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.
8.6.10
I am over the moon. My boy returns.
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.
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.
20.5.10
Haunted by the mango mouth
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 thi
nk I shall run to Khan Market and pick up those lovely toasted multi-grain sa
ndwiches 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.
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 thi
nk I shall run to Khan Market and pick up those lovely toasted multi-grain sa
ndwiches 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!
19.5.10
Dark chocolate overdose
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.
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.
15.5.10
Oh these sinful days, may they come around the corner more often
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.
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.
12.5.10
‘When emotionally unstable enter no shops’
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?
19.2.10
What's going on?
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?
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?
17.2.10
No matter where they take us/ We'll find our own way back
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!
11.11.09
My Friend Mohan
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.
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.
10.11.09
Soulmate.
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.
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.
10.10.09
I wish I knew…
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?
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?
1.9.09
What do we have this time around? Hmm...
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.
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.
16.6.09
Caramelcustard is back to what she likes doing a lot...rambling
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.
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.
19.4.09
There was a time when men were kind, And their voices were soft, And their words inviting...
...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.
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.
14.1.09
So that's how I feel right now...
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.
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.
29.12.08
The days they make me float and the nights they make me fly
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.
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.
22.12.08
Lusting for moments long gone
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.
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.
18.12.08
When it's time to open the door...
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
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
30.9.08
Are we really sensitive, 'hypo' sensitive or simply 'hyper' sensitive?
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.
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.
21.9.08
It doesn't sink in...
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.
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.
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