and was kind of squelchy soft. But given that he seemed so suspicious, I even asked him to check it. But the man wouldn’t just take it.

I mean this is exactly what the bastards planting those bombs want. They have succeeded.

But then at night I was reading Sunday’s paper (I sometimes do a Mrs Thurlow – the ox-like character from Bates’ short story The Ox if you happened to have read it – who in her leisure time read up old newspapers) where there was a guy’s account of the September 13 blast at Connaught Place. Of how he saw people coming out to help the injured. Of how he saw a sardarji with his brand new car giving a left to the blood-soaked injured. Someone apparently pointed out to him as to how his car was getting soiled to which the sardarji replied that he would rather give it up 50 times over than not do what he had decided to do.

In the meantime, I have had friends whose reactions have absolutely stunned me. One of them actually said this to me that the day the bombs went off in the GK market, she was 40 minutes away in the Priya market complex. The next day she was getting drunk and announcing to me on the phone, “AB, I am celebrating the fact that I am alive!”

There also remains the fact that while I was very shaken that Saturday about the blasts and getting very hyper about my conversation with the above-said friend and others like her, this Saturday I was calmly taking in the news of the fresh blast in Mehrauli. Is it a calm acceptance of things as they are or it it about losing sensitivity somewhere?

It's weird to look back at myself then and myself now.

I am rambling. The midnight-effect.

It doesn't sink in...

2008-09-21T04:25:00.000+05:30

It’s been four days since Mr S died. He of the sandwich-that-everyone-I-know-has-had-it-swears-by store, he of the lender-borrower of David Baldacci thrillers and Amitav Ghosh novels, he of the one always eager to discuss everything from the blasts to the crisp burgers he specialises in.

On Wednesday morning I stepped out to buy a pack of muesli loaves for my colleague. N store but was shut. I was astounded. Never had I seen it closed before except on sultry afternoons. ‘Oh god, is it something to do with Mr S?’

The owner of the store next door happened to be standing outside. I asked him, ‘Uncle, what happened? Why is it shut?’ To which he said, casually, ‘Oh the owner, that old man, he is dead.’ His helper boy gave me a grin.

I walked away.

Today, the same next-door-store uncle informed me it was a heart attack. ‘You know it happens. People die all the time. And heart attack is such a common thing really. Which is why I say, let us all be as de-stressed as possible,’ he smiled as he looked askance at this delivery man who kept nodding his head vigorously in agreement.

I met Mr S two years back when I shifted to this current flat of mine. My colleague’s husband, a food critic, had ranted about his sandwiches and described it as a local Pop Tate’s kind of a hangout. So soon I met him.

An ageing, portly man with round-rimmed glasses and a mustache that was curiously balanced midway between his nose and upper lip; it was trimmed so well that it did not actually touch either of the above mentioned features, it hovered between them oh so carefully (Ignore this weird fascination if you will. But I have this thing for observing different kinds of mustaches. If any of you ever read this short story while in school where in a particular village the caste and importance of the men were determined by the mustaches they sported -- lion mustaches, tiger mustaches, mousy mustaches and the like -- you would pretty much get the crux of what I am babbling about right now).

The moment he heard about what I do for a living he was respectful. I mean I was touched. You can see when one is genuinely nice.

With time I realized that he was an ardent reader. We became book pals. While initially I was just the lender, soon he started lending me books after he had taken permission from their owners. If a particular book of mine appeared to be in not great shape, he actually got it bound nicely so that the pages wouldn’t pop out. Further the covers were always in well wrapped in transparent plastic with no brown cover or so to take away from it. I remember the day I got back an Amitav Ghosh copy in a better condition than I had sent it out, I consciously deemed Mr S worthy of my books.

The last book I had borrowed from him was A Song for a Pagan. A travelogue by this fellow called John Bealby on his journey across Delhi, Pakistan and Afghanistan to discover little known places like Nuristan and Kafiristan in Afghanistan. Mr S had started reading it I remember when I spoke to him last on Friday evening. Did he get to finish it?

The store hasn’t opened till date. I wonder what will it be like to enter it when it does. To not see him at his usual place by the counter inside the store. To know that he will never be there.

O sylph dear, where art thou?

2008-07-28T17:24:00.000+05:30

Though I have been faced with my share of fat luck, I think two huge thaalis of Benarasi food made up for it. If it can be considered as some kind of making up for having one's mobile phone stolen.

Life and it's small ways of making you feel better.

The afternoon started off with me sitting at a table in a hotel with this food critic. In a way it was fun (moments when she bitched about a person not very close to my heart either) and informative (she had a lot of little tid bits on different kinds of spices, different ways of cooking and the like), but then it went on forever. I thought at one point that I would fall asleep on the table. Which was also probably because all the dishes with the exclusion of none were cooked in desi ghee.

We were supposed to guzzle on Banarasi Lassi and Godaulia ki Thandai to begin our lunch with. But I am glad I resisted. Or I would not have been able to nibble on anything that followed. We thought we were clever and ordered a tasting menu kind of a thali even for the starters which promised us Kaashi Ki Chaat. In it came a whole lot of chaats. Dahi Palak Ki Chaat, Matar Tamatar Chaat, Chidwa Mattar, Khasta Matar Chaat, Makuni Bhaji and Hari Matar ki Chaat. Lipsmacking!

Next came another thaali of supposedly tasting menu samples of the main courses. It was of course Indian-style tasting menus. Large bowls with generous portions of Punchmel ki Daal, Aloo Dum Banarasi, Konhara Channa, Besan ka Khadra and Nimona. As I dabbed and dipped my puri and crisp Sattu ka Parantha in the bowls, I marvelled at the taste of home-cooked food. They were made without garlic and onions by this maharaj from Benaras. I have never had Satvik food . So consider me a convert.

There was quite a bit of similarity in the kind of dishes that they served with those from Bengal and Bihar. The Besan ka Khadra was ala my Bengali favourite of Dhokar Dalna. The other interesting items were the Konhara Channa that was a preparation of kaashiphal with black channa and put me in mind of my ma's kumro with kalo chhola (mashed pumpkin with black channa). The Nimona sounded like a sultry piece of thing/a medicinal thing (take your pick) but turned out to be a dish of greenpeas simmered to a thick daal-like consistency, with little cubes of potatoes and daal vadis peeking out.

At the end of it, when we were served the syrupy and crumbly Kheer Mohan (a close cousin of the Bengali Raj Bhog), the crisp Laung Lata (Bengali Mohan Bhog counterpart) and the Kamal Gatte ka Halwa (quite as delicious as Moong Dal ka Halwa, but made from lotus seeds), I realised that however clever I think I am being when it comes to asking for small portions, my pit-like stomach always gets the better of me. Always.

And to go back to my bit of bad/good luck. I choose to see it as a piece of good luck now because it gives me the chance to go for a better, new one. Bad luck to the one who stole it. May he experience the devilry of my phone*evil cackle*

It happened yesterday after an evening of loitering around with friend S in a mall. I was particularly enjoying my stint in a small Miss Jo shop trying out different kinds of wigs. And craving for an electric blue, waist length one which I would have definitely bought had it not been the end of the month. I could visualise shocking the wits out of my bugging relatives during the pujas three months away besides of course making my boss's eyes bulge out. After some clowning around, a lot of window shopping, we -- S and me -- got down to a spot of serious expensive shopping at the FCUK store.

It was only when I was seated at a coffeeshop and rummaging in my bag for it that I realised it was in the changing room of the store. So therein lies the story of the stolen phone. That has gone away for good. And in the aftermath of which I have been lying awake all night trying to figure out when it would turn 6 so that I could rush to the gym. I woke up at 10.

The Champagne Buzz...

2008-07-25T01:23:00.000+05:30

is quite zzzz...I mean I am quite zonked out and happy. I just winded up the rather late evening with three gooey brownies and a cream-laden profiterole. And I was greedy enough to run back for a helping of the wedding cake.

I also think I am feeling the beginnings of a sore throat *note-sip on your favourite caramel cappuccino right from morning till noon*

But I am grinning as widely as a Cheshire Cat. Seven glasses of Champagne count, right? For once however I supplemented it with a generous helping of batter-fried chicken drumsticks done crisply to an oily perfection. They were balanced out by bland cheese and jalapeno croquettes.

It was colleague H's wedding reception at a farmhouse.

We entered early, so everything was pretty quiet. Made friends with the place and the people who were there (who happened to be the bar men) and settled down with our respective glasses.

For a while I remember subsequently gabbing away with Jabberwocky about books. It felt good. I wished randomly and suddenly that I had a library room here in my rented flat in Delhi as I have back home in Calcutta. I miss it.

Ok, but I am back. I have to be back. Living in a fool's paradise does not work.

The evening was beautiful. H was glowing and looking beautiful as she stood elegantly dressed in a cocktail dress and stood by her husband's side to usher us in. A slight breeze ruffled our hairs and dresses. Then this crooner and her guitar-strumming partner took their positions on the dais and turned the night into mush when they started on with their love songs.

I could close my eyes and see myself by the sea lying back on one of those lounge chairs, feel the salty taste on my lips and the cool breeze sweep through my being. Or slowly walking by that vast inky darkness. And I knew then as I have before that I have to have my wedding on a beach just like this. With music in the background and guests all chilled out. Not bothered about how heavily dressed they are, where is the sari from yadda yadda but how the evening promises to move ahead in a haze of happiness with dancing, drinking and eating.

Will I ever get it?

Miles and miles hence you will end somewhere!

2008-07-23T22:46:00.000+05:30

Tagged by ABY!

I like tags by now. They make me think of things which I probably don't get to think of otherwise. This one is about reminiscing and hey, nothing beats a touch of the past to make one happy. So I will make it 2 posts per head.

But there's just one hitch. I cannot master the art of linking, so I guess I will be pasting all the related posts following this. I believe this will be one long long post!

Family

Ah my family. Now I have written about them in fragments really. But this was the one post that I found brought back some happy and funny memories for me from the puja of 2005. That year it was in October. So I returned and here's my post from October 25th.

Homecoming

Well I am back. Two weeks of home was bliss.

The smell of the dhuno, the bhog, the smell of homecoming - I was so glad to be back in Calcutta.

We have a family puja which is some hundred years old (my father, heaven forbid, if you get him started on it will give you the history as vividly as possible and bring out the family tree chart as well). We rotate the Durga Puja among three houses, ours being one of them. But this time it was at an uncle's place.

I rediscovered many things at the puja. Amongst which foremost was a crush on a cousin. A distant one - may I point out! I still feel the same way and I was strongly tempted to talk to him about it. Thankfully this time I let my impulse take a back seat.

In the same house was my aunt's husband who is bedridden. He has cancer. From a healthy good looking man he has been reduced to what I cannot even call a shadow of his former self. His daughter has come down from the States to be with him. Apparently she has been crying all the time, so her husband sent her back. The aunt couldn't even smile properly when she met me. I felt like hugging her and telling her everything will be okay. But that was the one thing I just could not do, could I?

On the second day of sapthami I realised that I was only the youngster around. Otherwise it was only my parents, and my uncles and aunts. Would my generation ever take the pains to carry on this tradition? Seems highly unlikely. All my cousins are abroad and scattered in different parts of the country.

The relatives were highly flattering though. I was a major celebrity among them. "We read you every time and wonder how you know so much!" By the end of it my jaws were aching with smiling. Next they leapt on to what is their favourite territory. "Have you found a guy for yourself? What is it with you girls that you do not want to get engaged?" asked aunt A whose daughter N is the same age as me and studies in London. "I am telling you what I tell N. When you have a slim waistline, guys should fall in line. Is it that you don't want to commit?" she asked.

And she launched on to a story. She recently visited N and was very excited about her male friends. "It was a reunion. The first guy whom N hugged and kissed was this really good looking guy called Simon. I was excited. She introduced me to him and then his girlfriend. Some time later she hugged another guy, Paul, and told me he was a very close friend. He was not bad looking and I tried hard not to raise my hopes. She introduced me to his parents and siblings. I thought this is the one. Till another guy came along and she introduced him as Paul's partner." What was aunt A getting at? Get yourself a guy.

My parents did the best they could to remedy that in their own way. On consecutive days, there were two guys, AG and AGT, to see me along with their family. With the two meetings coming to an end, I have realised that I don't want to get married in this way.

Being asked what I cook, why my Bengali has an accent (I don't. AG's father insisted I had. I didn't bother to argue after a point), why I want to get married (I replied very honestly to this. My parents want me to, I said. AG was of course not happy with it), what I had talked about with the guy can you believe this? AG's uncle asked me this. And I rattled it out.. what are my working hours, what am I looking for in a guy, why I want to marry blahblah. Till the uncle looked at me and said you are a quite a child. I was pissed).

AGT was nice but I got brotherly vibes from him. My mum couldn't believe this. "You can adjust," she said. I couldn't think of either as my partner. My folks were very disappointed. "Mamma, do you want to look for yourself? Is that it?" my father asked in a concerned manner. And then, "How do we say no to them now?" But there's always a way out. My father has figured it out by now. Besides the boy and boy's family meeting girl sessions I endured, I did something I have been obsessing about. I had KFC. I overate till I felt sick.

And I went cycling. The weather towards the beginning was fabulous in Calcutta though a bit humid. But once I was on the cycle, I felt the world was at my feet. It felt so right.

All in all I was the perfect daughter (I did not fight for a single day). Except for the last day when I fought with them. We did make up before me leaving however.

Funnily I didn't feel much homesick after reaching Delhi. The weather is perfect. It's not so bad to have two homes after all.

This second post on my family is from March of 9th in 2006. It really tears me up.

How many times must a man look up/ Before he can see the sky?

It was my once-a-week home dusting spree yesterday night. And as it happens when you come across photo albums, you rifle through them and feel happy in the warmth of the past.

I have two albums of my childhood with me here in Delhi-- one with pictures shot in Oman and the other in Thailand. Just before this I had come upon something that was written by someone who will always be special in my life, regardless of how complicated he is. I was feeling blue and wondering how things never turn out the way you want them to. A look, however, at those photos of me in my baby clothes posing with my mom, dad and bro put a smile on my face.

Memories kept flitting in as I turned the pages of the album. Dresses which I had a thing for as an 8-year-old -- a sky blue nightie that made me feel like a queen, an orange and brown checked dress which gave me an Alice-like feeling because that was the time around which I watched Alice in Wonderland (I even remember Alice's face right now. Amazing really, given that my memory quite fails me at times, especially when I want to recall the faces of old schoolmates), a frothy lacy pink concoction of a dress that I would always be made to wear for school functions. Maybe dresses fascinated me because I was perpetually in jeans or trousers, often my brother's hand-me-downs. Which is why I guess I am so fond of skirts now.

Photographs of my mother and father - then in their 40s and 30s (they had me pretty late) - my mother young and beautiful with her fair lovely complexion and my father in contrast really dark and robust with the same thinning hair I have seen since I can remember. It was a standing joke then. My bro and me wondering aloud in front of him whether his head ever brimmed with hair. "Yes once upon a time when I was really young," he would say. But then we would come across his black-and white pix and bawl because dad never really had much hair on his pate.

Photographs of dinners organised by my mother. It was a party-like atmosphere in Oman when Indians, Germans, Iranians and Pakistanis would throw parties very often to escape boredom. Mother says there was not much to do. But I was well entertained with what we did - go for long drives, spend time by the sea, climb mountains, or go shopping in supermarkets to stock up the larder. My personal favourite past time though was sitting in front of the telly and gorging on my quota of cheese balls, 7up can watching Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny. And even though I studied there till I was 8 years old, I am surprised to say that I have no memories of studying. Not one! That feels nice.

As for the Thaliand photos, they had the complete feel-good look. The brilliant blue skies, the clean waters, the long stretches of beaches, my mother in her yellow silk sari, me in my polka dotted yellow frock with my four front teeth missing, my father who had developed a good paunch by then and my brother a long and lanky teenager who looked distinctly disgruntled with life at times...

Now I see how things have become. My parents have aged. My mom's skin,which was once flawless and glowing, has developed pigmentation, while my father has become very thin. My brother wants to marry someone whom my parents don't like. There's kind of a cold war going on between them as a result. So when I say this that the time I spent reminiscing made me feel good, I mean that it made all the difference to my ageing 25-year-old heart.

Friends

Oh I wish this day would come back again -- March of '07.

You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful, it's true, la la la la la la

Now to throw some light on the above. I have been on a kinda roller coaster ride in the last two months. Great highs and great lows. But to quantify, the highs have been higher than the lows.

If I start from yesterday night, I would tell you how I had the most amazing time with ex-flatmates S, E and S's husband V. The evening started with S and E making me wait at Sarojini Nagar Market for half-an-hour. After which we set ourselves on shopping, shopping and shopping for 33-100 ruppee skirts and what not. In between, we were caught in this shoe shop (Soft and Sleek -- if you are a shoe freak, you must visit this shop in SN. It rocks and I am not exaggerating), mainly thanks to E. It almost felt like we were part of the staff at the shop -- only we were trying out all the shoes under the price tags that said 150, 200 and 300 ruppees.

Some more shopping and we were finally out of SN. Once at my place, we of course modelled all our clothes and each of us had two more opinions to count on (I shudder to think of my bed. It is a humongous pile of clothes). By the time, we were out, dressed in our respective new buys -- E in her 'bordello' top (an affair in red topped off with sheer net), S in her lime green sphagetti and me in my new tunic -- we were pretty late. So much so that we reached GK and found that we were walking down the middle of a ghost town. It was only 10 pm.

But Gelato Vittorio was open. "You got us here for gelato?!!" the two shrieked. But since it came right at the point through which we entered the market, there was not much choice left for them. I was conned by the guy behind the counter in to buying two scoops of Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch and Whiskey Irish Cream and shelling out Rs 135. "Divine justice," mouthed E and S.

Since there was hardly any dining option, we sat ourselves in Yo China. Where I did an Obelix. As in picked on three plates of Crispy Honey Chicken and ate my through a huge plate of vegetarian noodles. The fact that I could move on my feet after that was in itself a piece of good luck. Meanwhile V had joined us and had what he said was soup that tasted like nothing he had before. It was not a very appreciative comment actually. And E had met her friend who is getting married.

When all was done, the four of us headed to Shangri-la. This time for coffee. I have probably never laughed so much in my life what with old stories and reminiscences of our recent trip to Murud Kashid together. I think you have never heard of any one drunk on chicken. I was. It was so bad that I was planning to rest my butt on a water-filled platform in the hotel. S stopped me thankfully. Thus we ended our night or should I say started today.

But truly, simple pleasures create such great memories.

This second one is special. It is about S's wedding partly on April 12, 2006.

Each day just goes so fast, I turn around it's passed...

The wedding itself was alfresco with a shamiana for the guests and a pretty pink pandal decorated with flowers for the bride and groom. S was wearing a maroon sari with a broad gold belt. She shooed us out of the room where she was getting dressed. I wonder why. Why S?:-)

Mr S's relatives crooned as the ceremony took place. And as the fresh morning breeze carressed us, it felt nice. It was not a very long affair. Soon we were cramming down samosas and jalebis.

Then there was a short Bengali ritual that S and Mr S observed. Where they dipped their hands in an earthern bowl and had to fish out a ring. In the meantime, there was Mr S's Irish friend who sang two Rabindrasangeet songs very softly. Apparently she had picked them up in Benares where she has been staying for some time now. Mr S himself sang a song. And could we resist asking S for the same? Of course not (now if you have known S, you would know that singing is just not her forte;) But it is amazing how family can come together. The minute we started off, S's aunt came in and said, "Ok now it's time for breakfast."

By then all us sari clad women were feeling pretty hot and bothered even though we were inside an air conditioned room. But S's mom and aunt insisted we stay back for lunch. So there we were -- E, B, A (that's Tatonnement) and I struggling to find some way to entertain ourselves. It was a struggle alright but it was fun. The evening reception was fun. S looked very good and relaxed. So we left S very much a married lady now. Now I hear she is having a great time in the South. She's heading next for Goa.

As soon as I landed here in Delhi, it was time for Fashion Week. Jacquards, silks, nets, velvets, balloon skirts, frills, ruffles...I think at the end of three days I was ready to throw up fashion. But it was good to see eye candy material in the form of Suchitra Pillai's good looking firang hubby. The two designers who managed to put a finger on the pulse of the girls in the audience were Manoviraj Khosla and Arjun Khanna. They had only men walking the ramp and after watching just semi nude females, I must say it was very refreshing.

Aha how can I miss out the food that was specially put together by Shikha Sharma. It was all low calorie stuff but I wonder how low cal could it get if you really piled up your plate. The amount of baked fish I had two times a day for the five days can probably make up for the lack of it in my life the rest of the year. What I freaked out was with the dessert spread out there. Blueberry cheesecake, apple strudel, rich chocolate cake, fruit tarts, kulfi, malpoa...the list would run at least a mile long. Lunch and dinner were clearly the highlights of each day for me. I wish my mother could have seen me at work on during meal times. There's no way she wouldn't have done a double take.

Fashion week is fun but it leaves you as exhausted as it can. So I am kind of glad to get back to my normal routine. Except the day we got back to office, there was a fire here. Though some of my colleagues made fun of us for running down with our bags, the same night I caught the Meerut Fire clips on the channels and realised how scary it can be. Especially that our building has no fire exit. Just one entrance. It's liking waiting for a disaster to happen.

Myself

I posted this on April 20 of 2005. I quite think it captures me. My gaffes.

Musings of a mosquito-infested night

Yesterday night as I was being bombarded by a contingent of mosquitoes that invade my room every night, my mind wandered to certain incidents in my life, incidents when I found myself wishing I could wave a wand and undo everything or simply disappear from the face of the earth.

1. Like when I had convinced a friend that he was a nitwit. We weretalking about Egypt. He said it was in Africa. I gasped at his foolishness and said, "O my god! What's wrong with you?" Anxiously heasked me what was wrong with that. I replied, "Well, it's in the Middle East. For god's sake, don't reveal your ignorance to others." Well, I took a peek at the Atlas and I was foolish enought to call him up and admit my ignorance. Till this day my friend doesn't lose a chance of rubbing it in.

2. Last year I had gone on a junket to Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. The PR person took us around to show the local attractions. There was a temple high up in the mountains called Jakhni Mata Ka Mandir. Now when I reached there, I saw these rows of big and small trishuls (tridents). I lifted one and sidled back to the vehicle with it. I was very happy about it. Don't ask me why. The adrenaline was flowing high.

The PR guy told me,"If ever you want to get rid of it, call me. We have a temple at home where we will put it." I pooh poohed him and came back to Delhi only to see my flatmates shocked at the sight of it and warning me that it would bring bad luck. They made a deal. I had to keep it in my room. I was ok with that.

But as I relaxed in my room and read a book, I just couldn't take my eyes away from it. It was thoroughly freaking out. By night, it was out on the balcony. And the next day I called up the PR guy and almost begged him to pick it up from my place. He obviously had a good laugh. Whenever he calls me, even now, he reminds me of it.

3. While I was studying in Delhi, I went back home for the holidays. I went to the library room (the exclusivity of visiting this room is mine, or so I thought) and checked to see if all was in place. It was not. My mother had very conscientiously dusted my books. Nothing was in its place. That's one thing I just cannot bear.

The absence of one thing was particularly conspicuous - a photo frame that displayed the smiling face of a crush of mine (I think of it now and cringe in embarrassment). This meant it was in the safe custody of my mother (In the past, when I was a kid, she would catch me sneaking Enid Blytons and later MBs into the bathroom, where I would spend hours with them. Those books were confiscated by her and gone forever because it was eating into study time).

At night the same day, when I sat down for dinner, my mother looked at me with a suspiciously naughty glint in her eye and said, "Not a badlooking guy at all." I put on the most innocence face I could pull off. But I guess it wasn't good enough.

4. I think this was the worst. I had gone for an interview with tennis player Vijay Amritraj. He was talking about a soap that he had acted in and which ran on the lines of The Police Academy. "Have you watched Police Academy?" he asked. I said: "No. Actually I am not into action." In a matter-of-fact manner he told me: "Well, it happens to be a comedy."

Oh I want to go back to this time again! March of 2006:

Oh to pack my bags and leave again...

Yes my bags are packed and I am ready to leave for Calcutta. Ten days of lolling around. I am so excited.

This is exactly the kind of life I want to lead. Pack my bags every week. Last week this time I was leaving for Palampur and Mc Cleodganj. It was an amazing trip. I can still feel the cold mountain air. Actually I was working on a story and stayed at a tea plantation for a day in Palampur. It was beautiful, the snowcapped Dhauladhars, the gurgling brook in the valley...that reminded me of Tennyson's Brook...you know that poem with the refrain 'Men may come and men may go but I go on forever'.

There was yummy homecooked food rustled up by the cooks at the estate. They were such people. Sarwan and Dharmo. They belonged to the local tribes -- the Gaddis and Dhogries. They reminded me of the good old servants who take care of you and make you feel cherished. Sarwan's gajar ka halwa was one of the best things I had on the trip.

The highlight however was my walk back to my cottage at night from the lounge area which housed a television. It was a Sunday night and I was desperate enough for Desperate Housewives to stay back in the lounge at 10 pm. The whole place was eerily silent by then. Everybody had gone to sleep. Now leopards are commonly seen prowling around the estate. All I could do was sit with an irregular heart beat and check my watch every 5 minutes to see whether it was 11 yet and when the soap would end. It was that bad. I was shit scared. Further the owner had showed me photographs of the British planters who owned the estate in the 1800s. And a picture of the planter's wife who had died here during the devastating earthquake of 1905. I kept looking at the glass doors thinking that any moment I would see a face staring at me. And I swear when I swtiched off the lights of the room and ventured out, I heard a rustling in the tea bushes. That was it. I ran for my life and for the shelter of my cottage.

It did not end there. You see I am rather a coward. I just couldn't go to sleep. I called up E who thought it was adventurous and sounded fun. "It must be good for newly weds. Roam around in the morning and have sex in the evening when there is nothing else to do," she mused. Even trying to read an MB didn't help.

Next morning I set out for Mc Cleodganj where I had spinach and potato momos for Rs 2 each (they were delicious especially as it was drizzling with a cold wind blowing. A monk called Tenzing egged me on saying they were the best momos to be sold there), listened to the Dalai Lama and couldn't make out anything of his Tibetan chants, saw nice looking firangs most of whom seemed like they needed a bath badly, searched for a monk I knew at the Namgyal Monastery but was told to look at the archives so didn't bother, bargained with a ruddy faced Tibetan junk jewellery seller who didn't relent much, sat down in a cafe and enjoyed piping hot coffee with macaroni and walked down to the St John's Church in the Wilderness (where Lord Elgin is buried) and thought I would get raped and thrown down the forest (it was that deserted, on top of which it was a dark and windy day). I did as much as I could do in a day before I set out for Delhi in the evening.

Now I have made some more plans. This time it goes like this: six months of the year I can spend in Goa, from October to April. The rest of the year in Mc Cleodganj.

Now I have to figure out some way to do this.

Love

I would like to leave this one out. But I am writing about sad twists to it. The first post is in June of 2007.

So the seconds went by

It makes you wonder whether you can take anyone at face value ever again. Actually, I just met someone. I had not previously, but I had seen his snaps. For two weeks I kept talking to him on the phone. Daily conversations that would extend to 3 am. He said all the right things. Of course I waited for that toe-curling feeling that accompanied those calls.

And then I met him. He flew down from Bombay.

A brief recap of what took place that evening.

1. The moment I set my eyes upon him, I wanted to let it out: "Err...you are NOT the same person I have been talking to!" The pictures he had sent me must have belonged to his brother. This guy looked at least 40.

2. He was a pansy creature. Too pansy for my comfort.

3. He insulted a girl who was trying to promote some wine to us with the words: "Do you realise you are interrupting an intense conversation!" And let me tell you what the intense conversation was about -- it was about my level of inanity. I was horrified. Next a waiter while passing us by asked him if he wanted another round of drinks. He received no response. So I had to turn to the hapless waiter and say: "Sorry, I don't think he wants anything else." Was he classless!

I have been never so humiliated in my life as I was sitting in that beautiful restaurant-bar. Whenever I asked him a question, he would turn his head the other way, turn back to stare at me and then say nothing.

4. Apparently the fact that I had chosen to simply sip on a cranberry juice had put him off so much that he couldn't bear to order a drink for himself or talk to me at all. And even though he did eventually ask for his favourite tipple, he would not talk. Just stare at me.

I have never spent a more strained 2-hour rendezvous ever. To the point of desperately wishing that anyone, just anyone, would rescue me.

Disbelief, shock, numbness, sadness and an incredible surge of anger that made me want to throttle the guy -- a variety of emotions has been keeping me busy the last two days.

And right now I have one wish -- that I could press the delete button. On all of it.

This was another weird phase in my life around December last year. As you can see I don't have any posts that really scream love. Doesn't it say anything?

How high does the sycamore grow?/ If you cut it down, then you'll never know...

But life is ironic. Things happen which you never thought could happen to you. Some time back I was out with a guy and I happened to meet his best friend, a photographer from Bombay, at a nightclub here. We danced together. That was the first time we had met and I had liked him a lot. It seemed the feeling was reciprocated. He had asked me if I would go out with him again when he returned to Delhi. There were some complications. I was not his friend’s girl or anything but he seemed to have got the impression.

After a long time, 8 months to be precise, photographer guy called. And suddenly at the end of the conversation he wanted me to be his girl. I was completely taken aback. I was floundering like crazy. I did like him but I certainly didn’t see THAT coming. Since then we chatted a few times. But one day I got very freaked out because he was thinking in terms of us setting up house together! He talked of converting for me (he belongs to another religion). On top of that he pronounced some words a bit funnily. And he has studied in a not-so-great college. Do I sound very superficial? It’s just that I do not want to be ashamed of the guy I am with.

One night I told him that we shouldn’t even talk because it would go nowhere and that he was rushing things. He wouldn’t hang up without a proper reason and really I couldn’t think of any except the religion card (which I admit was very cheap of me and wouldn’t really matter much to me). Finally he said he wouldn’t ever call me up.

A day passed. The next day he called. This time he said that he had to meet a girl from his own religion. “My mother and sisters are trying to set me up with her. And you cannot imagine how beautiful she is. You will lose your senses! She is so much more beautiful than you” -- was what he had to say. My reply: “Good for you! Go for her then!” I was hurt. I have never claimed that I am a beauty queen. So I thought that was pretty nasty and unwarranted. He ended the conversation with the fact that he had made up his mind about the girl he wants to be with. Then three days of silence and he called yesterday with a story about how that girl turned out to be pregnant. And how he was pretty astonished about me not calling him once.

Let me confess. I was a bit cranky about the absence of calls or text messages from him.

Right now, I am so confused. I really do not know what to do. I don’t even know much about him. He was supposed to come down to spend New Year’s Eve with me. But I told him not to. WHAT do I do?

Anything I like

I like this particular post. It makes me feel nostalgic and sad but it makes me feel happy too in a strange way. From September 19, 2005:

For old times' sake

On Sunday morning, as I lay half asleep on the bed, I smelt childhood. The smell of Quality Street biscuits. The memory of the round tin with the buttery biscuits that I loved chomping down. It was weird because suddenly I thought of all the people I had almost pushed to the back of my mind, to the extent that now I have trouble remembering some of their faces and names. They were old people I knew as a child. For instance, there was Mr X (just can't remember his name) whose house was called The Haven. It was extremely ironical because his son had committed suicide in that very house. He was a sad man, my dad used to say. But to me he was a friend who used to call me Wax, play cards with me and chat with me for hours.

Then there were my three old neighbours. Their houses are opposite to ours. The extreme left hand side is the only one who is still alive. But Mr D doesn't talk to anybody now. I wonder why. He used to take me to the circus and whenever I used to catch sight of his wife we would wave to each other from our respective balconies with much vigour.

The other two are dead. Sometimes I forget it. And I expect them to be there when I go back. One of them, the owner of the house in the middle (It was the prettiest of them all. It was a small villa with flowers all over), was especially dear to me. Mr S had a swing in his house. And every day at 5 in the evening, I would be there to take a ride. I felt very privileged. After all it was not a community park thing that I would have to share with others.

Except that his dog Pixie was a bit intimidating. Initially she would growl and growl (I would make faces at her) but slowly she became used to me. Later I stopped making faces at dogs. Thanks to my friend Amy's dog Teddy, the hugest alsatian I have ever seen. The day he chased me and my other friend Sudakshina all over Amy's place (I happened to have pointed fingers at him which Amy had told me not to), I lost my fear of dogs. So with time I learnt to ignore Pixie even when she was in a black mood.

Mr S died in London. His mother is still alive and a broken woman. She hates the fact that has outlived both her sons.

Dr D, the third of my neighbours, used to give me medicines on every occasion. When I suffered from tummy aches to when I ran high temperatures. Last time I went back home, he was there. Now he isn't.

I miss them.

And there's a relative - an aunt's husband. I have seen him as a healthy man who would sit back and enjoy his drink, drive around a contessa with much pride. We used to live at the same time in Oman. They returned to Calcutta soon after us. I have the fondest of memories with him. Whenever I would meet him, I would plant a kiss on his cheek. It became a ritual with us except for when I grew up. Their house is near to ours in Saltlake. It is an ornate house with his paintings all over it.

When I was in college, I visited his place and carted out a huge canvas that was unfinished. After that whenever I visited his place, he ask me to bring it back for him to give it the finishing touch. He never got the chance. One day he had a stroke. Now he lies on his bed with one half of him paralysed. When I visited him last October, he saw me and tears ran down his cheeks. He couldn't speak. He had to be fed like a little baby by a nurse.

How things change. And how they make one overwhemingly sad.

The second post here is just a random few things I thought about on the day of June 6 in 2006.

I really can't tell you why I feel so right now, but the feeling - it refuses to go away

*For instance, you can never take anyone for granted. Not friends, not anyone for that matter. There was a time when I thought friendships are indestructible. They are always there to stay. I was so wrong. I have lost so many friends over a period of time. A guy I knew pointed it out and said, "You know, maybe the problem lies with you". Is that true? Because if it is, I wouldn't know how to deal with it. But I do try to reach back to friends I have lost. There's my school friend SK. Amy, me and SK were thick till college. Till Amy decided to go to Canada and I had just S with me. Then a bunch of complications crept in, in the form of a man she is married to now, and nothing is as it was. I tried to call her when I went back home the last time. She was kind of funny and she never called me back. Her husband by the way is a professor I took tuitions from when I was in college. I still think he is a damn good teacher but I have doubts about the human being in there. I get the feeling SK is alienated from everything she is familiar and I wonder how she is actually.

I suddenly remembered a silly thing Amy, SK and I did when we were in school. We had stood beneath a tree outside my house and taken a solemn oath. I don't know if either of them would recall that evening when after an afternoon of pure mirth, one of those days when we couldn't stop laughing, we said we would never stop being friends.

*I have also learnt in these 25 years that the only people who you can take for granted and count on with your eyes closed are your parents. No matter what. For sometimes, I feel, you do need such people in your life to create a balance between the let-you-downs and the never-let-you-downs. I don't know how many times I have yelled at them and misbehaved, but they have always been there. Just the other day I told my dad that they didn't have an idea about my choice. This because he had yet again sent me a photograph of an eligible guy (a guywho resembles comedian Vinay Pathak. Now don't get me wrong. I like Vinay Pathak but I don't know whether I would like to marry him). I felt terrible later, but still I didn't call him back. Because I knew the you-are-growing-old-and-past-the-marriageable-age thing would start again. They have their point, I want to tell them, but I can't help it if I don't fall in love with the guys they hunt out.

*There again, creeps in a disillusionment. Life is not a Georgette Heyer tale, where I could say hornswoggle to a rude duke and get away with it and even win his love. In fact, I have started wondering whether there is anything as the perfect guy out there. They say, there is a right time for everything. But is there a right guy? E says its karmic. Since she's kinda in the same boat, she commented: "We must have been kings in our past life with harems. Hence we are paying for it in this life."

*Brothers change. Mine has changed so much that I can't begin to wonder at it. The same brother who would treat me as a pesky little thing and a plaything to be toppled in her walker, has started treating me like I am his older sister. He relies on me and I think I have let him down. He wanted to marry a girl whom my mother never liked. To cut a long tale short, I didn't feel comfortable forcing my parents to accept it. It was complicated alright. Now my mother refuses to talk to my brother and I feel awful about it.

* There's nothing like young love. I met an old crush, a school friend of my brother's, who used to come over to our place pretty often. I was quite young and head over hells in love with him. Ex crush got married a year back and the other day he was in Delhi. When he called and said who he was, I almost fell out of my chair. We met up. It wasn't at all uncomfortable as I feared. I don't know whether he ever had an inclination of my infatuation, but he was very nostalgic. And for once I didn't feel like saying a sarcastic 'Oh yeah' when he commented to my brother: "AB has really grown up R. God I can't believe it." As he was leaving, he gave me a gift. The gesture touched me.

*Experience has taught me yet another thing. One fine day you just bump into someone you have never thought of laying your eyes on ever again. I have a list of such people I would want to meet and wouldn't want to meet. In the latter category would be rock photographer dude. Maybe I should forward it to my guardian angel and trust him to take care of it. And, oh yes, keep my fingers crossed.

Tags

I am adding another sixth thing. What else? Old tags themselves! I had to do this after I came across this particular post which was in response to a tag again on August of 2006.

Let's decide the time and place

I have been tagged by Sines. But it's a nice tag. It's about the bloggers I want to meet and where I would like to meet them (I have tried my best to link everybody but I am so horribly challenged that I am resorting to italicizing names). So here's the list:

I want to meet a bad person with a nice body and a good head. He's one of the first bloggers I read and a dear one at that. I think I would like to meet him on a train. It would make a dreary journey seem so much more interesting. No wait, I just thought of a much better meeting place - the Gay Pride:) Still not guessed who it is? Why, it's Jay of course!

I love Mint Chutney's posts, be it her post on her eyebrows, her ex-flames or her cute little kids. I have a pact with Mint. She said she's gonna drop off Chutney at my place soon. So I guess we meet at my cubbyhole in Delhi. Hey Mint, I am waiting...

I connected with Sonal when Mint started the postcard exchange. And I have to say that even though Sonal sent me one soon after she got my postal address, I haven't got around to sending her one. The postcard's still lying in my office drawer. That's how lazy I am! Sadly, I can't make it to her wedding. So, Sonal I will make it up by visiting you in Detroit. Promise. And bring the postcard along:)

Now since Sines has so kindly offered to introduce me to her hot doc friend, I would be very rude to refute it, no?*impish grin* That's a nice incentive by the way. At the rate my folks are going, I would jump at the chance. So I will be generous with you -- you get to choose the venue...

Saltwater blues is mad (Swb don't you dare feel offended because with you I can never tell how you're gonna react to something;)). He loves to delete posts and comments, but he is nice. He's going to help me set up a shack. So I would like to meet him in Goa.

I have to meet Sonia. We seem to have a lot of things in common including our parents. We get to meet in Dubai, if I get to go there that is. The one thing I wouldn't go anywhere with Sonia though is on a long drive. C'mmon Sonia you can't blame me:0)

Rat and Penny Lane - Aha the party girls... They seem to be on a constant roll, so our meeting point has to be a party (maybe in Goa). I would love to get sloshed. I would have company I know!Now let's see how and where we meet.

And whoever reads this, consider yourself tagged.

The last one! From September 2006.

Let's tag you

Since I am pretty jobless at the moment, here's a response to Essar's tag.

I am thinking about........opening a shack. If only I could come up with a plan to lure a venture capitalist into parting with some dough. I have the name of the shack as well a theme. Of course t is going to be in Goa. So if any of you are interested in sponsoring a shack, do let me know.

I said.............yes to two partners for the shack.

I refuse...to toe the line.

I want to....get married without any rituals or anything on an island. Cyprus.

I wish.....I could go back to my school days, not for anything else (certainly not the studies), but the lovely friendship I shared with AM and SK. Those morning walks to the Central Park from where we used to come back to my home in a rickshaw and then collapse on the sofa while my mother had hot pakoras and chilled orange juice ready for us. After a short snooze, AM and Sk would leave for home. And the evenings when we used to hang out at Scoop. Those were the days.

I hear.....Let me say that I try to avoid hearing anything most of the time. Nine out of ten times you will find me with the headphones plugged in.

I wonder...What is up with SK. Is she happy with her husband? There's no way of finding that out it seems.I regret....oh so many things. Most of all I regret my impulsiveness. There have been so situations I have wanted to undo -- situations that were a direct outcome out of my impulsiveness.

I am...a dreamer, impulsive and lazy.

I dance...to anything in particular. But not trance. Somehow I can't figure out how to sway to it. And I love shaking it especially when I am high. The last time I really got drunk and danced like a crazed person was at a party thrown by my erstwhile newspaper. Oh was it fun!

I sing...Breathless by The Corrs. I love the feel of it.

I cry....once in a while. When I am feeling real blue. But then again, I do let those fat tears roll down -- when I am watching a film. I can't seem to stop myself:) And I remember that crying used to be a part of my life when I was with my previous office. I would rush to the loo every day after my senior had a go at me and after I returned my boss would ask me what was wrong. He would actually counsel me and say that I had to take care of myself since I was on my own in the city. At times like those he could be nice.

I am not always....finicky. There are some things like a cluttered room, badly handled books and an unlean loo though that can raise my hackles considerably.

I make with my hands....salads and veggy dishes, mostly to sustain myself. But I must say this for cooking, that it is a great way of destressing. On days when I feel very tired, I need to chop onions, beans and let the smell of garlic soak into my senses to feel better.

I write...for a livelihood. And I quite like it except at times when I am feeling particularly jaded or have to come up with story ideas. I want to throw all of it then and poof! just disappear.

I confuse...places when I am home. I don't know how I do it considering I have lived most of my life in Calcutta. I think I know Delhi better. Wonder whether that says much;)

I need...a corkscrew. To open a bottle of Zinfandel and Chenin Blanc that are tucked into one end of a rack merely because I don't have a corkscrew. The last time I tried to pry the cork of one loose with a knife, a huge portion of it landed plop on my lap.Nothing like a tag to bide time. Are any of you as jobless as me at the moment?

I need a pair of roller skates...

2008-07-23T00:56:00.000+05:30

I need them desperately. I wish I had not thrown away the ones I had a few years back. I also wish that I had learnt how to walk around or run around on one. At least it would help me run!

Of late I have had two individuals in my life -- both girls -- who seem to mirror me to the point that I want them to disappear. I am not kidding. And for the life of me, I cannot get over the irritation of having someone (oh no, make that two of them), echo everything I say, adopt my words and magnify them so many times over, that I am left thinking, 'Uh, didn't I just say that?'

A friend remarked that it does seem pretty flattering. I told her to think twice and many times over if she really thinks as such.

So I have been waiting to buy this particular author for a few days. Yesterday one of these ladies was with me as I was about to buy the one copy that I found after days of rifling through numerous book stores. What did she do? She pounced on that one copy! Doesn't matter that she has heard of the book from me. Today she tells the same friend (the one who thinks I should be flattered by the attention) that I wouldn't have let AB take it away from me for the world.

I go to a coffeeshop and a common friend mentions it to the same lady. She wants me to take her there. I go and buy a certain eyeliner. She buys it.

The other one is equally entertaining and as exasperating. She has a fascination for everything 'hip'. Partying in south Delhi, hanging out with 'firangs' and living in Defence Colony! She is fond of me for all the wrong reasons -- because I have guy friends with whom she can party, firang friends who seem to be the new 'in' thing for her and the fact that I live in south Delhi. One morning she climbs up the stairs of our common office building and tells me and a friend, "I have just come from Defence Colony!" with a famous flick of her hair.

Needless to say for a few minutes I was hysterical with laughter. But now I am going hysterical with sheer dread because I meet both items everyday by dint of working in the same vicinity!

Will there be any respite?

Show me those Jazz hands, will ya?

2008-07-15T23:03:00.000+05:30

"You walk like you are out to walk your dog on the street. When you are actually supposed to walk with attitude, one that screams, 'Hey look at me!'"

When my lithe little teacher from the Jazz dance classes (I have just joined) raps out those words and accompanies it with a mimicry of our versions of the Jazz walk she has the 30 of us in splits.

Speaking of which, I mean a split, have you ever done one? Not gorged on a banana split, split on someone or been in splits of laughter. Not those ones ok? A split in a dance!

It is incredibly entrancing watching someone do a full 180 degrees on the floor. But when you are kind of slowly instructed to stretch your legs asunder and sit astride the floor aspiring to a similar few hundred degrees, 'entrancing' quite tranforms into 'nerve racking'.

Pretty teacher made us do one today. She made us hold the position for a few seconds -- that seemed to last eternity. Right then the one thought running through my head was 'I am going to be split wide apart right now, god help!'

My hindsight says that at that precise moment had I chanced to see myself in the mirrors there, I would have been found in a dead faint in exactly that position. Which would have been kind of awkward. I am therefore trying to thank god for small mercies.

Go through a split will you? You can then visualise the traumatised lot that walked out of that huge dance studio tonight.

One of them, by the way, has since applauded herself a few times.

Let's try and fly away

2008-07-11T13:45:00.001+05:30

One of those days. When I feel like running away to a beach town. I can even picture myself.

I am in Palolem lying on a hammock and reading a book. As I feel a hint of a hunger pang, I find myself loping off towards Hi-Tide, a shack where they serve cheap and yet delicious food. I order myself a crusty cheese burrito and a juicy chicken steak. I sit there for hours and let my eyes soak in the shimmering sea. Wash it down with a breezer or two. And then climb up the rickety stairs of my hut, sit on its verandah and doze off while letting the breeze caress my hair. Of course I wake up in some time to the sound of the occasional crashing wave (ok, ok, so Palolem doesn't have that many crashing waves, but make an exception for me, ok!).

I paddle around in the waves for some time. I come upon a firang guy playing some sort of a drum from Germany. People gather around him and stare for long minutes. I video record him (he's cute too) and set off walking down the beach. I come upon another firang man juggling with a baton. Do I video record him also? Yes, of course. I have time on my hands. Time to idle, jump, swim, paddle, canoe, eat, drink.

SIGH

The painful reality. I am sitting at home with a swollen jaw. It's difficult to even clamp the jaws shut after this wisdom tooth surgery. Even now I feel like running away from it all -- the funny doctor who took the teeth out, no, literally dug it out, kept calling me 'beta' even though he himself was young, berated me for having a 'small' mouth that didn't open wide enough, so much so that apparently his needle bent for the first time in his career, him calling me 'good girl' patronisingly. Then this other doctor who was actually supposed to do it -- a rather well groomed and good looking man but without an iota of empathy in him -- berating me for not taking my antibiotics and treating me like I was an item (I guess he had some reason. I forgot my X rays both days that I visited him). The helper who patted me on the head when he handed out an ice pack. Harrrumphh to them all.

I am feeling super cranky and each time I look at the mirror I want to bawl at the sight of this super swollen jaw.

Tagged!

2008-06-18T13:41:00.000+05:30

Now that I am finally over with filing a cover story I think I am dying to do something random. So here I go responding to Male AB's tag.

Ten random things about myself

*I am a very, very lazy creature. When I was staying with S and E, my former flatmates, I had competition though. Serious competition. If anyone wanted anything done or even wanted to say something to one another, you could hear us shouting to each other from our respective beds. I miss them.

*I love doing different things. Since I was a wee thing I have been trying my hand at singing, drawing, dancing, swimming, yoga, tennis. Every time I would join something new, my brother would say -- AB goes swimming, AB goes dancing...I have covered pretty much in the way of entertainment. I am on my way to more -- having given up on Salsa and Jive for lack of a good partner -- I am thinking of joining Jazz classes now besides enrolling for Japanese classes and rejoining guitar and brushing up on my tennis lessons.

*I love getting drunk and then dancing my two feet out. I have been doing a lot of that of late. It rocks. My best memory of drunk dancing though was at Paradiso in Goa. Where I took off my high heels and danced on bare feet throughout the night with cute French stranger. Oh, it makes my toes curl!

*On certain weekends, I love nothing more than to sit at home. Order myself a lot of food, switch on the telly and then settle in front of it surrounded with a mountain of goodies. No amount of persuasion can make me step out on those days.

*I heart reading. When I was in school, I would read books, not my study books, in every possible place. I would even carry them to the bathroom with me and my mother would often wonder aloud as to what her daughter would do for two hours inside. The fault was hers really. She never let me read in peace in my room. She would always pounce on me and confiscate whatever I was reading.

*At one point, I wanted to become a detective. It was derived from my love for reading in a way. I mean not just reading Nancy Drews, The Three Investigators and the rest, but more from trying to recover those confiscated books from my mother’s secret hideouts.

*I have always liked walking. What I enjoy most is walking through woods, importantly not the bear and snake infested kinds.

*Dreaming up new ventures. I do a lot of that. One was to own a shack in Goa. To which extent I did all my research but somewhere along the way realized that I was way short of capital. Another idea, which I think is viable even now, is to sell churros and hot chocolate at Khan Market. Walk around in a maid’s dress with apron and all and sell them churros.

*I love packing a bag and setting off for somewhere. Which is why sometimes I wish I earned gallons of money. Otherwise I am content with what I have at the moment.

*I don't believe in religion. I think it has given a lot of grief to a lot of people. Including my own family. I want to wish it away.

Nine things I wish I wasn’t/didn’t

*Mull. You can say I am a thinker though not like in the good sense. I once met this old astrologer-holy man at my neighbour's when I was very young. He looked like Father Christmas. There was a mutual fondness there. He had told my mother that your daughter likes to think a lot. Sometimes unnecessarily. I think he was so right. I think about so many things and most of all of things that could have been.

*A bottomless pit. There are days on which I am akin to one. I even put my colleague AM, a big big eater, to shame. He has warned me that I might be suffering from an eating disorder.

*I still read Mills & Boons. In a way I am pretty sheepish about it. But I think I can read them even when I am 80!

*I can be very dense at times. I slip into my own world and you have to jolt me back.

*Keep shut. When I get bugged with someone, even though it is my closest friend, I clam up. I get all sentimental and I cannot for the life of me express myself. Really, why is it so difficult for the other person to understand what I am going through?

*Procrastinate.

*Dine on chilly pepper popcorn every night.

*Fight. I need to curb my fighting instincts. I have suffered considerably. Hell, I even got slapped once.

*Behave badly with my parents. I don’t know why I do that. No, actually I do. My mother can drive me up the wall and over it with her admonishing. Every single day. Several times a day. Her favourite topics – her daughter remaining single at the age of 27, the same growing thinner by the day and her son who got married to a girl from another religion. My father happens to bears the brunt of my temper because I get to speak to him after my mother is over with her talks.

Eight things I’m wondering right now

*Will I get to gym today?

*Should I go for the khao suey at Kitchen or grilled chicken in piri piri sauce at Big Chill for dinner?

*What to gift my friend who is taking me out for her birthday dinner.

*Why do people bother to walk into my life when all they want to do is walk out.

*Why don’t I steer clear of such people? It’s like being a moth to the flame.

*Why I hate my job at times when it does give me free time like this to play Text Twirl on Facebook and generally respond to tags.

*What kind of questions is headed way from my editor.

*Why Rupa has sent a colleague bright yellow toffee boxes with Chetan Bhagat’s face on it. And guess what’s in it? Mango Bites and Melodys!

Seven things that cross my mind a lot

*Will I ever get the fairytale I promised myself when I was young?

*Will I ever get over certain people?

*How do I live out the next few days? (I am hugely broke)

Six things Id like to do before I die.

*Live life the way I want to. Umm…maybe I am already doing that!

*Get married on a beach in Cyprus.

*Bungee jump.

*Get to solve a murder case.

*Let my tongue hang in a tub of dark chocolate.

*Own a pretty, little bungalow with bay windows facing the sea and wake up every morning to the sound of the waves crashing against boulders.

Five turn on’s

*Knowing when to let silence speak out.

*You know your perfumes? I am sold on you.

*A fit body.

*An intelligent mind. Do not confuse it with an intellectual one though.

*Knowing how to deal with me when I am cranky.

Four Turn off’s

Oh the usual…

*Malodour

*Contrived accent.

*Lack of etiquette. Let me give you an instance. It just popped up in my mind as I thought of etiquette. I was once out on a date when the guy happened to talk to the waiter like he was a piece of nothing. That was the moment I mentally wished him far away from me.

*Meeting people who love themselves to the extent that the other person does not exist. I keep meeting them.

Three ways to win my heart

*Be patient with me.

*Buy me the usual girly things – dark chocolate, flowers, perfumes… I am easy to please!

*Treat people with the respect that is due to them.

Two smileys that describe me

:D The mischievous me

:-) The coy me

One confession

I cannot stand nincompoops who are in places where they are not fit to be in.

This was fun. If you like it, consider yourself tagged.

Greedy guts!

2008-06-13T11:15:00.000+05:30

I was happy, very happy with life so far. It all started with my trip to Shimla for a story. I got to stay at the Wildflower Hall, an Oberoi resort, on a higher altitude than Shimla in a place called Chharabara. I felt like a princess.

I used to get up early in the morning and do yoga out in the open with only the gushing sound of the wind through the tall cedars and spruces and the occasional twitterings of a lone bird. Thereafter I would go on wild strawberry trails through the woods around the resort. Sip on wine and settle down for long lunches while staring at the pouring rain through the bay windows of the restaurant. Roam around and take in the beauty of the old buildings surrounding the Mall. Or even stop in at a mini zoo and see sloth bears, brown bears and black bears in all their incredible fatness pacing around their pits or just lying around and once in a while shaking their heads to shoo away pestering crows and flies. I found them incredibly cute though the person with me did warn me that they are anything but that. "Once a man tried to shake hands with a brown bear in this very pit. The bear pulled him in and thumped him all around the pit," he told me. I couldn't stop laughing hysterically at the story -- I could actually visualise it playing before my eyes. And the comic element tickled me more than the scary side to it (I know it was not justified at all, but when did we react the way we are supposed to!)

I returned and after zapping in my cover story in a matter of days hurried off to Calcutta to attend my brother's reception. Which however turned out to be a wedding! It was not exactly to my parents liking because my brother went ahead and had a registry marriage. It is something I don't like him for at all, because it has given birth to a very dysfunctional family. And it is very annoying because I am the outlet for my mother's woes. Also I do not happen to be the most sympathetic listener to her.

Nonetheless I did have a good time there because that is where I started my fondue trail at KK's Fusion with a Bourguignonne Fondue (a pot of hot oil on a wicker of flame is served with a selection of marinated raw meats and seafood and it is almost like tapas because you dip the cooked dunks into an assortment of tangy and cheesy sauces) and a Cheese & Spinach Fondue (that was paired with tender kebabs, grilled fish yakitoris and crumbly batter-fried chicken). Along with it I had their Crepe Fantasia for dessert which turned out to be a chocolate pancake stuffed with vanilla icecream doused with whisky and topped up with slices of mango. They flambéed it on the table itself. It was the perfect way to wind up dinner for sure.

Back in Delhi I continued on the trail and tried out some fondues at Mocha. Where they serve the cheese one with crisply done bread sticks and red, deep fried potato wedges with skin. A whole egg also comes with it, with the invitation to scramble it in the fondue. But I am not very fond of scrambled egg not cooked well that remains kind of raw, the way the Swiss apparently like it, so we did not attempt to break it into the fondue. I couldn't stop dipping into the yummy fondue which was as cheesy as it gets with three kinds of cheese melted into the pot. So at one go I was tasting a blend of Gruyère, Emmenthal and Cheddar. We of course overdid it when we chose to dig into a herbed chicken pie as well. But even with our tummies threatening to explode, we did dunk profiteroles, vanilla cookies, Angel Hair Cakes and marshmallows into the dark chocolate fondue they served. My next stop was Tabula Rasa where they offered us a mean cognac-flavoured pool of chocolate. It was right out of my chocolate dreams.

So with so much of happiness in my bag, I guess it was not meant to be that I should have been sitting in a cafe in Mcleodganj, even as I am going clickety clack on this keyboard, slurping hot soup down my system. I had come with packed bags to office to take the Volvo from wherever it started. Everything was done except the booking for the Volvo. Which is where we erred big time and this is the end result that I am wallowing in a well of self-pity.

The bad thing about feeling low is, at least for me, that I start counting all the things I don't have in life. I think about this Bombay guy I really like and I cannot ever have in my life, I think about the unsuitable guys I go out with (I don't know why), I think about my sad family, I think about the official trips I should have been on and wasn't on...the reasons then seem to go on and on.

I guess I am greedy. Greedy for happiness. I also guess that I will have to wait.

Of meeting the writer of Kane and Abel

2008-05-19T14:09:00.000+05:30

I got a book signed by Jeffrey Archer. His latest thriller - A Prisoner of Birth. For which he is touring India at the moment. So I met him yesterday for a one-on-one.

It is funny how first impressions go for a toss.

The day before I was gung-ho after listening to him at a book reading in Gurgaon. He was witty, he was sarcastic, he had a good deal of expressions on his face, he was a good speaker (Add for good measure the fact that Kane and Abel happens to be one of my favourite reads). My attention was riveted. As was that of the rest of the audience of readers which applaused him with unreserved gush. He knew exactly how to woo them all.

With ravings about Indian cricketers to an audience of Indians, you just cannot be off mark. Especially when you say, "I have to tell you all that your Indian cricketers are your best ambassadors abroad".

To top it all, he signed each and every book at the book store and refused to leave till they were all done. Touching.

Then on Sunday morning I met him in The Mountbatten Hall of The Oberoi.I was disillusioned. Not that I mistook him as a man with a spotless reputation. In fact I find men with nothing scandalous in their pasts a tad bit boring!

But what is it with foreigners being patronising about Indians? And paying backhanded 'compliments' about bloody Indians taking over Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge in the next few years? I am not sure I quite fell in line with old man Jeff.

In fact I ended up having mini verbal battles with him. He was expressing surprise about the kind of considerable audience he has in Japan and India. I raised my brows immediately and said, "What is so surprising about that?" He fell quiet for a few seconds and then said, "I guess I shouldn't be." Then he comes up with an inane sentence like, "But I guess you Indians love storytelling and romance?" Uh!

My hackles rose further. He happened to make a statement on women's wants being simply about dressing up well and going out at night. I was astonished and I reacted as such. And to my indignation, he led it off track and said, "Young lady, you are pretty and you dress well. How many people out there can have the same? Come out with me and see for yourself!" I retorted: "My reference was rather about your making women sound so frivolous." (I probably sounded like a feminist). So he pounced back and said: "Why, do YOU like soccer?" And when I replied in the positive, he said, English women care for neither cricket no soccer. What a nonsensical argument it was.

And what a weird interview it was. Where the interviewer was being interviewed as well. My lord insisted on knowing stuff like when I get up in the morning. And took me aside at the end of the interview and rasped, "So young lady, you will get up in the morning won't you?"

Happy days are here!

2008-04-28T14:03:00.000+05:30

My Brit friend SD from Goa certainly brings good times along with him. The dude came down to Delhi for four days. He had already threatened to go Ferragamo shopping here. I had prepared to go into hiding.

But I did not need to. He finally decided to leave brand shopping for his trip back home to
London. But he did haul his other friend AS to go shopping with him for glares. Apparently it was quite a task getting him to pick one. Of course he didn't, because he said none of them was the 'it' glare.

Well, Friday night for us took off at Smokehouse Grill where we ended up in a huge group. There was SD, AS and her friends along with my friend PS. It so happened that another friend of mine was in town and decided to drop in as well with his group of friends. So it was a merry group indeed who got very sloshed when drinks were mixed like crazy. I, of course, overdid it with beer poured into rum n coke and vodka shots and what not. The result: a spinning head, spinning as rapidly as a top, and two hours of sitting in the washroom in an unreal haze.

The next day started off on a note that was not very pleasant. I quite felt like a sick dog at work. All resolves however fell off once I reached The Park at night. To be fair to myself, I did start off with a cranberry juice in Aqua. Then we tripped into Agni and I was seduced by rum n coke. And there I was dancing away merrily into dawn. SD happened to have some friend's friends there who bought us more drinks. They later apparently popped open a bottle of Champagne for him and went off to buy a Rolls Royce!

While friend PS and me drove home in early hours of the morning to catch up with our sleep before we met SD and AS again for a late lunch on Sunday.

As it so happened, sleep was not a sure shot for me. All my own fault so not that I can go into a strop over it. I had switched on the water pump at 5.30 am. At precisely 8 am there was a loud banging on my door. It was my upstairs (very irate) neighbour informing me that the pump had caught fire and got burnt (whisper: I had forgotten to switch off the pump). So there was no water and no electricity!

The entire morning a bleary-eyed AB spent attending to calls from the landlady who is visiting her son in Bangalore. And shelling out four grands to get the pump and electricity wires repaired *SIGH*

Late afternoon me and PS were off to Flavours for a four-hour long brunch with SD and AS. Oh was it long drawn out and relaxing. So we started with chocolate & kahlua smoothies. Our appetizer was a wood-fired juicy pepperoni pizza. After polishing it off, I had to plow through a baked chicken penne while I listened to AS telling me why her neighbours never took to her and her flatmate. AS said with rather a straight face: "First of all, my flatmate is a guy. On top of that, one early morning a friend of mine, a Spanish girl, fell off the balcony on top of the neighbour's car. I think he never recovered from the shock of it."

The conversation was, as you can see, pretty entertaining. PS warmed it up further with our old Times of India stories over a lovely Tiramisu that we all dug into with equal fervour.

The evening finally winded up with a film. The Pakistani film -- Khuda Ke Liye. It is brilliant. Not a film to miss out on for sure...

Now time for me to pop back to file a story!

Holy smoke!

2008-04-24T12:44:00.000+05:30

It's 6.45 am. I am walking on the treadmill trying not to feel sleepy. I am the only person in the gym. Till a plump guy walks in and steps on the next treadmill. "Are you A?" he asks. "I just checked the register and realised it has to be you?" The awe in his voice being quite apparent.

"Uh, yes," I reply a bit cautiously.

"What a holy name!" he exclaims. "My day has been made."

"I am not holy at all!" I bite back. Not that he is fazed out in the least.

He starts quizzing me. Till he knows where I come from, what I studied in college, where I put up, how I travel to the gym, how the gym next to my house sucks, etcetera etcetera. Of course I am informed as to how he is so knowledgeable about my name and how he is a follower of Ram Krishna's religion (never knew it existed!) and is extremely spiritual.

After learning that I have been staying in Delhi for six years now and been working for five of them, he assumes I need to get hitched! "So are you looking at catching a guy?" he goes on. "Because it is essential to get married." That is exactly the term he uses - "catch". I don't know whether to laugh or slap him. So I just assume a poky face and keep walking.

Making a return...

2008-04-19T14:15:00.000+05:30

What do you do when money keeps flowing out like there's no tomorrow. And tomorrow, when it comes, you will be scrounging around for the pennies.

I can see it happening to me.

And I seem to be helpless to put a hold on anything. Well last week, I probably need not have
bought the three saris that I fell in love with at Nalli's. But I did buy them. Then today I visited a dermatologist for some relief from a particularly irritating lip drying problem. Doctor's advise: Do not let saliva touch your lips (essentially no lip smacking or smooching!) To boot that, it came with expensive medicines.

I am hopelessly broke.

So any one looking to help out a damsel in distress, feel welcome:)

Because she has plans up her sleeve. Travel plans to Lithuania, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. For which she needs to save like lots of rupees*sigh* Living is so
expensive.

The aforesaid travel plans have been fuelled by this one perfect holiday I had in Goa a month back. I happened to travel with a girl friend who is quite chilled out and likes to do all kinds of crazy things. So I ended up having the time of my life parasailing, driving all around Vagator and losing our way of course in the narrow winding alleys, lunching in Fort Aguada (which is a must really), rolling joints, dancing all night with extremely cute French strangers in discs and garnering up the courage to give vent to my vocal skills in karaoke bars.

Let me mention this particular bar that we took a fancy to. Cocktails & Dreams in Baga right beside Tito's. We used to frequent it every night (the bartenders knew us as the Delhi Girls). We fell in love with this cocktail called Mr Mesh -- quite a concoction with chillies and Tabasco spicing it up.

If life is lived in moments, then I did have my moments.

A memory that makes me feel all catlike -- an evening in Baga when I sat on the beach, gorging on a chocolate eclair from Mambo's patisserie. I am used to eclairs that have just cream to offer. This one was sheer poetry. It was stuffed with gooey chocolate that oozed out of the sides as I bit into it leisurely and as the sea breeze ruffled my hair, I knew nothing but bliss.

Another was a chance meeting with the French stranger from St. Tropez. As a friend of mine claims, nowadays, all desirable men are either gay, married or they are young. This one was young too. He was just 21, but danced like a dream (and kissed well too). However when he hopped into my friend's car to come with us to the next bar that we were heading to, my friend lost his cool and started badmouthing him. I was a bit taken aback for this friend is a Brit and doesn't usually mind hanging out with strangers as he and his housemate have both confessed to me.

Even in my drunk stupor I was squirming with embarrassment. Poor guy was quite bewildered. But I am glad he still came with us. The third time however he decided to let go because my friend just pointedly ignored his questions as to where we were heading next. So he kissed my hand ala Frenchmen and I left. It was, as has been aptly put by former flatmate S, "like fleeting ships passing by in the night".

Oh, it takes my mind away from all petty problems and just makes me grin like a chesire cat.

Ever wonder what a super duper Sunday is like...

2008-01-20T21:06:00.000+05:30

It is spent at a beautiful house in the suburbs of the city. Like me and my colleagues did at S’s place for a Sunday feast. And what a feast!

Kicked off with barbecued fish, juicy seekh kebabs, crispy chicken drumsticks, spinach pakoras, mushroom and baby corn fritters, grilled cottage cheese, paapris with dahi bhallas. To the accompaniment of Bloody Marys and Shandies.

By the time lunch happened we were already full. The mean eaters we are, we did not hesitate to pile up further on makke ki rotis smeared with generous dollops of butter, daal makhni and sarson ka saag. Not to forget the mutton curry with rice. All rounded off with apple pie and hot gulab jamuns. And washed down with more Shandy.

So there we had the perfect feast laid out for us.

At the end of which I threw myself on the big bean bags in the back garden and soaked up the sun. I had company. S’s golden retriever -- Pollu.com. An adorable, fat baby who lives the good old life of minimal movement – plodding on two steps and eventually flopping down on a chosen spot. Once in a while waking up to watch the world though droopy, sad eyes. She actually cannot run. So when one of my colleague’s kids was scared of going near her, I told her: “Rest assured, Pollu does not believe in chasing anything.” I am not exaggerating. Once in a while though her ears perk up at the mention of mice. You have to meet Pollu.com to know what I mean!

Now the house was so pretty, I was besotted with it. There were lovely warm colours on the sofas and beds, brightly painted walls, ancient haveli-style doors, Oriental dragons, sun soaked verandahs, the occasional nook with family photographs, a corner bar, an entrance with those huge bowls of floating rose petals and marigolds…just what I would love my home to be like. With of course the cute tangerine tree at the entrance, a picture to behold with tiny tangerines hanging from each branch!

I have to be off – for a historical novel wants my attention – but let me add this that those of you who live in Delhi have to try out the churros with hot chocolate in Choko-la, Khan Market. A treat on a chilly winter’s evening!

Let’s see what it means to be living

2008-01-18T20:53:00.000+05:30

How has the year started for you all? Mine started on a bruised note. I fell down on a road in front of my office one day while trying to cross, it in the face of cars rushing in suddenly from a bylane. It gave me a bloody knee, taking me back to my childhood badminton days, days when I often fell on pebbly roads and got scars thereafter.

Though the present wound has healed after giving me a few sleepless nights, it has left patches I could have done without, considering a much-awaited holiday in Goa is coming up.

Just talking about Goa makes me feel so tra la la. If you know what I mean. This floaty feeling that takes care of the cares of life. It’s the kind of feeling that swamped my senses today even as I sipped on reds, whites, rosés and the sparkling varieties of wines at a wine and food show. They came from all over -- Argentinia, Hungary, South Africa, Italy.

I had august company I realized when I fell for the pale amber and sweet Tokaji Aszú. Louis XIV apparently, according to the Hungarian at the counter, dubbed it the ‘Wine of Kings, King of Wines’. I tried both the 3 and 6 varieties which refer to the number of baskets full of rotten grapes that have gone into the making of the wine and thereby affect its sweetness. It goes best with dessert or as my Hungarian friend informed me, “simply by itself as you put your feet up on your porch staring out into the horizon”. Unfortunately I own neither the porch nor the Tojaki *sigh*

An Italian sparkling red wine, the Brachetta, earned me a kiss from the chic Italian lady at the counter. And an invitation to mail her on her personal mail ID! It was as feel-good as it gets. The Brachetta with its fruity flavour was most unlike a full bodied, rich red. Do let a glass of it pass through your lips. You will thank me and hopefully buy me a round.

Another hit with me was the Pearly Bay from South Africa. I had both the white sparkling and rosé Pearly Bays. Both to watch out for. The Argentinian Malbecs and Chardonnays meanwhile lulled me since by then I had tried out innumerable sips.

I did pick up a few tips as well for choosing one's wine. The common ones: Pair the reds with spicy kebabs or other rich dishes and the whites with fish and other light dishes. And the uncommon one: never go for aged rosés. Unlike the reds and whites, they are best had young.

Enough wine talk for a day. And enough wine to drench the self. You can picture that by the time I got out of the show I was blissful as blissful can be. I have been in a happy haze since!

All your baby talk

2007-12-30T20:09:00.000+05:30

A baby is quite a piece of art. Really. That said I absolutely adore the species.

At a lunch hosted by friend C, I met a cute, chubby angel. She looked like a female cupid. The only thing missing was probably a bow and a quiver of pink-tipped arrows!

Tiny brown curls capped an entrancing face made even more charming with pink cheeks. Baby pink was a bonny little thing wearing a pretty pink frock with her fat legs encased in pink woollen pants.

She was a happy child. Kept showing off a front row of two teeny weeny bottom teeth and kept babbling away. Keeping up with her garbled talk was enchanting. But the real task was walking with her. Her father was holding on to her hands while she tried her best to walk upright (she is just a year old, so has some time ahead of her to perfect those steps) when I intervened. And he warned me that I would have to walk her too to be of any interest to her.

So I got up and let her tiny palms rest in mine. Thereafter started a walk which made my back ache. And wasn’t her father glad. He had a wide grin pasted on his face as he said, “Tell me when you get tired.” Now I couldn’t really give up soon, so I had to humour my angel. In between, I tried stopping her and picking her up, but she was adamant. Amazing what will power these small individuals can exert!

Till I couldn’t do it any longer and swung her up in my arms and made her sit in a chair. Whereupon she grabbed my hair and wouldn’t let go.

I wish I earned enough to adopt a baby of my own. I have always yearned for one for the longest time. My mother though always expresses much concern at my train of thought. “It’s time you had a tot of your own,” she chides.

I once alarmed her when I seriously proposed adopting our tenant’s grand daughter H. I couldn’t believe it when she left our house with her parents to go back to Bombay. Every evening after I returned from college, I would rush to spend time with her. Once she peed on me. I was so angry that I did not let her come near me. Served me right when after changing she refused to let me come near her. It was only when I really cajoled her that she suddenly came running with unsteady steps into my open arms. Her favourite thing was to push my chin up and show me the sky.

She had an unusual name and an unusual twin brother too. The latter, a fat little boy with equally fat cheeks, once took a tumble from his pram onto our cemented driveway while I was wheeling him around. I will never forget that day. He started yelling and I started running up the stairs of my house. I got some really huge ice cubes for him which the nanny promptly put into his mouth. He loved it so much that he wouldn’t just pop it out.

That evening I was tensed like never before. I was sure I would be behind bars when he suffered a brain haemorrhage. It almost seemed like my mother had a black tongue. She had said earlier, “You never know when something happens and you will be sitting in jail.”

The next day however the nanny told me, “He fell down again on his head while he was playing on the bed.” Ouch! But boy was I relieved!

“I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes”

2007-12-29T22:39:00.000+05:30

Not that I have a reason not to have my feet on the ground, but those feet savers have never made me feel so good. So I cannot have the Loubotins, the Aigners, the Diors, the Choos and the Blahniks (there's of course the pleasure of just gawking at them), but life never did stop for the lack of 'em, did they?

In two days, I have bought three pairs of boots -- beautiful ankle length booties, a pair of very comfortable Go Gos and one with killer stiletto heels. The inner glow is threatening to overwhelm my being. Isn't it just wonderful to slide your feet into a pair of new shoes and walk out, letting the heels tap smartly on the pavement?

Shoes for me once upon a time translated into a rather unobstrusive leather sandal from Sreeleather or something equally inane from Bata. Now that I look back I wonder how I ever wore them and felt good.

Really if my parents knew how much I spend on my feet, they would flip out and how! So when C spoke of stashing the bills carefully so that her grandmom couldn't come across them, I couldn't stop grinning. The horrified expressions of my parents leapt unbidden.

Little details that I would have made a face at, a decade back, have now firmly made their place in my list -- like those fur trims, cute bows, glittering sequins. If you ever drop by in Delhi and want to check out great deals, do take a peek at the collections of Soft & Sleek (however corny it sounds, the shop has lovely stuff from Bangkok) in Sarojini Nagar Market, The Shoe Garage in Shahpur Jat and Heels in Connaught Place. I promise.

Oh, it feels so good to be frivolous!

How high does the sycamore grow?/ If you cut it down, then you'll never know...

2007-12-20T15:03:00.000+05:30

Life has been beautiful since the last few posts here. Ever since I returned from Calcutta. I learnt a lot too in those days. Like how you should learn to ignore strangers on the road and give them a wide wide berth, if you want some peace of mind. All I do is plug my iPod into my ears and go with the flow of music. Often I sing along. Yes, I am sure I look funny, but who really cares. The thing is we all learn to be happy.

But life is ironic. Things happen which you never thought could happen to you. Some time back I was out with a guy and I happened to meet his best friend, a photographer from Bombay, at a nightclub here. We danced together. That was the first time we had met and I had liked him a lot. It seemed the feeling was reciprocated. He had asked me if I would go out with him again when he returned to Delhi. There were some complications. I was not his friend’s girl or anything but he seemed to have got the impression.

After a long time, 8 months to be precise, photographer guy called. And suddenly at the end of the conversation he wanted me to be his girl. I was completely taken aback. I was floundering like crazy. I did like him but I certainly didn’t see THAT coming. Since then we chatted a few times. But one day I got very freaked out because he was thinking in terms of us setting up house together! He talked of converting for me (he belongs to another religion). On top of that he pronounced some words a bit funnily. And he has studied in a not-so-great college. Do I sound very superficial? It’s just that I do not want to be ashamed of the guy I am with.

One night I told him that we shouldn’t even talk because it would go nowhere and that he was rushing things. He wouldn’t hang up without a proper reason and really I couldn’t think of any except the religion card (which I admit was very cheap of me and wouldn’t really matter much to me). Finally he said he wouldn’t ever call me up.

A day passed. The next day he called. This time he said that he had to meet a girl from his own religion. “My mother and sisters are trying to set me up with her. And you cannot imagine how beautiful she is. You will lose your senses! She is so much more beautiful than you” -- was what he had to say. My reply: “Good for you! Go for her then!” I was hurt. I have never claimed that I am a beauty queen. So I thought that was pretty nasty and unwarranted. He ended the conversation with the fact that he had made up his mind about the girl he wants to be with. Then three days of silence and he called yesterday with a story about how that girl turned out to be pregnant. And how he was pretty astonished about me not calling him once.

Let me confess. I was a bit cranky about the absence of calls or text messages from him.

Right now, I am so confused. I really do not know what to do. I don’t even know much about him. He was supposed to come down to spend New Year’s Eve with me. But I told him not to. WHAT do I do?

Getting festive

2007-10-25T16:26:00.000+05:30

Sitting atop the roof of a truck on the day of bisharjan, I was as happy as a 26-year-old can get. Really the simple pleasures of life such as bouncing a massive balloon back and forth at your 16-year-old cousin and entertaining a 2-year-old cuddly little niece gets to you!

On the way to the bisharjan

The sights enroute were beautiful. As beautiful as they look each year. The Victoria Memorial looking majestic and shimmering in the waters of the lake adjoining it, horse buggies standing by the roads waiting for enthusiastic passengers and Durga idols passing by on trucks with young guys in hordes leading the processions.

And then to return and feast on huge amrittis (imartis), shorshe ilish, aloo posto. Oh just thinking about it makes me feel so contented and full.

We actually have a puja in the family. It's about 150 years old and my father quite likes to boast about how it started off in Faridpur in Bangladesh. So an idol is brought to our relative's home and the entire family gets together during these four days of Durga Puja to celebrate it.

The ladies of our house during shondhi pujo when 108 diyas are lit. The shondhi pujo happens at a time when Durga is worshipped as Chamunda as she is believed to have killed two asuras - Chando and Mundo.

Below are some snippets of my jaunting around the city on ashtami night with friend E and her sister and brother-in-law.

All the way, Ma Durga!

On Vijay Dashami, I made sure that we had a look at the Hogwarts pandal in FD block, near my place in Saltlake. Apparently, J K Rowling and her publishers had sued the FD block association for it, but the association had gone ahead with it anyway. Am glad they did so. It was grand.

And Rowling lost!

P.S.: I got bitten by a dog. By a Dalmation of all dogs! Can you imagine how absurd that seemed to me. It was only after he barked, pounced and bit me (that happened so quickly I had no time to react) that my father said, "He had torn my shirt last time. I told you not to go near him." I wish he had said it earlier because when at night I applied some Homeopathy medicine on the bite and blood kept oozing out, it sure felt like hell. Especially after I had to take a tetanus injection thanks to which my arm swelled to twice its normal size and refused to go away for the next three days. Talk about an anti climax to the friendly 'hello' I sent the Dalmation's way!

Here's to good times!

2007-09-24T21:49:00.000+05:30

Life is strange. It does funny things to you. If it lands a slap on your face, it kind of makes it up for it by making you go places. If it makes you work hard, it makes you smile too. And the happiness kind of makes up for the sadness.

And literally I did get slapped. It happened while I was in the metro station crossing a bridge to catch the metro towards my home. A guy passing me by molested me. I turned back and said, "What exactly are you upto?" The insolent look he passed me just had me fired up. And before I could think, I had slapped him. The next moment I felt a resounding slap on my cheek and I fell down. When I got up, I was trembling from anger and disbelief. I wanted to take him to the police. But he was too strong for me. I actually tugged at him.

Slowly people started stopping. And then from ones and twos a sizeable crowd gathered around me. Out of which a woman came and advised me, "Let them go. You are only making a scene of yourself." A man came up and said, "You slap this guy. Come." I was horrified. It was as helpless as one can get. Taking advantage of the crowd who were standing around doing nothing, basically enjoying the scene of a girl trying to take a guy to the cops, the guy ran away.

For four days I couldn't get out of it. Fat tears kept rolling down all the while. And just like that, on the fifth day, I snapped out of it. Why let a louse ruin my peace of mind after all.

Well, a friend then said that something good will happen to you. Like a junket will come your way.

And voila. It has. A junket has come my way. So on Wednesday I fly to Sri Lanka.

Though I must say I have been getting nightmares that the Tamil Tigers will probably get to know about the Indian tourists who have been put up in X hotel and take us hostage. Or that we will get bombed during our shopping or sightseeing expeditions!

I am sincerely hoping none of the above will come true.

Who says it doesn't get dark?

2007-07-14T12:10:00.000+05:30

I have always wondered what it feels like to fly. My curiosity was sated yesterday.

It happened thus. I was walking down a road in Defence Colony while returning from my gym. I was trying to plug in my headphones, when suddenly a hand shot out from a bike and snatched at my bag. And because they were passing by at quite some speed, I flew in to the middle of the road and fell on my back.

Some labourers working at a construction site opposite came running and asked whether I was okay. By that time, I was up. It was numbing, so that I couldn't even say anything. All I could do was shake my head and just walk on.

Two or three yards away, there were these cops standing by a picket. The irony of it -- they had a bike on them (which they could have kickstarted by the time it happened and caught those guys). What did they ask me? "What happened?" To which I replied cuttingly (as much as I could between tears welling up and making them appear all blurred), "Didn't you see what happened?" Cop: "Did you note down the number of the vehicle?" While I felt like replying that I was busy falling, to see even the guys on the bike or the number, I pointed out to their bike and said: "You could have gone after them." Cop: "The rascals ran away."

The kind of conversation that can only make you feel more helpless and ridiculous. So I got away as fast as I could.

Now of course I am sitting with multiple bruises. Last night all I could do was cry and feel incredibly helpless. Today I have decided to do something about it. Call up the DCP and complain. For whatever it is worth, nothing might come out of it, but at least I wiill have done something.

Didn't I tell you everything is possible in this deja vu?

2007-07-04T12:00:00.000+05:30

The humidity is killing. It rains for some time and, well, everything stays the same. But then have you looked, really looked I mean, at the sky especially as the sun sets. As the rays light up the contours of a streak of cloud. Along with the puffy little clouds floating past on a rather azure blue sky. The effect is of gazing at a watercolour work. At times when I am gazing at such a sky, I feel like going somewhere. Don't know where though. I think if ever one was to grant me my wish of travelling, I would be torn between the places I have already been to and those I have not.

A friend has to do a monsoon story, you know, one of those typical things where you have to ask celebrities what they would like to do on a rainy day. So I gave her my opinion (which she really didn't need I guess) of what I would like to do. Sit on the box seat of a bay window looking on to lush greenery and the sea in the distance while sipping on a mug of creamy cappuccino and snuggling into my guy *sigh*

What would you like to do on a rainy day? Assuming that you are not working or rushing somewhere. Imagine an ideal setting.

The Lord brought me so far, he won't leave me now

2007-06-29T12:15:00.000+05:30

So I spent last evening sitting at home. Munching on a whole lot of goodies -- a medium thin crust pizza topped off with cheese, pineapples and barbecued chicken, a pack of chocolate chip cookies, a small pack of Pringles, all washed down with diet coke. And reading my newly bought copy of These Old Shades (I dig Georgette Heyer for her witty heroines). And a book that starts off His Grace of Avon Buys a Soul is reason enough to get hooked.

Pounding on the treadmill at the gym obviously went for a toss. It is okay to take a break. Hmmm...no?;)

But I am glad that I am back to reading voraciously. Whatever I can lay my hands on. The credit for which goes to Chicken Pox. That much-dreaded disease. At least I have always dreaded it since I was a wee thing. Because I happened to have seen a snap of a certain Guru in my history book whose poor face was marred by pock marks thanks to the fact that he had contracted small pox when he was a child. He had even lost an eye. Thenceforth I have always thought of C Pox as S Pox, even though there is a world of difference between the two. All these days that I have managed to not get the virus is probably because my mum would always put me on a diet of shojne datas (drumsticks) daily with the onset of spring. Now obviously I don't have her here to do the same.

So when the doctor looked at the bright red spots on my legs and tummy and pronounced solemnly that it was "Chicken Pox", I was ready to bawl. The curious thing however was that I had no fever or cough. I was fit as a fiddle. When you are as fit as that, you cannot imagine how painful it is to sit at home pretending to be sick. Only this was no pretense. The damn spots itched so much that I would go out of my mind even when asleep.

My mother flew down, it being barely a month that she had left me to settle things back at home. Parents will be parents no matter what. What would we do without them.

Anyway, this was the time that made me dig out all the books that I had kept stacked in my cupboard (you see, I have this habit of buying new books and saving them for later). A month back I had raided ex-flatmate S's collection. Among which was The Kite Runner. I just couldn't stop reading it through the night. Neither could I stop the tears from welling up as I turned the pages. It was beautiful.

My reading list thereafter included: Shadow Lines (Amitava Ghosh), a few MBs, Second Form at Malory Towers (Enid Blyton), The Mountain of Adventure (Enid Blyton), The Foundling (Georgette Heyer), Family Matters (Rohinton Mistry) and more recently Me and Mr. Darcy (Alexandra Potter). I think I read more than watch the telly.

Meanwhile I had to work from home on the office laptop. So I did not go mad as I had thought I definitely would. Then on the Sunday of the second week, when I couldn't take it any more, I escaped to Sarojini market. Why I use the word 'escape' is because my mother was dead set against me venturing out. And the minute I saw her moving stealthily towards the board where rests my home keys, I ran behind her and we had a mini tug of war (she was planning to lock the doors from within!). Thankfully, my Corey keychain came off the battle san much harm. And I was happy.

Between, I have bought this really tall umbrella with snazzy blue checks from Wetside -- the grandpa variety, complete with a wooden curved handle. I am in love with it. And so are people who come across it. Like my colleagues. They want me to buy it for them. It's a victory thing for me over my mum who insisted that I would look ridiculous walking around in public with a grandpa chhata. I have always wanted to use it for whacking wayward men -- the kinds who let their hands stray.

It was only today that I used the umbrella, to my glee, for the above mentioned purpose. I was walking down the road to hail an auto rickshaw, when suddenly a hand tried to grope my back and a man on a bicycle wheeled ahead as fast as he could. Simultaneously, I noticed a white Santro slowing down beside me and a guy peering at me through the tinted glasses. I just waved desperately at him signalling him to stop the guy.

Which he did! As I turned round the bend, I saw him catching the asshole by the collar and dragging him towards me. I ran ahead with my umbrella. You know what the ass said? He mumbled: "Haat galti se nikal gaya tha (my hand just slipped out by mistake)!" The guy slapped him real hard. And when the man tried to flee on his cycle, I landed the wooden handle of my umbrella on his back with a crack. Ooooooh how I loved it!

I was very keen on taking him to the police station. But then I had an appointment for a hair cut. The real hero, however, was the guy in the car. I thanked him profusely.

And when I turned to the auto wallah, who was sitting there watching the entire drama unfolding before his eyes, he agreed like a meek cow to the price I quoted without a word. Oh, the ways of the world!

Go West Where The Skies Are Blue

2007-06-28T12:23:00.000+05:30

It's raining so hard. I wonder whether it will ever stop.

Inevitably I was caught outside, sulking at the stand, waiting for my bus. My saviour was my colleague P who happened to be passing by. As I scrambled in beside her, she said, "You don't how many jealous eyes followed you as you got into the car."

And now that I am in office tucking into a plate of puri and sabzi with great gusto, I am feeling all warm and happy. I guess it doesn't take much to feel happy. But then at times, those same little things seems so insignificant. Like yesterday evening I was happy for no reason whatsoever as I was walking down to the gym. But then I looked into the mirror in the gym and wanted to just disappear. An hour of cardio was showing in my trousers! Eeeks!

At that moment nothing seemed to matter but the fact that my part of my bums and the sides of my legs were wet. All I could do was bug gym friend S. Till at last she said it: "If you are uncomfortable, go home." That convinced me. Flinging my towel into the nearest basket I scampered out.

It was sweat. I know. Just sweat. So big deal. But the sight of it was mortifying.

And now I don't feel like going to gym today.

So the seconds went by

2007-06-25T15:53:00.000+05:30

Happiness is so transient. Just when you think that something good is finally happening to you, the kind that you hear happens to others, it all ends with a bang. But this I have come to believe from this particularly mind numbing experience that please do not take away from anyone her right to truth.

It makes you wonder whether you can take anyone at face value ever again.

Actually, I just met someone. I had not previously, but I had seen his snaps. For two weeks I kept talking to him on the phone. Daily conversations that would extend to 3 am. He said all the right things. Of course I waited for that toe-curling feeling that accompanied those calls.

And then I met him. He flew down from Bombay.

A brief recap of what took place that evening.

1. The moment I set my eyes upon him, I wanted to let it out: "Err...you are NOT the same person I have been talking to!" The pictures he had sent me must have belonged to his brother. This guy looked at least 40.

2. He was a pansy creature. Too pansy for my comfort.

3. He insulted a girl who was trying to promote some wine to us with the words: "Do you realise you are interrupting an intense conversation!" And let me tell you what the intense conversation was about -- it was about my level of inanity. I was horrified. Next a waiter while passing us by asked him if he wanted another round of drinks. He received no response. So I had to turn to the hapless waiter and say: "Sorry, I don't think he wants anything else." Was he classless!

I have been never so humiliated in my life as I was sitting in that beautiful restaurant-bar. Whenever I asked him a question, he would turn his head the other way, turn back to stare at me and then say nothing.

4. Apparently the fact that I had chosen to simply sip on a cranberry juice had put him off so much that he couldn't bear to order a drink for himself or talk to me at all. And even though he did eventually ask for his favourite tipple, he would not talk. Just stare at me.

I have never spent a more strained 2-hour rendezvous ever. To the point of desperately wishing that anyone, just anyone, would rescue me.

Disbelief, shock, numbness, sadness and an incredible surge of anger that made me want to throttle the guy -- a variety of emotions has been keeping me busy the last two days.

And right now I have one wish -- that I could press the delete button. On all of it.

Such are the ways of the world

2007-04-19T17:22:00.000+05:30

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.

Come sing along with me

2007-04-18T14:57:00.000+05:30

*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.

Random ramblings for the day

2007-04-10T15:18:00.000+05:30

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?

A post-dated colourful tale

2007-03-13T17:19:00.000+05:30

Yes, it's coming a tad bit late. But what the heck, I have got to share my exhilaration with you. If you remember Holi was celebrated in Delhi on Sunday...On Friday night, I was buying film tickets for Eklavya at a theatre in West Delhi along with friends C and T. T's husband P was in the process of parking the car.

Now C expressed her fascination for a certain pattern on the shiny granite floor outside the counter. In two minutes, we realised that it was actually water that had assumed an arty tree-shape and that it was the result of some people thowing water balloons at the people queued up at the counter. Mind you, they were all grown-ups laughing loudly and taking potshots from a first floor balcony right opposite the counter.

I was in a very tra-la-la mood. Just two days back I was in Bombay and the feel of the city was still fresh in my mind. You could say that at the time I was in the Bombay-state-of-mind. And there was a perpetual dreamy smile on my face I guess. That made my friends grin too.

All was fine till I felt and heard a splat sound on my trousers.

I dialled 100. The first time I explained the whole thing for a long time to the cop. Midway he hung upon me. The second time I called, I made a point to tell this other cop that I was from the Press and I wanted them to come and do something about the matter. "Madam, aap rickshaw walle bhi hote to hum aate," he said. I felt like retorting, "And pigs can fly!" ( a trademark line of mine that comes out very often whenever I express disbelief). Difficult it was, but I had to suppress this particular expression and say, "Then just come and prove what you said."

Meanwhile, I was dying to do something about it. I was not sure that the PCR would arrive. I asked P where the police chowki would be. He did and before he could ask why, I was stalking off to the chowki along with C and T. We found two constables, whom we immediately dragged along with us to the house. While we were thus stalking towards the house suddenly I was thrilled to see a huge group of cops coming towards. So there we were -- proceeding towards the house in full strength. I vaguely remember the sounds of people clapping at the counter.

The entrance at the house was so dark that for a moment I faltered. The stairs looked exactly like they would lead us into a dungeon. Anyway, when we reached the door of the 'perpetrators', we found that theywere seated for dinner. The expressions on their faces were what I wish I could have captured on a camera. Because you have to see to believe how the guilty can pretend.

Initially there were two teenage boys and their mother (she had been standing and laughing at the spectacle of people being bombarded) who kept insisting that they had no idea what we girls were talking about. Then when the cops collared one of the guys, she caught hold of my arm and said: "You are doing something very wrong. When we go to the market, people throw stuff at us also." To which I said: "Then you should do something about it." And then she said: "This is going to come back to you..." and went on and on. I was furious. From somewhere this fat middle-aged Punju aunty emerged and started convincing C that she is her 'dadi'. C, being a sweet natured person, was nodding her head. While I said, "Dadi? Which dadi?"

Soon the cops hauled the guys downstairs on to the road where there was these mohalla wallas had gathered to partake of the 'fun'. One of them in an abhorring black shirt with loud silver sequins took my breath away. And an old man who was trying to tell me that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Then suddenly anti-climax came in the form of T's husband P who came and listened to the whole thing and uttered just a few words "Ye to chhoti si baat hai".

Heavens! It was almost comical. But the matter was taken out of our hands when the cops decided that they would take care of it. They did note down my name, father's name, cell number and address. So we went ahead for our show while they, I am sure, wrung a neat dough out of the donkeys. Good for them.

You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful, it's true, la la la la la la

2007-03-09T12:28:00.000+05:30

Woke up to strains of James Blunt. Then sprayed on S's bottle of Beautiful. As did E. And almost instantly we were taken back to our days of staying together in Malviya Nagar. Umm... I sound disjointed. It's a random state of the mind. You know when you are so happy that you cannot just put it down in words. When you feel like flying around work and making everybody smile cause you are happy.

Now to throw some light on the above. I have been on a kinda roller coaster ride in the last two months. Great highs and great lows. But to quantify, the highs have been higher than the lows.

If I start from yesterday night, I would tell you how I had the most amazing time with ex-flatmates S, E and S's husband V. The evening started with S and E making me wait at Sarojini Nagar Market for half-an-hour. After which we set ourselves on shopping, shopping and shopping for 33-100 ruppee skirts and what not. In between, we were caught in this shoe shop (Soft and Sleek -- if you are a shoe freak, you must visit this shop in SN. It rocks and I am not exaggerating), mainly thanks to E. It almost felt like we were part of the staff at the shop -- only we were trying out all the shoes under the price tags that said 150, 200 and 300 ruppees.

Some more shopping and we were finally out of SN. Once at my place, we of course modelled all our clothes and each of us had two more opinions to count on (I shudder to think of my bed. It is a humongous pile of clothes). By the time, we were out, dressed in our respective new buys -- E in her 'bordello' top (an affair in red topped off with sheer net), S in her lime green sphagetti and me in my new tunic -- we were pretty late. So much so that we reached GK and found that we were walking down the middle of a ghost town. It was only 10 pm.

But Gelato Vittorio was open. "You got us here for gelato?!!" the two shrieked. But since it came right at the point through which we entered the market, there was not much choice left for them. I was conned by the guy behind the counter in to buying two scoops of Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch and Whiskey Irish Cream and shelling out Rs 135. "Divine justice," mouthed E and S.

Since there was hardly any dining option, we sat ourselves in Yo China. Where I did an Obelix. As in picked on three plates of Crispy Honey Chicken and ate my through a huge plate of vegetarian noodles. The fact that I could move on my feet after that was in itself a piece of good luck. Meanwhile V had joined us and had what he said was soup that tasted like nothing he had before. It was not a very appreciative comment actually. And E had met her friend who is getting married.

When all was done, the four of us headed to Shangri-la. This time for coffee. I have probably never laughed so much in my life what with old stories and reminiscences of our recent trip to Murud Kashid together. I think you have never heard of any one drunk on chicken. I was. It was so bad that I was planning to rest my butt on a water-filled platform in the hotel. S stopped me thankfully. Thus we ended our night or should I say started today.

But truly, simple pleasures create such great memories.

To capture moments that put me on a high...

2007-02-12T13:53:00.000+05:30

Funny, how one week I was sitting at home watching the ad campaign of 'Malaysia, Truly Asia' on the telly and the other I was staring at the rather imposing twin towers which are apparently 279 times my height. Though we didn't get to go to the skybridge, because our tour guide didn't happen to book the tickets ahead of time.

The twin towers, by day:

The Prada window inside the Suria KLCC:

And a peek at the towers by night, from in between the Hotel Nikko buildings:

The same day, we rushed from the twin towers to a shopping mall called The Weld. My friend P wanted to buy handbags from there cause there was quite a deal at hand. She bagged three of them for just 100 RM (ringgits). I had to literally keep my hands tied down, as I had quite finished with shopping by then. Which is why, I have resolved to keep a tight rein on my impulsive and compulsive shopping. At least I would not have to suffer from shopping pangs on future outings.

While returning to the towers (where we were supposed to meet the rest of the group and guide D) we had a nasty experience. We hopped into a cab. I mentioned that the Twin Towers were our destination and P happened to say Suria KLCC (which is basically the same because the mall is within the towers), when the man behind the wheel turned back and bit out: "I am confused about where you want to go." He was a bad 'un, that one. Whirling back he asked us where we were from and in a trice asked us to just get down. It was the offensive manner in which he spoke that raised my hackles. But I guess for every good experience you have, you do come across a bad one.

One evening we had the chance to walk down to Central Market or Pasar Seni. It was just perfect. I love to explore a place by walking through it. After I had shopped like crazy at this departmental store called Watson's, I came across these street musicians strumming the guitar and singing romantic numbers. With them was this little kid with a small guitar. He was adorable. So I went up to him. He was accompanied by this cute young hippy guy (not in the pic) who was quite a flirt. He told me that if I wanted to take the little fellow, I would have to take the big fella with me as well!

While these musicians were on with their strummings, young guys and girls were seated around enjoying a breezy cool evening. An ideal setting for sitting down with friends and doing nothing. Not even chatting probably.

Here are some ganeshas I saw at the Central Market that I was totally enchanted by:

(Clockwise) Canopy Ganesha, Teaching Ganesha, Bathing Ganesha, Mirror Ganesha and Sleeping Ganesha.

A woman selling yummy eatables on the pavement outside Sogo Mall:

This is a cafe outside the Sogo mall area where I tried Mee Goreng (spicy fried chicken noodles with the leafy local vegetable sawi and doused in soya sauce). The cafe owner was a Malay who was just very amused by us. I don't know why though.

The cutest chef I have laid my eyes on:

One night I went to Zouk (check out its facade with the lovely lighting that changed from blue to magenta and thereon), the hippest nightclub in KL, with the despicable Mr D.

That was the night he decided that he could hit on me. Even after I had warned him that the fact that I was talking and dancing with him doesn't mean that I am easy. The git had the guts to say later that he wanted me to put my arms around him because there were four girls trying to seduce him. I wish I could have flicked out a mirror and made him take a look at himself.

Inside Zouk:

A shot from the car, of Selangor, the city of lights:

We set out early in the morning on day four for Putrajaya, the venue for the Flora Fest. There were hardly any security hassles once we were in through the initial barrier. No checking. Nothing. After all, the place has been lucky so far as to have not been hit by terrorists.*Touchwood* It was a refreshing change.

These lovely girls wearing orchid garlands were waiting with pretty bouquets for the king and the queen:

It was kind of equivalent to the displays on our republic day. The individual states like Sabah, Johor, Selangor, KL, Terrenganu all had their flower displays. Even KFC had a display. Check out the KFC float:

With lovely music playing in the background and colourfully dressed men and women dancing, it was absolutely stunning:

The national mosque of Putrajaya. It was so pretty. I wore a bright pink huge jubba to get inside. That's when they decided that I could not get in because I was a non-Muslim. It hurt. The driver S who accompanied me there apologised profusely. It was touching considering the fact that it was something he could not help. Neither could I.

Just married!

Yes, this couple had just got married at the mosque. They made a charming picture in their shining white clothes. The guy is wearing a sampin (skirt), the baju malayu (kurta) and a songkok (cap), while the lady is in a kabaya (dress) along with the dudong (headscarf).

Aha, this one is a shot of the sting ray.

Inside the KL Towers itself there is an aquaria called Aquaria KLCC. Where I got to touch a star fish (rather gingerly) and a shark that looked more like an eel (the reaction here was a shudder). And of course I got to see all kinds of creatures -- green sea turtles, hawksbill turtles, bamboo sharks, electric cat fishes, tree frogs, treetop serpents, tarantulas -- very eeky creatures most of them. The cutest of them was the common marmosets which were very human I must say. They kept on playing with each other. By that time, I was out of battery, so the digi cam wouldn't work, much to my dismay. Hence I missed out shots of the beautiful leopard shark and a massive black thing called the Tapa fish. The latter was omnious. It was resting quietly in a corner of the aquarium. "Mind you, that quiet demeanour is deceptive. It was bought by these locals from the rainforests. They had to carry it and bring it here. It was possible because it can live for an hour or two without water," said Fiona, the pretty PR for the Aquaria.

Now let's come to the most adventurous part of it all. It was the day we drove from KL to Penang. A tiring road trip, but when we stopped at a snake temple on the way to the hotel, here's what I saw:

This huge lady was open as was the one in the background and another python (not in the pic). This python seemed awake, while the other two appeared dead to the world. The reason being the fact that they were shedding their skins. What I did next never ceases to amaze me.

I touched the lady python.

It took me a good five minutes to actually touch her (you cannot imagine what a phobia I have of reptiles. I get nightmares of crocodiles and snakes with their slimy selves trying to get at me). The owner, a Chinese man called Chew, really coaxed me in to patting her. But when I touched her, she hardly felt slimy or the like. It was exactly like the way those smooth crocodile skin bags feel. After that Chew urged me to wrap her around my neck and get a pic taken. Now that I couldn't do. Lady python had her last meal some three weeks back.

Then there was Naja Naja:

This cobra was initially lying quietly in a corner with its mate. Till my idiotic group guys wanted it poked because they wanted nice pictures. "Aisa kijiye ki ye phan phailaye na!" said Mr J, which was translated duely to Chew by Mr J's friend, Mr S. But the funny part was that all of them went and stood behind the open cage, while I who is a complete coward, stood in front of it and went click, click, click, as it rose up with a hiss thanks to a good few pokes from Chew.

What really made me feel nice was holding a baby bunny and feeling it burrow in my hands. This talkative little 6-year-old Chinese girl, Zhiling Teow, who stays on the farm with her parents and uncle Chew, is holding the baby for me.

Just a feel-good picture by the pool at the Bayview resort in Penang:

A delicious lunch at The Happy Garden restaurant in Penang. The owner, Sherin, is a former Miss Hainan, who prepared this authentic Hainanese meal for us. So there were stir fried veggies spiced up with garlic, chicken dry fried in chilli and cashewnuts, claypot tofu and sizzling prawns served along with special Chinese tea.

More food! This time it was at the open eating area in Padang Kota in Penang. In the yellow bowl is the Laksa (rice noodles in tangy fish gravy), the blue plate has the Kampung (vegetarian fried rice and noodles cooked in soya sauce, garnished with an omelette) and in the orange dish is some Javanese noodles (cooked in a thick brown peanut sauce along with fish balls and prawns).

I especially enjoyed this meal because I was eating out with only guide D and driver S. The others were dining at Pizza Hut after we had just had a huge row between spoilt Ms S and D. Her mother even called up D threatening him with his job. It left him quite speechless as it left me ashamed of this group that I was stuck in.

A guy on with cooking satays:

This is the evening before the morning we set out for home. I took a real long walk on the beach by myself. And it was refreshing though I did feel a bit lonely at moments.

Whoa! It sure was a marathon post. As you can see, it got me going.

A big hallo!

2007-02-08T12:17:00.000+05:30

I was sitting in the middle of this ballroom yesterday night. It was done up in red right from the luxurious drapes to the woman dressed in red silk dresses. Yes, it was a pre-Valentine bash thrown by a cosmetics company that launched its new age miracle cream. Cyrus Sahukar, who was hosting the show, described the place rather aptly -- he called it a giant tomato.

But be it a giant tomato or not, they played the most mushy soundtracks from Roxette, Savage Garden, Seal... You might cringe at the thought of it, but paired with red wine and cheese croquettes, it was a heady combination alright. It was the moment when I thought of all my loves -- past and present. And how futile they always turn out to be.

And however much I might snigger at the concept of Valentine's Day, it feels sad and pretty left out to watch couples linking up hands and revelling in each other's company. Wonder what that feels like.

Before I fall into the blues, let me talk about a trip that I went on to Malaysia. It was magic all the way.

In seven days, it felt like I had lived a lifetime of happiness. However it was a sponsored trip by the tourism board of Malaysia, so I was stuck with other journalists who were a shame to be with. There were six of us altogether -- three girls and three men.

Two paunchy middle-aged men were only interested in drinking and making us wait, without fail, in the hotel lobby every morning and evening. The third man was someone who was so well-travelled that he couldn't stop talking about Italy and Mauritius, that too with a fake accent. His grammar might have been occasionally screwed up, but hey he had an accent! Now among the girls, there was this madam who was flaunting her wealth besides the unwholesome sight of an ample paunch and the crack of her butt (thanks to a low-rise jeans and a short top). "I own three luxury cars in Delhi -- a Baleno, an Accent and a Corolla," she told our first tour guide. This guy was loaded with ready wit. He insisted, "We'll take you to one of our luxury car showrooms and you can take home another one." The fifth of us, this girl with a travel magazine, was the only one I got along with.

Now that I've let out my co-traveller woes to my heart's content, I must confess that the place itself was perfectly cosmopolitan. There were no lecherous men on the streets or anywhere, the people were very well-behaved, the public loos were spick n' span, the buses were swanky, the cabs were all air conditioned and ran by meter. Add to that a tropical breezy weather san humidity and you had the perfect place on earth. I was totally won over by the ample opportunity to do cheap shopping. So in the first two days, I exhausted my budget and ended up buying a huge travellers' bag to stuff everything in!

If we start at the beginning, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport is fantastic. There are aerotrains that go right into the main terminal. Now on the way from the airport to the Hotel Nikko, which was quite a long drive (a one-hour one) flanked by zillions of palm oil trees, I was a bit taken aback by the sight of fields of dead palms standing out among the lush greenery. The guide pointed out that they kill their palms when the trees are around 30 years old by pouring kerosene oil down them. "To do away with the less productive ones," he said. Sounded morbid, even though it makes sense to them I guess.

The miles of unhindered greenery gave way soon to skyscrapers and beautiful Islamic buildings, Moorish edifices and old Raj style buildings. The next day we visited the king's palace which is also called the istana.

The palace grounds

We were of course not allowed in. So all we could do was click pictures from outside, of royal guards on horseback (who change every two hours) and a colourful outer garden (changes every three months). The king here changes too! Every five years. The present king is Tunku Nizan Zainal and he happens to be the youngest king so far at 44. But he's a shy one. Apparently he doesn't meet anyone and even appointments do not work with him.

Our next few stops were the ASEAN Garden and a war memorial in the same compound.

Check out the bronze soldiers in the War Memorial -- they symbolize victory, bravery and courtesy

What I loved especially was the Moorish style architecture of the National Railway building:

Opposite it was the massive KTM Berhad, the railway administration building, designed by E C Norman, a Brit architect:

The National Mosque itself was unconventional. None of the usual domes that you associate with a mosque. It has a Javanese design with the main hall topped off by an open umbrella roof in a beautiful turquoise blue:

I think each building looked stunning, be it the National Library, the National Museum or be it the 'Sexy lady of Kuala Lumpur' which is actually the building of the Haj Foundation.

Where we went for lunch in the city centre actually was the icing on the cake. It was the Menara Kuala Lumpur (KL Tower) with a revolving restaurant. From atop the tower it was a lovely bird's eye view of the city.

These two old ladies admiring the view of the city while lunching at KL Towers were rather endearing:

Some miscellaneous pix from within the buffet area of KL Towers

This lobster shed its shell in the aquarium here apparently in the 1990s:

This cake is apparently three years old:

The buffet was very sumptuous as well.

The dessert counter:

Only I got excited by the sight of this jar stuffed with what looked like fried papads. I greedily piled a few on my plate, when I was warned that I might not like them. By that time, I had even popped one into my mouth. I can't tell you the incredible reaction it had on me. The papads were fried in fish oil. Not that I am a fish hater. I am a Bengali after all. But stinking fishes are the limit. I must say, that otherwise, the fishes were cooked very well in lemongrass oil and had a lovely flavour.

The evening was spent shopping in an arcade opposite our hotel and then soaking my feet in hot water. They were as sore as hell.

Part 2 of the trip follows in the next post. Kind of running short on time.

Life as it is...

2006-11-25T13:11:00.000+05:30

I was feeling blue since yesterday night. But then I went and bought an Asterix (Asterix and Cleopatra) and a Tintin (The Seven Crystal Balls) this afternoon --the old ones I had having all gone on various trip to friends somewhere or lying in my library room back home. Nothing gives me a high as much as looking at books, reading and browsing through them. Dark chocolate edges in as close as it can of course. Considering the fact that I have been demolishing bars of Lindt's Madagascar, Cuba and plain bitter flavours every single evening with alarming gusto and persistence, I guess it would be kind of an understatement.

I have been meeting people, who I would like to believe, would make a difference in my life and that of others they have touched. Dame Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop came over to Delhi to formally launch the store here.

My pre-conceived notion went somewhere along these lines: that she would look down her nose at everybody. What I saw instead was this spunky little woman with her head full of unruly brown curls. I have not heard a Brit be so un-Brit.

The dame was unconventional. Swear words came tumbling out by the second along with witty one-liners. And yet what touched me was the fact that she was stuck about doing the 'right thing'. How being an entrepreneur she has used her money and power to help others. The best part was that she didn't sound like a preacher or too self-important in the least. We all like to live for ourselves. I do. How many people actually reach out to those not so fortunate as us?

She was a funny and special woman. Her mother is 92 years old and wants her ashes to be exploded along with fireworks when she's gone. And she sneaks in chilli into her neighbours' tea. That tells you what a scream such a woman's daughter would be.

And in the mean time I have re-discovered my passion for vintage cars. My grandfather owned a Morris that was a cute black number. Over the years, however, following his death my uncle (father's elder brother) let it fall apart. Then one day we heard that they wanted to sell it. I was as loathe to let them do it as was my father. You see, my dad loves driving and he had learnt it in his dad's Morris. So there was much sentimental strings attached there. On my part, I might never have been in the car, but I love anything old and a vintage is authentic. Plus I have memories of the Morris lying unattended and in a decrepit condition in the garage of my uncle's home. I used to keep telling dad that we should have it with us since he was so attached to it. But his reply would go such: "You know we can't." Caught in the politics of the family, the Morris was sold. That was it. An old man's dream sold off. Just like that.

When I went on a lunch to a corporate lawyer's farmhouse, I was amazed by the collection of vintage cars in his shed. The stately black Minerva, the gleaming Buicks, the shining yellow Cadillac, the brilliant red Chevrolet, the black car from Zubeida, the Ford Station wagon from Gadar, the lavender Ford Zephyr driven by Hema Malini once, a beautiful old carriage with gas lights belonging to a Maharaja -- I was in another world altogether. Oh and there were lovely old Lambretta scooters too. I was so envious as I listened to the lawyer say that once a year he takes off in 10 vintage cars to Sariska with family and friends. Must be some sight.

Here, come put another candle on the cake...

2006-11-09T16:34:00.000+05:30

While some things remain exactly the same -- like the Birthday Girl turning Sarojini Market up and down literally looking for The Birthday Outfit till she finds out the perfect shirt dress, the perfect belt and perfect leggings, the parents looking for a guy for their 'over-the-hill' daughter (mother reminded me this very morning that I am on my way to turn 27 next year!), a brother calling up his sleepy sister and cracking poor jokes on the morning of her birthday and and on the afternoon of her birthday finding to her delight beautiful flowers and feminine gifts lying on her desk from her colleagues -- some things somewhere, somehow change you as a human being.

These are not things that would bring about a literal change in a day or a week or a month probably. But they would be there with the self. Now I don't know necessarily whether that makes any sense. Cause I am a tad bit exhausted. I have tottering around on heels all morning, cutting yummy cakes, opening gifts, taking food orders from editor and colleagues, munching and talking a lot.

Right now I am seated quietly and thinking about other stuff. Stuff like will the guy I care about ever wish me. I guess not *sigh* and here I am, a fool, waiting for an e-mail with bated breath.

Then scenes from yesterday evening flit through.

You see, I was at AIIMS. I have been of late plagued by a case of tiny rashes on the upper lip (let me state here that I am not HIV-positive!). So my brother suitably alarmed me by saying that since the whole face is linked to the brain through a particular vein, I am in considerable danger of having my upper works affected. As ridiculous as that sounds now, you have to hear my brother at it. He even convinced me once that I was in danger of retinal detachment.

Now my idea of AIIMS has been rather exalted.

The sight that greeted my eyes when I walked to the casualty ward was that of people lying on the pavements -- lying, sleeping and eating on the ground. Who were these? They were the attendants (the families accompanying the patients from various states). My brother's friend Dr S (who was taking me to her fiance for the check-up) commented: "It is sad you know. These people hear such big things about AIIMS. And then the poor sods arrive here from places like Bihar to lie on the pavement."

We entered the casualty ward and the smell of urine and sweat was strong enough to penetrate my blocked nose. Then there were the sights of people with bloodied shirts lying unconscious on stretchers and dead bodies being carted away. Soon I was in the room where Dr X (S's fiance) rests during the night. It was dirty, with grime covering the white floor tiles and the bed sheets unwashed for god knows how many decades.

As I perched myself on one end of the bed waiting for Dr X to manage some time from his harried routine, Dr S told me how he hardly gets to sleep any night thanks to the fact that there are hardly 10 doctors taking care of 200 or more patients. "X was very enthusiastic when he started at AIIMS. Now he has resigned to his fate here," she said. "Do you know that AIIMS has the lowest mortality rate?" That really impressed me. "No, wait," she added. "Let me tell you why. That is because all the serious cases are never accepted here. The moment they get such cases, they send them off to Safdarjung Hospital. And if a junior resident at night happens to take such a case, he gets jacked the next morning by the senior resident."

It was reality check.

Even meeting Dr S. She was so simple and one of those earnest people who only care about studies and work. And she told me about my brother who is right now in Assam working and studying in a hospital there. "Half his bed is covered with books and he sleeps on a narrow strip. He's so thin. I guess that's how he manages. He studies all the time and just doesn't do anything else. He is a walking encyclopaedia," she said.

All of it just makes me very sad.

If I sound disjointed, blame it on the mood.

An 'ode' to a wonderful mood, though not literally...I just cannot be poetic sigh

2006-10-19T12:15:00.000+05:30

The mood is festive. And I guess, as with everybody else, I am so happy... it's that I believe I can fly feeling. Especially the sight of the stores opposite my place. Besides being lit up like Christmas trees, they are decked as prettily with mounds of chcocolate boxes, fancily tied boxes of Danish cookies, Munchinis and what not.

All of this put together, even the biggest of stories that I have to churn out have not been able to make me feel put out.

So I think I dreamt this happy dream today morning. I was strolling on a beach with my friends and soaking in the sounds and sights. I can still hear the gushing sound of the waves. And then add to it, that it had the people I love in it. There were my parents asking me where I was headed to each time I left the house, and my friends of course with whom I checked out the flea market on the beach. Oh I wish it was for real.

I put on some Billy Joel numbers after I woke up. This particular number is my song for the day:

She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child, but she's always a woman to me
She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth, but she'll never believe
And she'll take what you give her as long it's free
Yeah, she steals like a thief, but she's always a woman to me

Ohhh... she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants, she's ahead of her time
Ohhh... and she never gives out
And she never gives in, she just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more than the garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding
But she?ll bring out the best and the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself 'cause she's always a woman to me

She's frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool
And she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree
And the most she will do is throw shadows at you,
But she's always a woman to me...

Die zarteste Versuchung, seit es Schokolade gibt

2006-10-18T12:40:00.000+05:30

Now if you can make out any of that part, kudos to you...Of course you can make out the Schokolade part, so you do get that pat on the back;) It's just what I saw inscribed on a beautiful lavender coloured pack of milk chocolates, Milka Alpenmilch, that my colleague S has just got from her sojourn to Germany.

So you can guess as much that while I am writing this, I am happily nibbling on that, another milk chocolate bar Cote D'Or and a really fat bar of dark chocolate that S had got from her Switzerland visit. Right now she told me she has sneaked the last one out from her husband's bag of dark chocolates.

I love this feeling...

And this feeling is not rare for me these days I guess. Which is good. Yesterday at the launch of the Longines Belle Arti watch by Aishwarya. Apart from a spread of Indian and Continental spread, which was excellent considering it was at the Maurya, the chocolate mousse was heavenly and truly to die for. So of course, I was greedy and had two huge servings of it.

There were also platters of different kinds of cheese. I could only identify the blue cheese, a pressed cheese which was quite hard and dry, a stinky cheese with a hard red rind. I only wish I knew the names.

What do you do when you are feeling strangely restless? Do you do as I do? And blog...

2006-10-13T15:12:00.000+05:30

A relaxed holiday at home seems to do much harm to me. I just don't feel like getting used to work again. It's been almost a week, but I still look back and see how nice it feels to do nothing -- wake up, gorge on chocolate macaroon tarts, mocha biscuits, loiter around the house, sink into the couch, watch the telly mindlessly, cycle in the evening or spend hours chatting with friends in the nearest mall and sleep. And not to mention the time spent talking with or rather explaining to parents what kind of a guy I want to marry. I think it is the hardest job on earth to do. Like how do you explain the notion of vibes to your mother who seems to think that a nice job profile and a nice family should be the focus.

To that extent, a 'nice' guy and his family -- mother, father and sister -- came to see me at our pujo bari. I was furious. I couldn't help the fact that I felt painfully shy. So I did something very funny. I kept running away from them. Wherever they appeared, I disappeared. My father tried his best to get me to chat with them, but he couldn't insist at the cost of making it obvious to my relatives. So I took full advantage of the fact.

At the end of it, I was obliged to see them off, when all I did was just smile and smile at the mother. And then I was told that I had to meet the parents and the guy again. I informed my dad very coolly that he was welcome to chat with the guy and his family, but I would not be there. Now, my mother surprised me with her reaction. She scolded my dad: "Hasn't she said clearly that she wouldn't like to meet the family again? Is my daughter some vegetable that she has to be exhibited?" So she made my dad call up the parents and tell them that they could meet me later only if I liked the guy after meeting him for coffee.

I met guy A. He was nice and I felt completely at ease with him. Only I couldn't see myself married to him. In the course of the evening, I even tried to link him up with someone else. I think he was a bit taken aback as he was by the fact that I was completely at variance with his first impression of me. He had seen a snap of mine that belongs to my high school days. So the present me quite confounded him. Plus it was a shy AB that he had seen running away from him at the pujo bari. And here I was frankly talking to him nineteen-to-a-dozen. At the end of it, he told me that he liked me but he would like to keep in touch before saying anything final about it to his folks. I was hugely relieved. I wanted to tell him then and there itself that somehow it would n't work. But like a coward I kept shut because I couldn't imagine being hurtful.

At home my parents were happy and I think immensely relieved that I liked guy A. But then at the end of an extended conversation, my mother realised that it wasn't going anywhere. So she made sure that my dad never called the guy's parents back. Neither did the guy. He and his folks were waiting for some word from my folks. I wanted to fix him up with a college friend of mine. But I guess it wouldn't have done.

Then there was guy B. His father called up and told my mother: "My son is going near your place to meet a girl. Can he see yours?" I couldn't believe at the lack of tact on his part. It turned out to be a blessing however that I didn't have to meet guy B. He apparently fell sick the day we were supposed to meet. He mailed me his details and the photographs quite reminded my colleague of the primitive man.

Anyway, I got a lecture from some people who insisted that I should not care for looks. It didn't feel nice considering the fact that I am sure that had the same people been told to make their daughters marry such a guy, they would have blenched at the prospect. One asked me: "How come you don't meet guys on your own?" When I said: "Oh I do. But somehow I don't feel anything." Immediately this other person popped in and said something so rude and with such a weird expression on her face that I was quite speechless. She put in: "You know guys may also not like you. They might find you primitive too!"

Even my mother can be biting at time with her comments. She likes to put me down and say really hilarious things. She is my mother however. And I entitle her to say anything she pleases to.

But I must say this that I have really buffed my parents well. They are cool with whatever I say nowadays. Only while I was leaving home, my mother said: "I wonder how many more interviews my daughter will take!"

After such experiences, I have decided to give up on being married at all. I just saw this quote the other day that completely summed up what I feel about the institution of marriage. That you don't marry someone you can live with, you marry the person who you cannot live without.

Here's to some wishful attempts

2006-09-13T12:36:00.000+05:30

Jobless again. The feeling is unusual but hey I am not complaining! It's almost setting a pre holiday mood. I am going home for the Pujas as always. And I can feel it in the air. Here though sadly I can't see the kaash phool which I get to see in some of the parks and empty plots in Calcutta.

I have rediscovered the joys of sketching. Not that I was ever an artist. My father tried his best since he and my aunts are very good artists. So he used to make sit with a drawing book and divide a page into grids. Then he would try to make me draw portraits. The first one he made me try was Rabindranath Tagore! Can you imagine poor me trying her best to capture the poet on paper? Well, I never managed to. Finally after a few attempts my father decided to accept defeat at my ineptitude to make use of my artistic genes. I never had any I guess. But I was so bored yesterday after my long conversation with Essar and VK, that I decided to try my hand at sketching.

And I thought I could find some parallels in real life. I see Essar in Jon and VK in Garfield:0)

I think I have a few Odies in my life. Not half as odiously cute.

Oh the face of Garfield here is so me!

I can only identify a few of them with my friends. Colleague CP is as dumb as Thomson and as cute. The hermit next to Thomson was pointed out to by a friend and he said, "So this is what you look like when you are angry ha?!!!" The rest will take time it seems, while I have to get back to my stories. But this was a nice distraction...

Let's tag you

2006-09-12T14:18:00.000+05:30

Since I am pretty jobless at the moment, here's a response to Essar's tag.

I am thinking about........
opening a shack. If only I could come up with a plan to lure a venture capitalist into parting with some dough. I have the name of the shack as well a theme. Of course t is going to be in Goa. So if any of you are interested in sponsoring a shack, do let me know.

I said.............
yes to two partners for the shack.

I refuse...
to toe the line.

I want to....
get married without any rituals or anything on an island. Cyprus.

I wish.....
I could go back to my school days, not for anything else (certainly not the studies), but the lovely friendship I shared with AM and SK. Those morning walks to the Central Park from where we used to come back to my home in a rickshaw and then collapse on the sofa while my mother had hot pakoras and chilled orange juice ready for us. After a short snooze, AM and Sk would leave for home. And the evenings when we used to hang out at Scoop. Those were the days.

I hear.....
Let me say that I try to avoid hearing anything most of the time. Nine out of ten times you will find me with the headphones plugged in.

I wonder...
What is up with SK. Is she happy with her husband? There's no way of finding that out it seems.
I regret....
oh so many things. Most of all I regret my impulsiveness. There have been so situations I have wanted to undo -- situations that were a direct outcome out of my impulsiveness.

I am...
a dreamer, impulsive and lazy.

I dance...
to anything in particular. But not trance. Somehow I can't figure out how to sway to it. And I love shaking it especially when I am high. The last time I really got drunk and danced like a crazed person was at a party thrown by my erstwhile newspaper. Oh was it fun!

I sing...
Breathless by The Corrs. I love the feel of it.

I cry....
once in a while. When I am feeling real blue. But then again, I do let those fat tears roll down -- when I am watching a film. I can't seem to stop myself:) And I remember that crying used to be a part of my life when I was with my previous office. I would rush to the loo every day after my senior had a go at me and after I returned my boss would ask me what was wrong. He would actually counsel me and say that I had to take care of myself since I was on my own in the city. At times like those he could be nice.

I am not always....
finicky. There are some things like a cluttered room, badly handled books and an unlean loo though that can raise my hackles considerably.

I make with my hands....
salads and veggy dishes, mostly to sustain myself. But I must say this for cooking, that it is a great way of destressing. On days when I feel very tired, I need to chop onions, beans and let the smell of garlic soak into my senses to feel better.

I write...
for a livelihood. And I quite like it except at times when I am feeling particularly jaded or have to come up with story ideas. I want to throw all of it then and poof! just disappear.

I confuse...
places when I am home. I don't know how I do it considering I have lived most of my life in Calcutta. I think I know Delhi better. Wonder whether that says much;)

I need...
a corkscrew. To open a bottle of Zinfandel and Chenin Blanc that are tucked into one end of a rack merely because I don't have a corkscrew. The last time I tried to pry the cork of one loose with a knife, a huge portion of it landed plop on my lap.

Nothing like a tag to bide time. Are any of you as jobless as me at the moment?

Why Do We Keep Strangling Life/ Wound This Earth/ Crucify Its Soul/ Though It's Plain To See/ This World Is Heavenly

2006-09-11T16:56:00.000+05:30

The airlines which I applied to is getting on my nerves by the day. They keep calling up every alternate week for more casual photographs. By now, they should have an album of me!

And yet another photograph of a prospective groom. By now I should have been used to it. The whole grind I mean, of seeing the snap, deciding on whether I like him or not (on the basis of that scrap that says what all he is doing at the moment and what his interests in life are) and then having my parents call up anxiously to know my answer...How I wish there could be a miracle and I would be in the middle of a Notting Hill like romance. Or any kind of romance actually.

Not that I can do anything on my own. I have joined a new gym where the morning trainer is lanky and cute. So I can be caught very often casting furtive looks in his direction. I guess checking out a trainer is kind of tacky, but I have good reason. He resembles the coach in Bend It Like Beckham.

The evening trainer is an upcoming cricketer who is a very enthusiastic creature. Whenever he sees me cycling or cross-training, the words that come out of him are: "Lage raho India lage raho." Quite a chirpy fellow that.

Enough about trainers. The dark side of my life says that I am becoming too snappy. I guess I have to curb my tongue. On Saturday, I was in the bus waiting to get down at a stop, when this man with a beard and pan stained teeth asked in a surly manner whether I was planning to deboard. Even after I replied in the affirmative very clearly, he shoved me hard and went ahead. So I naturally said loudly: "Asshole".

He whirled with his beard almost in my face and challenged me vehemently: "What you means?" While I had quite a few things to say in reply, I was suddenly struck dumb by the scary look on his face. And I know precisely why he got away with it. Because he was a Muslim.

I have never felt it so strongly till it actually happened to me. The kin of those dying in these terrorist activities all over the world -- I wonder how they feel. And here we have people living in denial. As VK puts it, human right groups which insist that terrorists should not be hanged.

I know it is true that had it been just another guy, he would have heard quite a few things. At that moment, I felt it so strongly and felt so helpless at the same time because it would have probably flared into a communal issue. Knowing what happens nowadays you can never be sure about anything.

I was watching The Path to 9/11 on Zee Studio yesterday. It was mind boggling -- the brilliant and educated minds that go into the creation of such plots. Till date I think I can't believe that a bunch of people could fly aeroplanes bang into some buildings. They have successfully created a world where you can't go shopping, watching a movie or move around without thinking twice. It is one where even carrying a lipstick has been made unsafe. I wonder why?

Take care: Step out in style

2006-09-04T15:51:00.000+05:30

Yet another fashion week and yet another end to a glitzy affair. Cause thatâ€™s what a fashion week is. Glitzy. The high point of it being the different kinds of ensembles you see, not only on the models and designers but on the guests and journalists as well. Day one quite felt like a homecoming of sorts, considering the fact that the autumn/winter fashion week was just a few months back. It seemed, well too soon, to see those familiar faces five days in a row.

The first show of the week itself was a mind boggling introduction. It was none other than our very own Manish Aroraâ€™s â€�cockyâ€™ collection. The first thing I noticed as we stepped in was the headgears on the ramp with cocks sitting plump on them! Quite an unusual sight, may I tell you. Anyway, besides his clothes what or rather who captured everybodyâ€™s attention was Miss Blow. Believe it or not that's the the surname of the erstwhile fashion director of The Tatler. The complete one -- Miss Isabella Blow. Sheâ€™s the one who has brought the likes of Alexander McQueen to the limelight.

But letâ€™s say this that the entire fashion fraternity will remember her for her hats, particularly the bird hats. The first day she wore a dress with an amazing number of ruffles and a hat which was a ridiculous concoction of feathers. Go ahead. Use your imagination.

Miss Blowâ€™s hats are the creations of one of her fashion associates, Philip Treacy. The latter came to her attention when he arrived at the Tatler office sporting a green felt hat.

Coming back to the designer scene, it was a spring/summer collection alright with nature as the focus of most. The collection that simply charmed all was Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khannaâ€™s. They did beautiful dresses and skirts in porcelain blues on off whites. As I went to their stall and ran my fingers over the pleats and seams, I was strongly tempted to splurge. I think itâ€™s my bank balance that keeps a good check on my shopaholic tendencies. Which I think is a good thing considering that I saw some sexy retro looking stilettos by Vanilla Moon in the stall area and some of the classiest pieces of jewellery at Suhani Pittieâ€™s.

Some other collections I liked were by J J Valaya, Ranna Gill, Shantanu & Nikhil, Gaurav Gupta, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Varun Bahl. The one which charmed me was Gauri & Nainikaâ€™s clothes. Teamed with wide brimmed sun hats, the polka dotted dresses made me feel like going on a long cruise in the Mediterranean, if you know what I mean.

And then came the grand finale with Manish Malhotraâ€™s show. As it happens every year, it was badly organized. Hence, there was a stampede with the photographers trying to rush in and secure places for themselves. The bouncers pushed them from the front and the rest of the photographers did the same from the hind. For a moment, I had the impression that I was going to have a sad end there at the entrance to the show area. But it was one of those moments when I was glad that I belong to the female species. Yes, because three of us girls in the front were allowed in because of the jostling.

The show started off with a sensuous dance performance by a professional dancer couple. The woman was beautiful and exotic and really sensuous. This was followed by the appearance of Urmila Matondkar who gyrated her hips so badly while walking the ramp that I quite she was in danger of hip dislocation. While that didnâ€™t happen, what did happen was what I call an â€�ouchâ€™ moment. The lady tripped.

The showstoppers were Shahid Kapur and Kareena Kapoor. Though they looked good, their black outfits stood out like a sore thumb amongst a pastel collection. And what did our stars think about the collection of their â€�dear friendâ€™? A gesture of both thumbs up from Urmila on behalf of the three.

That was fashion week for you. Uh oh, I was missing out on the food. Lots of salad, mustard fish, fish in red wine sauce, yummy biryani style chicken, shredded lamb, stuffed karela, zucchini lasagne...The highlight of the meals for me were the desserts. So Sunday night I stuffed myself up with tiramisu, blueberry mousse, apple strudel, apple tart, chocolate terrine, lemon cheesecake. Yes, it was sheer greed. And I also managed to follow up the above mentioned delicacies with some melt-in-the-moth marshmallows.

Something in the wind has learned my name/ And it's tellin' me that things are not the same...

2006-08-24T14:59:00.000+05:30

It is one of those days -- do-not-feel-like working days -- that is. One of those days when you feel happy for no reason really. Maybe it's the Fifth Avenue perfume which I have dabbed a bit too generously, the new cord skirt or the new hair style...But it's good to feel good.

Because I have not been having a good time recently. Like, I met a shooter who was so grim that I thought I was weird. Till date, I don't think I have met any one like him, even though he happened to be quite a young gun, only 23. I almost quailed when I had to ask him about his 'wife'. Actually I made the usual gaffe -- I pointed out to a huge portrait asking him if he was married when he had an are-you-kidding-me look on his face. "Do I look like that to you?" he said sounding offended. Apparently the groom in it was said shooter's brother-in-law and shooter's wife.

And shooter was stinking rich. His bungalow itself was like a palace, tastefully decorated with mini bars, huge fireplaces, wooden floors and the works. But somehow he depressed me beyond reason. During the entire course of our chat, not once did a glimmer of a smile cross his countenance.

The day after that I was supposed to meet another shooter at the Tughlaqabad shooting range. The photographer was supposed to pick me up at 10 am. The interview time was settled at 11.15 am with the shooter. And I have never messed up interview timings. It's almost a credibility thing you know. Anyway, the photographer reached my place at 11 am.

When I got into the car and asked him the reason, he gave me the lamest of all -- traffic! On top of that he said defensively that he might have been 15 minutes late in getting out of his place. So what? Apparently, it is the done thing to be 10-15 minutes late. I had a row with him and I could feel myself shaking with rage. So I just shut up, turned my face away and gave him the coldest treatment I have ever given to any body in my life.

Then the other day I was on my way back from an art exhibition and I just couldn't fnd an auto rickshaw anywhere. When I finally found one, he drove me mad. Even when we had agreed on an amount, that seemed pretty unreasonable but then I just wanted to get home, he refused to switch on the meter. I wanted to check how much it would actually come to. Not that I would pay him less. But he asked me, "Will you pay me if it comes to more?" Finally when I couldn't take it anymore, I bit out coldly: "Meter chalana parega. Aur sar mat chatiye," to which he said in an amazed tone: "Achcha aisi baat hai?" To which I didn't bother to reply. I stuck my ear plugs in. As we reached my place, I realised that I had been had (I was going to pay him way more). It irritated me beyond reason. For the rest of the evening, I was feeling weepy.

I wish I could have borrowed the second shooter's double barrel gun and returned it after finishing off all auto wallahs!

Put together more little incidents like my gym shutting down forever and you have the summation of them is what I have been feeling like for the past two weeks. I am sure my blood pressure must have been abnormally high. I could almost feel it.

The only highlight of the period was a tiny thing -- watching a film. It was the day I watched 'A Wedding Date' on Star Movies. My sms date that night was former flatmate E. She in Bombay and I in Delhi, sipping on our wines and lighting up candles while drooling on Dermot Mulroney. Oh was it nice!

Let's decide the time and place

2006-08-07T17:26:00.000+05:30

I have been tagged by Sines. But it's a nice tag. It's about the bloggers I want to meet and where I would like to meet them (I have tried my best to link everybody but I am so horribly challenged that I am resorting to italicizing names). So here's the list:

I want to meet a bad person with a nice body and a good head. He's one of the first bloggers I read and a dear one at that. I think I would like to meet him on a train. It would make a dreary journey seem so much more interesting. No wait, I just thought of a much better meeting place - the Gay Pride:) Still not guessed who it is? Why, it's Jay of course!

I love Mint Chutney's posts, be it her post on her eyebrows, her ex-flames or her cute little kids. I have a pact with Mint. She said she's gonna drop off Chutney at my place soon. So I guess we meet at my cubbyhole in Delhi. Hey Mint, I am waiting...

I connected with Sonal when Mint started the postcard exchange. And I have to say that even though Sonal sent me one soon after she got my postal address, I haven't got around to sending her one. The postcard's still lying in my office drawer. That's how lazy I am! Sadly, I can't make it to her wedding. So, Sonal I will make it up by visiting you in Detroit. Promise. And bring the postcard along:)

Now since Sines has so kindly offered to introduce me to her hot doc friend, I would be very rude to refute it, no?*impish grin* That's a nice incentive by the way. At the rate my folks are going, I would jump at the chance. So I will be generous with you -- you get to choose the venue...

Saltwater blues is mad (Swb don't you dare feel offended because with you I can never tell how you're gonna react to something;)). He loves to delete posts and comments, but he is nice. He's going to help me set up a shack. So I would like to meet him in Goa.

I have to meet Sonia. We seem to have a lot of things in common including our parents. We get to meet in Dubai, if I get to go there that is. The one thing I wouldn't go anywhere with Sonia though is on a long drive. C'mmon Sonia you can't blame me:0)

Rat and Penny Lane - Aha the party girls... They seem to be on a constant roll, so our meeting point has to be a party (maybe in Goa). I would love to get sloshed. I would have company I know!

Now let's see how and where we meet.

And whoever reads this, consider yourself tagged.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward

2006-07-25T15:38:00.000+05:30

I am really jobless. It's a great feeling. A feeling so rare. So I am listening to The Corrs and feeling on top of the world. I tried to bug colleague AD into playing chess, but he's also very jobless. He's at present trying to fix up a nice ring tone on his mobile. So I decided to write about what all has been going on in my life.

A few days back I got a call from R, the former Lufthansa air hostess I had met. She asked me to forward my resume to a girl for recruitment in an international airlines. The girl I forwarded it to told me to be at the venue the very next day. I got real worked up when I heard that you have to be dressed in formal gear - close fitting shirt, short skirt, stockings, closed shoes and hair in a bun- cos this particular airline is very strict about a well groomed appearance.

The day was supposed to start at 8.15 am there. I woke up at 6.30 am and gave myself ten reasons why I shouldn't be going for the interview. This, after I bought two shirts the day before. I didn't go.

While at work the same day, I got a call from a girl from that airline. She asked me why I was not there for the interview. So I told her that I couldn't make it because some work had cropped up. "No problem, come in tomorrow," she said. Now that they actually bothered to call me a second time made me think twice. So the next day, I got up early and went for it. I was dressed in a half-sleeve formal shirt and a long black formal shirt. With my hair clipped at the back. There's a reason why I am describing what I wore that day. Because the moment I stepped into the room there where the candidates were waiting, I froze. They were dressed to a T. In smart short skirts, stockings and the works. I wanted to disappear. Next I had to submit a full length photograph of myself along with my resume. I had a very casual pic that my father had taken some time back when I was vacationing in Calcutta. First of all, I was wearing huge shades and a T-shirt that said, "Therapist for crazy guys". And secondly, I had no passport size photographs of mine. So I had to give in that casual pic to my utter embarrassment.

Anyway, the entire thing go underway. We were shown a video presentation on the airline, its staff and the country where the hired cabin crew would be based. It was feel-good to say the least. I think it was after watching it that I actually felt inclined to go for it. Soon the 50 of us in the room were split up into four groups. I was in the third group.

The first two groups went first. So the other two groups had to wait in an adjoining room. During which I watched this know-all guy speak a lot on airlines and his experience in general. It was amusing. Most of the candidates were already working as cabin crew with some airline or the other. Some who had trained at aviation academies and others like me who were from another profession altogether. It was a cocktail really.

My group was finally called in at 12.30 pm. I was so hungry and sleepy that I wanted to run back home with my tail (imaginary) between my legs.It started with an ice breaking kind of thing where we had to introduce ourselves and tell the others two interesting things about ourselves which the resume didn't mention. Next we proceeded on to the group discussion. Each round was an elimination round. So there we were, eight of us -- five girls and three guys -- who were asked to stay behind through chits of paper after some three group discussions and a written test. We had to then sit down for a psychometric test. Following which we were asked to return two days later for another interview.

As the lady conducting the interview told us that we were lucky to make it there, what with their having received 17,000 applications, she also emphasised that we had to come properly groomed the next day. And I don't know whether I imagined it, but I could swear she kept looking at me while stating what all we needed to do. We had to get photographs clicked as well by the next day.

So the day before the interview, there I was doing a last minute recce of the market for a short pencil skirt, close fitting formal shirt, skin coloured stockings, pumps and hair net. In short, a complete makeover. I was quite close to tears while at it. It was frustrating as hell trying to put all of it together. Needless to say, that after I had bought myself a short black skirt from Mango, I saw this neat skirt at Benetton. But having spent a fortune already, I curbed my enthusiasm.

By the way my parents don't know about anything. On the Sunday I was busy getting ready, my mother kept asking me if I was going for a party while my father insisted on knowing where I was headed to. I shouted. Then I shut myself in the next room and came out all decked up. But I just couldn't let the cat out of the bag even though I was feeling guilty. I have to get my passport from them. It's gone for renewal.

As I looked into the mirror before stepping out, I must confess I felt like I was staring at a stranger. I looked, well, so different with the make-up and all. But it was fun. After the photo session, I hurried for the interview. It was a personal interview round. And I must say it was fun talking to them.

At the end of it, the pretty woman who was asking the questions told me,"A, you have done very well for yourself." And she handed me a folded letter but warned me, "But this is not an offer of appointment. We will be getting in touch with you later."

Amen.

2006-07-05T16:49:00.000+05:30

The parents are here.

And from the minute they stepped in to the house, I started bickering with them. *Sigh* It promises to be an eventful visit.

As soon as we dumped the luggage and all, my father took out three packs of sweets and insisted that I wolf down some. I refused. He insisted. I refused. He said, "No mamma, don't say no." That was it. I screamed.

Next I stepped out from the bath to find a suspiciously bright living room. My father had taken down the curtains, to let in some breeze. "No, no let it be! You don't know...that window lets in a lot of dust and is very public -- anybody can see what is happening inside," I started off.

My mother pulled me aside and said, "Don't do chik chik with your father."Well, to say so, I felt quite ashamed of being so ill tempered. But it's one of those things I can't help.

I have made a kind of deal with myself-- not to lose it during their stay here. For whatever and however I do react, the truth is, it's good to see them.

In the meantime, I have just made two Yankee friends from Kansas. I met them, Jo Ann and Jeanie, when I was dining out a few days ago with friends T and C. Jo Ann and Jeanie are here on a cultural exchange from Kansas University with a couple of other girls and boys. The meeting sparked off a Sunday shopping and eating out expedition. It was amusing to introduce them to our street food. After a few gol gappas, they stopped. They were scared of getting tummy aches. But they did love the dal makhni, naan, reshmi kebabs and malai kofta dinner we had at a GK restaurant.

Curiously they had never heard of gelatos. And I was determined that they should have it. So I mentioned it a zillion times. Till the time came to take them there for dessert. When I realised that I had forgotten where exactly Gelato Vittorio was. It was their friend, Seth, who finally led us to it. It was embarrassing, alright. Seth had this mischievous look about him as he assured us that he would make sure we 'hop, skip and jump' to Gelato Vittorio.

At Gelato, there were eight of us trying out different flavours at a go. Whisky Irish Cream, Ferrero Rocher, WildBerry...I can actually remember the taste of the Whisky Irish Cream.*Drool* In fact, Kristy swore that if I opened a gelato joint of mine in Goa, she would be my loyal customer. Amen to that..

"I don't pay taxes cuz I never file/ I don't do business that don't make me smile/ I love my aero-plane, she got style..."

2006-06-24T17:58:00.000+05:30

I stepped out to deboard to be almost swept off the stairs. The wind whipped my hair with gay abandon and a wave of happiness washed over me. It was beautiful and wildly windy as we walked across the tarmac. It kind of washed away the feeling of frustration that I was feeling just a few minutes back.

I was with a few other journalists and we were part of an in flight training for air hostesses and flight stewards. The morning started precisely at 7 am when I woke up with a start to realise that the air hostess academy guys might just leave me behind. So there I was rushing and trying to do everything at one go. Till I was seated in a cab by 8.15am.

In some time, I found myself in the bylanes of Gautam Nagar. Something that irked me considering the fact that my destination was the airport. The driver finally deigned to inform me that we were picking up another journalist. And he wanted me to call her up. While we were talking, I realised we were positioned in front of a gurudwara. "Is this where she is supposed to meet us?" I asked him. "Madam, they told me that the gurudwara was the landmark," the driver told me.

Now a place like Delhi has many gurudwaras. So I did something for which I patted myself 2 minutes later. I asked him to read out the address. He mumbled, "Xyz". It was the name of the lady we were about to pick up. "No, the address, the ADDRESS," I repeated. I peered over his shoulders.We were supposed to head for Green Park. "We are in Green Park, are we?" I asked him sarcastically. All sarcasm was lost on the man. "No, we are in Gautam Nagar. Because I often pick up someone from here and there's a gurudwara here," he said and insisted we wait there. Till I bit out in a no-nonsense voice: "Take me to Green Park immediately." At Green Park, he stopped in front of the gurudwara and refused to budge. It was a task getting him to move. It's a wonder we reached the airport on time. It was 9.30 am and I realised that we were way too early for the entire exercise that involved the training of a melee of girls in red and guys in white.

As we checked in, it was worth watching the security guard's reaction to our Jet boarding passes. It said, From Delhi, To Delhi. It would be a first anyway, I thought to myself. It took some time for the co-ordinator from the air hostess academy to explain it to the guard, who for the life of him, couldn't believe his eyes.

Once in the waiting lounge, we were informed that the boarding was delayed from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm. I got chatting with a former Lufthansa air hostess, a part of the faculty at the academy. R was not dramatically good looking but she was a warm and pleasing personality. With her was K, a former flight steward and another faculty member. K was very metrosexual indeed -- with lipstick, foundation, coloured hair and the works.

Anyway, while talking with R, I exclaimed that I wish I had thought of being an air hostess earlier. R looked at me and said, "Why, how old are you?" My reply was a woeful, "25". She said: "You look so young. There will be no problem for you to get through the international airlines. You must try it out. I loved flying though it was hard work. I kept stopping at Frankfurt and Munich and travelled to London very often," she said a bit wistfully. I realised, she meant it, when she searched me out as we were departing and told me that she had found out that there's a vacancy at the Emirates. .

Then began a long wait...doodling, doodling, solving crosswords, yapping, yapping, munching on sandwiches, watching the students and wondering how any of them could undo 20 years in a year of training and gain all the sophistication in the world (the guys and girls were so naive that I really hope they can make it where they want to).

In the loo, I came across a little girl who I thought was in need of the hand drier. I don't know why on earth I thought so. But I did. So I tapped her on the shoulders and pointed out the drier to her. She kept looking at me in askance. So I explained it to her. And then I happened to look down and I realised that all the time she was trying to squirt some liquid soap onto her palms. Yet another gaffe to my evergrowing list.

It was 1.30 pm when we boarded the air bus. It was a doomed take-off. All we did was sit and munch further on sandwiches and cakes. And wait. It was six hours of waiting that ultimately was a let-down. The redeeming part was meeting new people and liking most of them. Another interesting highlight of the day was getting inside the cockpit. It was kind of fascinating to have it all explained by the captain -- the controls, the panel... Oh we were also given a tiny model of the Jet airbus we were on. "They are very special. We usually give them to kids," smiled a Jet Airways hostess. It's quite a cute number. It reminds me of a childhood of growing up with my brother's toy cars, pick-up trucks and aeroplanes. All those bright blue and yellow Mercs, Nissans and Gulf Airs.

But the day has got me thinking. About whether this is a calling. To be up there in the skies.

I really can't tell you why I feel so right now, but the feeling - it refuses to go away

2006-06-17T13:08:00.000+05:30

Experience takes years. And the years teach you a lot. For instance, life isn't as you always thought it would be when you were the ubiquitous school girl with pony tails. When you thought it would be a grand affair and you would be the queen of it all. I can't even begin to count the number of things I have learned over the years.

*For instance, you can never take anyone for granted. Not friends, not anyone for that matter. There was a time when I thought friendships are indestructible. They are always there to stay. I was so wrong. I have lost so many friends over a period of time. A guy I knew pointed it out and said, "You know, maybe the problem lies with you". Is that true? Because if it is, I wouldn't know how to deal with it. But I do try to reach back to friends I have lost. There's my school friend SK. Amy, me and SK were thick till college. Till Amy decided to go to Canada and I had just S with me. Then a bunch of complications crept in, in the form of a man she is married to now, and nothing is as it was. I tried to call her when I went back home the last time. She was kind of funny and she never called me back. Her husband by the way is a professor I took tuitions from when I was in college. I still think he is a damn good teacher but I have doubts about the human being in there. I get the feeling SK is alienated from everything she is familiar and I wonder how she is actually.

I suddenly remembered a silly thing Amy, SK and I did when we were in school. We had stood beneath a tree outside my house and taken a solemn oath. I don't know if either of them would recall that evening when after an afternoon of pure mirth, one of those days when we couldn't stop laughing, we said we would never stop being friends.

*I have also learnt in these 25 years that the only people who you can take for granted and count on with your eyes closed are your parents. No matter what. For sometimes, I feel, you do need such people in your life to create a balance between the let-you-downs and the never-let-you-downs. I don't know how many times I have yelled at them and misbehaved, but they have always been there. Just the other day I told my dad that they didn't have an idea about my choice. This because he had yet again sent me a photograph of an eligible guy (a guy
who resembles comedian Vinay Pathak. Now don't get me wrong. I like Vinay Pathak but I don't know whether I would like to marry him). I felt terrible later, but still I didn't call him back. Because I knew the you-are-growing-old-and-past-the-marriageable-age thing would start again. They have their point, I want to tell them, but I can't help it if I don't fall in love with the guys they hunt out.

*There again, creeps in a disillusionment. Life is not a Georgette Heyer tale, where I could say hornswoggle to a rude duke and get away with it and even win his love. In fact, I have started wondering whether there is anything as the perfect guy out there. They say, there is a right time for everything. But is there a right guy? E says its karmic. Since she's kinda in the same boat, she commented: "We must have been kings in our past life with harems. Hence we are paying for it in this life."

*Brothers change. Mine has changed so much that I can't begin to wonder at it. The same brother who would treat me as a pesky little thing and a plaything to be toppled in her walker, has started treating me like I am his older sister. He relies on me and I think I have let him down. He wanted to marry a girl whom my mother never liked. To cut a long tale short, I didn't feel comfortable forcing my parents to accept it. It was complicated alright. Now my mother refuses to talk to my brother and I feel awful about it.

* There's nothing like young love. I met an old crush, a school friend of my brother's, who used to come over to our place pretty often. I was quite young and head over hells in love with him. Ex crush got married a year back and the other day he was in Delhi. When he called and said who he was, I almost fell out of my chair. We met up. It wasn't at all uncomfortable as I feared. I don't know whether he ever had an inclination of my infatuation, but he was very nostalgic. And for once I didn't feel like saying a sarcastic 'Oh yeah' when he commented to my brother: "AB has really grown up R. God I can't believe it." As he was leaving, he gave me a gift. The gesture touched me.

*Experience has taught me yet another thing. One fine day you just bump into someone you have never thought of laying your eyes on ever again. I have a list of such people I would want to meet and wouldn't want to meet. In the latter category would be rock photographer dude. Maybe I should forward it to my guardian angel and trust him to take care of it. And, oh yes, keep my fingers crossed.

What do you do when your worst nightmare comes true? Do you put your tail in between your legs and run? Or do you stay put and face it?

2006-06-10T18:07:00.000+05:30

Life is strange. When I say that, I feel it in my bones.

A year back, I had met a photographer (let me call him Mr P) and collected some photographs from him for a rock band story. The day had been particularly harrowing for me. At the end of it when I reached office, I forgot the photos behind in the autorickshaw. I was racked with guilt and tension. And I wanted to be honest about it. I called up Mr P and explained to him how I had misplaced his pictures. I thought he would blow his lid. He did.

To make up for my callousness, I offered to get the prints developed. I asked for the negatives. He refused. Instead he asked me to shell out Rs 10,000 for each of the prints. Till that point I was being polite and I was making myself take everything he was saying (he said a lot) timidly. But the moment he quoted that figure I lost it. I bit out some cold remarks and hung up.

Our exchange was definitely not short and crisp as my account seems. It happened over the phone, the e-mail and then on the phone again. It was an ugly experience.

Today I called up a biker for a story. While I was talking to him, he mentioned casually that he is a photographer and a rock and roll one at that. The moment I heard that, everything kind of fell in place. In a flash. I was talking to Mr P. I was stunned. I quickly passed over the phone to my photographer who was seated beside me. I called up another biker and asked him where supposed Mr P lives. "Yes, he does have an office there," he said, confirming the place I had mentioned.

Now I have to go for the story and the shoot tomorrow. And meet Mr P. I am sure that once we meet, he will remember me.

I am scared.

It's another tequila sunrise, this old world/ Still looks the same,/ Another frame, mm...

2006-05-19T18:36:00.000+05:30

Well, this old world -- a hot, sweltering one -- looked a bit different today. It rained in the morning and I woke up to this beautiful breezy morning. And I felt as happy as can be, except that there was that thing of going to office and filing stories. Of late, I have been thinking of entrepreneurial ventures. This time though I am serious. SoI am thinking of working towards it and am feeling pretty excited. At least I can do something for six months and if I don't like it, I can move on and do something different again. Am I being deliberately obtuse? It's just that till I don't do anything I don't want to blabber about it. Also because I have a partner who would be very sad if it didn't work out.

Also I have been meeting people. Like there was blogger Nish who turned out to be quite funny and cool. As in how many people actually have the guts to go and do something they want to. Right after meeting him, I had to go for an event where I met this chick. She was nice, pretty and chirpy and three years younger to me. We gelled well and we went for coffee when she slowly started pouring out her story. I should say stories, rather. And what she had to say freaked me out.

First of all, she told me she had wanted to kill herself and she had popped some 70 pills along with crushed glass. "I really wanted to die then," she said. More came out about her former psycho boyfriend and her broken home. The whole evening I was in a kind of a daze. Even till next day I had a hard time getting over what she told me. Was she lying or making up stuff for sympathy? For a moment, I entertained that thought. But whatever, she clearly was disturbed. These are things that seem to be straight out of a book or a film, but then meeting people like her, make you realise that such things happen in real life too. It's so painful. Even as I was listening to her, I felt so grateful for my parents, for the normal upbringing I have had, for all the happy times they have given me, in short a world where there has been no violence, incestuous stuff or anything of the sort.

â€śIf you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?â€ť

2006-05-10T18:03:00.000+05:30

That happens to be a quote by Yankee actor Stephen Wright. Funny no? Talking of heat waves, Delhi could do with some respite.

It's hot. So hot that I think it would not be unsual to melt like the Belgian seashell chocolates I have been nibbling on of late.Which is why I am not very keen on going out on assignments anywhere. The other night I happened to be at the Bali Beach Festival at Hotel Nikko. It was in the lawns, an open air affair. There were giant standing fans that sprinkled water around. As I strolled in, I felt droplets of water sprayed on me. It felt heavenly. There were cool cocktails and glasses of wine with all kind of Balinese starters being circulated around.

After a glass of wine and a chat with a photographer, I was bored. So bored that I started walking aimlessly and checking out the drinks being served at the bar. The drinks were beautiful and so made me feel like I was on a beach. Plus there was a lovely breeze blowing. I think it was the effect of so many fans at work. It's amazing how you can make a steaming place like Delhi turn into a breezy beachy kind of an affair with just the precise touches. I tried out a minty drink. Gah! It tasted awful. I settled down for the staid old orange juice. Yes, that was how bored I was. I called up VK and told her about a photographer she had a crush on. I used to hear about him constantly during our IIMC days. Naturally I was taken aback to meet him there of all places. He was quite a rude one in his own way. He told a fellow photographer, "Sir, please don't shave your hair off any more. You look like a coconut."

But VK was excited. I suspect he is the reason she came over to meet me. But I was glad. We tried out Nikko Sling, a cocktail with coconut water, gin, vodka, generous doses of cream and mango juice (it is one of the best drinks I've ever had) while we watched the Wendell Rodricks fashion show that was going on. I tried to introduce VK to her former crush but she kept acting coy and pulling me back. It quite took me back to my schoolgirl days.

Then I met Brett Lee. His guy-next-door attitude was quite refreshing. At one point we were moving to a quieter place when he made sure I picked up my mobile from the table. It was a touching gesture. None of the hangups that our so glorified dandy Indian cricketers have. He was pretty excited about getting married next month to his sweetheart. But then during the interview, I had to go ahead and goof up. He was speaking about his fears -- sharks. Now the way he said it, it sounded like shocks. So I asked, "Well, what kind of shocks? Do you mean electric shocks or being shocked by people?" He was quiet for a second. He looked stumped. Then he burst out laughing. As did his manager. "I said sharks. Those in the water," said Brett. One of those moments when you want to just disappear.

And what a contrast it was to the conference I attended where Rahul Dravid was there. The guy had so much attitude, I wonder how he lives with it. There is this thing that they have about blaming the media for everything that raises my hackles. "The media puts a spin on things. So I am not going to say anything to the BCCI through them," he kept on saying. He sounded so vindictive that the man whom I once was very attracted to sounded petty and repulsive. So much so that I didn't feel like running after him to talk to him. I wish our people could give these cricketers a wide berth. They need it.

Another thing I don't understand is when these guys come to a press conference, why do they act as if they are doing journalists a big favour by opening their mouth even once? The only time they look near to cordial is when they see a TV mike hovering nearby. There was the opening of a luxury pret store recently for which actresses Urmila and Raveena Tandon arrived in designer dresses. While Urmila was at her bitchy best, just pouting and posing for the shutterbugs and speaking only to NDTV, Raveena was the surprise package. Well, she was genuinely nice. I was talking to her along with a friend from another paper when this Total TV woman started nudging me and asked me to stop. Raveena turned to her and said, "You know these guys will ban you!" After a few seconds Total TV again started acting up. This time Ravs turned to her and shot out: "You have time na? Go have some food."

And on a totally different track, I bought a new mobile phone. A cheap Nokia. While buying which I was near tears. I was reminded of my former flip phone. The one which died in soap water.

The weekend that was...

2006-05-01T12:40:00.000+05:30

Depression set in early on Saturday night as I started reading Gabriela Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. What if I die an old maid like Amaranta or Remedios the Beauty? What if I end up an old woman as heartless as Colonel Aureliano Buendia? On Sunday morning I again ploughed through the novel. It was tedious even though it did provide a picture of Spanish life, its customs, its supersitions and its fears.

By the time I managed to get over with Marquez, I was exhausted. I slept and slept to feel better. It did help but the fact that I was horribly broke didn't. It spelt going out nowhere. The only hope was a cheque I had deposited to be encashed. I checked it. Zilch. Then I happened to check my other account. And my day was made. There was the lumpsome allowance from office in it which I had expected a day later. So there I was at Sarojini Nagar market which has to be the best flea market, at least in Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta.

Unbelievable cheap stuff lay for the taking. Of course I had to bargain and use my nagging powers. But when I got a flouncy polka dotted skirt for just Rs 35, my eyes nearly popped out. Something that brought a smile to the person who was standing at the stall chatting with the seller. And I shopped and I shopped. Even though it was hot and I really didn't need much. Compulsive shopping I guess. But it didn't hurt the pocket much. Just within Rs 1,000 I had as much as 10 small bags stuffed with lots of pretty skirts and tops.

The first time I had been to Sarojini was with a friend of my dad's. R uncle took us around the city when I came for admission to IIMC. When we went to Sarojini it was already evening and I could not make out much. Except for rows of shops with clothes popping out of every nook and cranny, the owners calling out and R uncle insisting that you could get anything for a steal here. But the actual time I remember falling in love with the market was when we used to go from IIMC in a huge gang. Times when we used to wander there for hours and times when we used to return to the hostel piled up in an autorickshaw that would refuse to go uphill with all us.

And as I walked alone through the alleys there, I felt so at home. Now I can boast that I know it like I know my slab of Lindt's dark chocolate. Once upon a time though I wondered at how you could find your way through the maze there. Funny that it's been four years almost and I am still here.

Back at home trying on the clothes made me feel even better. Finally a round of rearranging the wardrobe to hold everything that I bought and I could feel all the depression of Marquez evaporating like it was never there. The other high point was munching on my favourite Mc Donald's burger and demolishing a mud pie while watching Desperate Housewives.

The start might not have been great but the end was.

Let's take the good times as they go, and I'll meet you further on up the road...

2006-04-22T16:38:00.000+05:30

Of late I have developed a strange fascination for flowers. Flowers from hotels. Be it from the loo or the lobby, I love collecting a bunch and bringing it back to office. If you think I am bad then there's colleague N from another newspaper who picks up an entire bouquet. But yesterday I felt like doing the invisible man act. I had gone for an interview with the Pak band Strings. Since it had gone well, I felt happy and relaxed. There was M (who is N's colleague) with me. After all the journos had gone trailing after Faisal and Bilal to the poolside, M and I had the room to ourselves.

So while sipping on coffee, we started gathering a few carnations. After leaving the room, we tried our hands at a few orchid blooms. To our consternation, this waiter came up and stopped us. I put on a blank expression but held on to the two blooms that I had already plucked. M was busy sticking them back. "There are flowers inside if you want," he offered without thinking for a second that I might just take him up on the offer. And I did ask him. Seeing the expression (quite a bewildered one, I must confess) on his face, I stopped short and decided to scoot. With the blooms.

It was embarrassing. But what the hell, think I will do it again.

Sometimes is it not better to do what you want and not give two hoots to what the world thinks? Why not just grab the good times...In my alley, there was this fresh litter of fat little puppies of which somehow only one was left for me to pet. The other day I found it lying on the road and I started scratching it on its neck. When I realised it was weirdly quiet. In fact deadly quiet. Suddenly, a man on a scooter appeared and said, "He's been dead for some time now". I snatched my hands away. The next morning I saw him lying in a heap of garbage. The body was slowly starting to look distorted. Though I had not been overwhelmingly attached to it, I felt sad. For a life that was there. For a life that could have been. Everything is so transitory. You don't even know when you are gonna get snuffed.

So come tell me how many times have you actually done what you felt like without giving a damn about others...

Each day just goes so fast, I turn around it's passed...

2006-04-12T17:42:00.000+05:30

Have you ever got up at 5 o'clock in the morning for a wedding? I did and since it was S's wedding, so did she. Actually whoever attended the wedding did. You see, it was a Tamilian wedding. I had stayed over the night before at E's place, so we could go together to the venue. So bleary eyed we somehow managed to wrap on our saris on the morning of April 3 and rush for the wedding.

The wedding itself was alfresco with a shamiana for the guests and a pretty pink pandal decorated with flowers for the bride and groom. S was wearing a maroon sari with a broad gold belt. She shooed us out of the room where she was getting dressed. I wonder why. Why S?:-) Mr S's relatives crooned as the ceremony took place. And as the fresh morning breeze carressed us, it felt nice. It was not a very long affair. Soon we were cramming down samosas and jalebis.

Then there was a short Bengali ritual that S and Mr S observed. Where they dipped their hands in an earthern bowl and had to fish out a ring. In the meantime, there was Mr S's Irish friend who sang two Rabindrasangeet songs very softly. Apparently she had picked them up in Benares where she has been staying for some time now. Mr S himself sang a song. And could we resist asking S for the same? Of course not (now if you have known S, you would know that singing is just not her forte;) But it is amazing how family can come together. The minute we started off, S's aunt came in and said, "Ok now it's time for breakfast."

By then all us sari clad women were feeling pretty hot and bothered even though we were inside an air conditioned room. But S's mom and aunt insisted we stay back for lunch. So there we were -- E, B, A (that's Tatonnement) and I struggling to find some way to entertain ourselves. It was a struggle alright but it was fun. The evening reception was fun. S looked very good and relaxed. So we left S very much a married lady now. Now I hear she is having a great time in the South. She's heading next for Goa.

As soon as I landed here in Delhi, it was time for Fashion Week. Jacquards, silks, nets, velvets, balloon skirts, frills, ruffles...I think at the end of three days I was ready to throw up fashion. But it was good to see eye candy material in the form of Suchitra Pillai's good looking firang hubby. The two designers who managed to put a finger on the pulse of the girls in the audience were Manoviraj Khosla and Arjun Khanna. They had only men walking the ramp and after watching just semi nude females, I must say it was very refreshing.

Aha how can I miss out the food that was specially put together by Shikha Sharma. It was all low calorie stuff but I wonder how low cal could it get if you really piled up your plate. The amount of baked fish I had two times a day for the five days can probably make up for the lack of it in my life the rest of the year. What I freaked out was with the dessert spread out there. Blueberry cheesecake, apple strudel, rich chocolate cake, fruit tarts, kulfi, malpoa...the list would run at least a mile long. Lunch and dinner were clearly the highlights of each day for me. I wish my mother could have seen me at work on during meal times. There's no way she wouldn't have done a double take.

Fashion week is fun but it leaves you as exhausted as it can. So I am kind of glad to get back to my normal routine. Except the day we got back to office, there was a fire here. Though some of my colleagues made fun of us for running down with our bags, the same night I caught the Meerut Fire clips on the channels and realised how scary it can be. Especially that our building has no fire exit. Just one entrance. It's liking waiting for a disaster to happen.

Oh to pack my bags and leave again...

2006-03-25T14:19:00.000+05:30

Yes my bags are packed and I am ready to leave for Calcutta. Ten days of lolling around. I am so excited.

This is exactly the kind of life I want to lead. Pack my bags every week. Last week this time I was leaving for Palampur and Mc Cleodganj. It was an amazing trip. I can still feel the cold mountain air. Actually I was working on a story and stayed at a tea plantation for a day in Palampur. It was beautiful, the snowcapped Dhauladhars, the gurgling brook in the valley...that reminded me of Tennyson's Brook...you know that poem with the refrain 'Men may come and men may go but I go on forever'.

There was yummy homecooked food rustled up by the cooks at the estate. They were such people. Sarwan and Dharmo. They belonged to the local tribes -- the Gaddis and Dhogries. They reminded me of the good old servants who take care of you and make you feel cherished. Sarwan's gajar ka halwa was one of the best things I had on the trip.

The highlight however was my walk back to my cottage at night from the lounge area which housed a television. It was a Sunday night and I was desperate enough for Desperate Housewives to stay back in the lounge at 10 pm. The whole place was eerily silent by then. Everybody had gone to sleep. Now leopards are commonly seen prowling around the estate. All I could do was sit with an irregular heart beat and check my watch every 5 minutes to see whether it was 11 yet and when the soap would end. It was that bad. I was shit scared. Further the owner had showed me photographs of the British planters who owned the estate in the 1800s. And a picture of the planter's wife who had died here during the devastating earthquake of 1905. I kept looking at the glass doors thinking that any moment I would see a face staring at me. And I swear when I swtiched off the lights of the room and ventured out, I heard a rustling in the tea bushes. That was it. I ran for my life and for the shelter of my cottage.

It did not end there. You see I am rather a coward. I just couldn't go to sleep. I called up E who thought it was adventurous and sounded fun. "It must be good for newly weds. Roam around in the morning and have sex in the evening when there is nothing else to do," she mused. Even trying to read an MB didn't help.

Next morning I set out for Mc Cleodganj where I had spinach and potato momos for Rs 2 each (they were delicious especially as it was drizzling with a cold wind blowing. A monk called Tenzing egged me on saying they were the best momos to be sold there), listened to the Dalai Lama and couldn't make out anything of his Tibetan chants, saw nice looking firangs most of whom seemed like they needed a bad bath, searched for a monk I knew at the Namgyal Monastery but was told to look at the archives so didn't bother, bargained with a ruddy faced Tibetan junk jewellery seller who didn't relent much, sat down in a cafe and enjoyed piping hot coffee with macaroni and walked down to the St John's Church in the Wilderness (where Lord Elgin is buried) and thought I would get raped and thrown down the forest (it was that deserted, on top of which it was a dark and windy day). I did as much as I could do in a day before I set out for Delhi in the evening.

Now I have made some more plans. This time it goes like this: six months of the year I can spend in Goa, from October to April. The rest of the year in Mc Cleodganj.

Now I have to figure out some way to do this.

Grrrr...

2006-03-14T12:14:00.000+05:30

A pair of huge scissors. That's what I wanted to carry to work today. As usual I forgot. Damn.

For the past two weeks I have been getting bombed by water balloons. It's been happening in a particular alley that leads to my home and which I cannot avoid out of the necessity of reaching home. Some kids have been having the time of their lives. And I have been telling myself everyday that the next time it happens I am going to ring the bell of that particular house and threaten them. Somehow I never seem to have the time to catch up with them.

Yesterday evening I was about 3 yards from home when these gang of young guys on bikes passed by and hit me real hard with balloons. I was on the phone and couldn't do a thing except shout fuckers. And pray really hard that their balls off.

Why can't people let others be? So I have had my share of enjoying Holi and I so do not want to play around. Is that too much to ask? It's like a menace which is out of my hands.

Hence the scissors. I have made up my mind. Whoever happens to throw colours on me, risks getting his locks chopped off. That's a deal.

On second thoughts, maybe I will carry the small scissors lying in my office drawer on the way back.

How many times must a man look up/ Before he can see the sky?

2006-03-09T16:28:00.000+05:30

It was my once-a-week home dusting spree yesterday night. And as it happens when you come across photo albums, you rifle through them and feel happy in the warmth of the past.

I have two albums of my childhood with me here in Delhi-- one with pictures shot in Oman and the other in Thailand. Just before this I had come upon something that was written by someone who will always be special in my life, regardless of how complicated he is. I was feeling blue and wondering how things never turn out the way you want them to. A look, however, at those photos of me in my baby clothes posing with my mom, dad and bro put a smile on my face.

Memories kept flitting in as I turned the pages of the album. Dresses which I had a thing for as an 8-year-old -- a sky blue nightie that made me feel like a queen, an orange and brown checked dress which gave me an Alice-like feeling because that was the time around which I watched Alice in Wonderland (I even remember Alice's face right now. Amazing really, given that my memory quite fails me at times, especially when I want to recall the faces of old schoolmates), a frothy lacy pink concoction of a dress that I would always be made to wear for school functions. Maybe dresses fascinated me because I was perpetually in jeans or trousers, often my brother's hand-me-downs. Which is why I guess I am so fond of skirts now.

Photographs of my mother and father - then in their 40s and 30s (they had me pretty late) - my mother young and beautiful with her fair lovely complexion and my father in contrast really dark and robust with the same thinning hair I have seen since I can remember. It was a standing joke then. My bro and me wondering aloud in front of him whether his head ever brimmed with hair. "Yes once upon a time when I was really young," he would say. But then we would come across his black-and white pix and bawl because dad never really had much hair on his pate.

Photographs of dinners organised by my mother. It was a party-like atmosphere in Oman when Indians, Germans, Iranians and Pakistanis would throw parties very often to escape boredom. Mother says there was not much to do. But I was well entertained with what we did - go for long drives, spend time by the sea, climb mountains, or go shopping in supermarkets to stock up the larder. My personal favourite past time though was sitting in front of the telly and gorging on my quota of cheese balls, 7up can watching Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny. And even though I studied there till I was 8 years old, I am surprised to say that I have no memories of studying. Not one! That feels nice.

As for the Thaliand photos, they had the complete feel-good look. The brilliant blue skies, the clean waters, the long stretches of beaches, my mother in her yellow silk sari, me in my polka dotted yellow frock with my four front teeth missing, my father who had developed a good paunch by then and my brother a long and lanky teenager who looked distinctly disgruntled with life at times...

Now I see how things have become. My parents have aged. My mom's skin,which was once flawless and glowing, has developed pigmentation, while my father has become very thin. My brother wants to marry someone whom my parents don't like. There's kind of a cold war going on between them as a result. So when I say this that the time I spent reminiscing made me feel good, I mean that it made all the difference to my ageing 25-year-old heart.

Things as they are

2006-03-07T18:36:00.000+05:30

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."

I feel the magic between you and I/ I want to hold you so hear me out/ I want to show you what love's all about/ ...I've got hungry eyes

2006-02-15T17:59:00.000+05:30

It was dark and warm. The throbbing lights and sensual music were intoxicating. And I was dancing to the tunes of a stranger. Dancing the Merengue which started slow as a ballroom dance with slow hip movements and then broke into what seemed like a bright, fast Jive with lots of turns.

My dance instructors have been telling the guys in the class to 'lead' the lady. I have never actually known what they meant till yesterday night. I didn't know a thing about it (except that it is a fast dance), but my partner just swept me off the floor, pushed me out, pulled me in, turned me in fast whirls...He made me feel like a princess.

The night had not started out on a promising note. I was covering theValentine's bash at Tapas, the Jaypee Vasant Continental bar, thrown by salsa dancer Kaytee Namgyal. I was as usual stag and accompanied by friends A and G. Kaytee was teaching everything from salsa, merengue, bachata to blindfold dancing. Of course the basic steps. While speaking to him, I happened to tell him that I have been taking salsa classes at Ashley Lobo's. He said: "You go to Ashley's for Jazz, to Shiamak for Bollywood and me for salsa. At Ashley's they teach the original salsa of the '70s. I teach the Cuban and New York styles. Hang around, you will see what I mean." And I did see, so much so that next month I think I will try Kaytee's classes.

Meanwhile, a guy walked up and asked me to dance with him. I was cool with it so long as it meant just a dance. Yet I felt hesitant. G danced with him after which he kept insisting for a dance. I guess I was acting pricey but I didn't really intend to. I was enjoying my glass of rum and coke. Kaytee was busy playing music, so he patted me on the cheek when I asked him to show me some steps and said: "Give me five minutes." Next he walked on to the floor and called a guy in red who was probably a dancer with his troupe. "Dance with her," he said.
.
Thus began the next few minutes that made me add another criteria to my list for the perfect guy (I decided to respond to the tag by Mint Chutney and Thalassa Mikra even though I have been tagged twice, which means I do not have to do it) :

1. He should dance or, lets be lenient, he should learn dancing (Since this is my latest obsession in life). Right now, more than a life partner I think I want a dance partner.

2. He has to look decent. I should not feel ashamed of being seen with him (This might sound vain but seriously I don't want to hem and haw while introducing my lover to you).

3. "I do this, I love this, my mother thinks I should marry someone like Sonali Bendre..." Yes, this was a navy guy who managed to bore the hell out of me. A guy who is too full of himself is a big NO.

4. I dig chivalry.

5. He should have a sense of adventure and be game for fun (though when I say fun, I don't mean swinging;) You would know what I am talking about if you have watched Rajat Kapoor's Mixed Doubles).

6. He should not act like a moron when I am with friends. In short he should have a social life of his own. I can't bear someone who would be stuck to my hip 24*7.

7. He should love to eat out. And he should be a decent eater. I have known friends -- guys -- who eat abominably. Like they have been marooned on an island without food for weeks.

8. And he should be able to relate to me when I talk books.

There, I am getting that feeling of not having said all that I wanted to.

Is it time for a change?

2006-02-13T15:20:00.000+05:30

It will be a month since I returned from Goa. But the sand seems to be there in my flip flops.

The trip came as a junket offer and I stayed at a resort in South Goa. I was on my own. Yet I had the time of my life. I did as many things as is possible in three and a half days (my feet went really sore). Eating, parasailing, jetskiing, dolphin chasing, a trip to a spice plantation, going for elephant rides, getting extremely oily ayurvedic body massages...

Parasailing was exhilarating. It was the first time I tried it. The scenery from up there was fantastic. Only I had a hard time getting back to land. I have to come to the conclusion that you need strong arms to make it back.

And yes, I went for an underwater sea walk. This was a weird experience at the Baina Beach near Vasco. First of all, the water was not at all clear, secondly, there was no changing room and thirdly the helmet (very like a huge space helmet) which had several 1 kilo weights attached to the rim left two sore spots on my shoulders. Turns out that mine was defective.

I have to confess that I am not a water baby. So as I descended down the ladder into the sea and had the helmet lowered over my head, I panicked. The water was rising and almost threatened to reach my ears. But then thankfully it didn't. The only consolation was the good looking walk leader. I didn't even get the chance to flirt. The resort guy insisted on saying: "A come on hurry. We have to leave." I have never felt more akin to punching somebody.

The one moment I will never forget is when I was sitting on the rocks on Anjuna Beach and swigging a cranberry breezer. The wind whipping my hair with wild abandon, the sunset and the firang band playing live music at Cafe Looda's in the backdrop. It was surreal. As it grew darker, the sky became as starry as it could get. The feel was so bohemian and young. Now I know why people rave about Goa. Plus it has some of the most pretty quaint villas. I want to go back -- either own a shack, or be a bartender.

Or if none of these work, I have come upon another career option. Recently I attended a chocolate appreciation workshop by a French chef who is the head patissier at Harrods. I asked him if he would let me be his assistant. The man kept laughing. But he gave me his number and asked me to give him a call. So now I have to take a call.

In between, my folks have been obsessing about me returning home and working in Calcutta. At one point I was ready to and even asked my boss for a transfer. Now when he said: "I can't imagine you working the Cal office. Also you have to do production work," I thought twice. I guess I am too much in love with my life, work, the profile, the timing, to give it all up. My parents are sulking but I am too chicken to take such a huge step. And I just hate production. So am sticking on in Delhi.

Meanwhile, it is nearing. S's wedding. Everyone around me seems to be getting married. Now even another friend, who has gone to Calcutta for some time, is planning to go in for an arranged marriage. The bug seems to be spreading fast.

Shall we dance?

2006-01-16T17:04:00.000+05:30

I have heard of salsa being fun. I never realised how much till I actually joined a social dance class yesterday. It's a one-month programme at the end of which I can join for two more months if I like it.

Dancing has always fascinated me. Except that I never took a liking to classical dance forms. I remember my parents trying their best to initiate me into Bharatnatyam classes. Much to their disappointment their daughter never turned out to be a dancing queen.

But I am glad to say that I have finally found my calling.

Before we started, we watched a jive by the other class which has been at it for months. They were good. Our trainers were guy A and girl C. A kept assuring us that it was normal to mess up and abnormal to do the right thing. C was this stylish chick with a great body and great moves.

A and C went on to teach us the basic steps for salsa after segregating the girls and the guys into two groups. When we had picked it up, they decided to let us try it with our partners. The only problem being most of us were stag. It was A and C who teamed us up. Now I might have mentally chosen my partner -- this cute tall guy who looked just right to dance with. But it didn't necessarily mean that I ended up with him. While he was paired with a plump little girl, I ended up with J, a fat guy with oily hair (This mattered. There was this particular step where we had to keep our hands on the partner's nape. Each time I drew back my hand, I could smell the oil).

In social dance a guy leads the girl. J kept forgetting the counts, as a result of which I had to stand, and curse my luck. In the meantime he had the gall to keep insisting on me 'relaxing' my elbows. I was close to snapping but then I clung to that last thread of patience. I think I will need a whole lot of the latter for the next few classes because I am stuck with the same partner unless he leaves or I do.

But inspite of all the cribbing I have done, I must confess the class was fun and happening.

In the meantime, S and Mr S (that's her fiance) have with all noble intentions been trying their best to matchmake. So on Saturday night I was duped into meeting one of Mr S's friends from Bombay. I have never been more mortified thanks to the fact that I happened to have met him for an interview. It seems everybody is intent on getting me hitched. Only nobody is getting any successful at it:-)

It's been a long long time...

2006-01-11T18:43:00.000+05:30

I have missed blogging terribly. That includes reading up my daily dosage of blogs. But it's just that so much has been happening in my life of late.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the night S came home with her beau and announced very coyly: 'I am getting married". "What?????" was the only word that I could manage. I was quite dramatic about it I guess. But what the hell it is S getting married after all.

A few minutes later though I was seated with the two of them on her bed and chattering excitedly about her wedding plans. I called up E who had a similar reaction. She wanted the wedding to be held in Goa as well. Anyway, now it is happening in Calcutta and Delhi in April. Also the immediate thing that struck me was that I would be flatmateless. Of course I freaked out (This announcement came sometime early in December). Since then I have been in a terrible dilemma. Should I stay back inDelhi or go back home to Calcutta? That was the only question that I could obsess about. Somehow I could not convince myself to return because everything has been fine till now. Plus it is winter and I love this time of the year in this city. So I think I am kind of staying back here even though I get those occasional guilt pangs.

In the meantime my mother has been worrying herself sick over my single status. Especially in light of the fact that "S is doing the right thing at the right time". So she has been trying to fix me up with her usual selection of eligible bachelors. The latest was a guy from California who was visiting his folks in Calcutta. He wanted to visit me here. My mother was only too happy and even told him "If you don't happen to like my daughter, don't worry. Just tell me and I will find another girl for you." Seriously the things my mother comes up with!

The guy called me up that very evening and said he would land in Delhi the next day. Next evening he called and said his flight had been cancelled thanks to the fog. And he asked me something which I will never forget. His question was: "So are you ready to relocate to California from Delhi?" This despite the fact that we had never met. In a rush I said everything I had to. And that did it. Because he never called back. My mom did. She had quite a few things to say none of which was particularly endearing.

Then came the New Year Eve's party that was absolutely the weirdest thing I have ever been to. It seemed like one of those American teen parties where nobody knows anybody. My friend Essar took me to the party. It was at her friend's cousin's place and turned out to be a terrace affair. Initially I had settled down to watching a movie at home, so at 10.30 pm when Essar called me and made her friends call me up, I had no option but to be a sport. I got ready in record time - 10mins. The one thing I remember from the party is the sight of this guy bent double over the terrace wall for the longest possible time. All that occured to me in my drunken state was that he would topple over. Finally someone pulled him back. The poor fellow was busy puking. The party ended on a sudden note with a drunken brawl. So at 3 in the morning we trudged back to our respective homes.

There's always a first time in life they say. It was mine. I have never, in my wildest imagination, thought of being at such a party but there Iwas.

Last but not the least I couldn't possibly leave out the recent degustation meal I had at a Mediterranean restaurant just a day back. For all those who do not know what a degustation menu is, it is something which you should try out next time you go out for a dinner. It is a 10-course to 20-course meal that a chef prepares. You get bite sized proportions of different dishes in each course and pay a fixed amount. I was doing a story on the same so I ended up at an invitation from the restaurant and it was a night to remember. I have never had so much fune ating out. I was asked repeatedly to take along a friend. So I asked VK to come along.

The dinner started at 8 in the evening. It was freezing outside yet we opted for an alfresco dinner (I must confess to a decided weakness forthe word 'alfresco'). There were huge coal fires near each table so it was very nice and toasty. The restaurant itself is very pretty and has a lovely Mediterranean ambience. The chef came and told us all that was to come to our table. Now unadventurous as I am when it comes to seafood, I was amazed at the fact that the chef's starters which had sole, prawns (yes I even hate prawns something which everybody finds weird considering the fact that I am a Bengali), salmon with caviar managed to impress me. With the starters came a straw coloured Chardonnay. In between the soups and the main courses were palate cleansers, tiny shots of sorbets --yummy Blue Curacao & Lime and Green Apple & Mint. The wine glasses kept changing with each course so that by the end of it, VK declared she was drunk.

The dessert was what dreams, actually my dreams, are made of. Exotic melon laced with apricot brandy and mascarpone mousse, pineapple and coconut tart with wildberry gelato, Baileys Irish cream cheese gateaux and chocolate cake topped with double chocolate mousse. I was completely floored.

I have also decided that's there nothing better than being the owner of such a restaurant. I came across the owner who was sprawled on a sofa two tables away from us chatting with his sister. It seemed so like what I would love to do. Free from the cares of life, drop in once in a week and do nothing.

Now if I had my own way...

2005-12-06T14:20:00.000+05:30

Nothing is probably a better start to a day than watching a litter of newborn pups gambolling about playfully and whining to each other. The lane through which I walk down, it turns out, is a kind of a mating hotspot. Only two weeks back there were these brown set of pups, who have grown up into healthy teenagers. The new set is mostly black in colour. Yesterday evening while the mother was not around, I sidled upto our friends. It is such a nice feeling -- the little things nuzzling against you and wagging their stubby tails furiously.

Oh how I wish I could have a pup of mine own. Two years back, I remember I was in Sarojini Market and I came across this little cute lab pup. I wanted to have him so badly that I almost fixed up a deal with the guy. And called up E and S who were both at work. Their reaction: What? Are you crazy? You and pup can have the flat to yourself!

That was the end of it.

But nothing can beat the fact that I was about to become the proud owner of a baby owl. What happened was, last winter, a former colleague told me that me that her tenant's daughter had rescued a baby owl with broken wings and put it in the Jain Hospital. Now I have always had a fascination for owls. My mum while out for a morning walk came across a baby white owl which had fallen down from a tree. What did she do instead of bringing it home to me? She asked a guard at a building nearby to put it back on the tree.

So this hurt owl was my best chance. On a cold winter evening I made my way to the Jain Hospital. I had to take off my shoes and walk barefoot to the section where birds are housed. A guy there informed me that it had been released after being treated. He took me around the birds' section. All kinds of them - kites, eagles, parrots, sparrows, doves, pigeons, budgeriars - nesting around. The kites were kind of scary. They barely moved in their cages. In a way I felt sad for them. It must have been bloody claustrophobic. To top the injury that I got nowhere near my baby owl, I faced the ignominy of the guy trying to get fresh.

This was a good news though for E. She freaked out when she heard at what might have been. What would you feed it? It would come back with dead rats from its nightly visits outside! I am sure I would have found a way out. But it's not destined to be it seems. Sigh.