A blueberry mood

It is my first bake in the UK. Ever since I moved to Leicester which was in July this year. And it is a blueberry tart that smells luscious even in the preparatory stage. So while I type away here, the crust is chilling in the refrigerator and the filling of blueberries, orange zest, nutmeg and maple syrup is sitting for the flavours to blend well together. The bluish-grey filling speckled with bits of orange smells very Christmassy, I think, because of the pinch of nutmeg that went into it. But what joy it brings.

My love affair with baking started in Delhi when I played around with recipes of cupcakes, savoury cupcakes, cheesecakes, pies and cakes. But my favourite discovery has been this that salty icing tastes much better when swirled on cupcakes, than a horribly sugary concoction that promises to numb my senses (don't know about you!) with a saccharine sweet high. Also, another favourite of mine is a dark chocolate icing that I whip up for cakes with fresh cream. It is smooth, dark and delectable.

Soon I shall be pouring the filling after cooking it simultaneously while the crust bakes to an alluring golden hue. And my fingers smell of the fresh and citrusy aromas of the orange that I just zested into the bowl of filling.

A bit of trivia I loved reading about why blueberries have always been such a favourite. If a Roman physician called Dioscorides prescribed blueberries as the perfect cure for dysentery, rich Roman matrons bathed in tea made from blueberry leaves to intensify their tan. And while the Celtics and Galli ate blueberries and at the same time used their juice as a fabric dye, during World War II, as a war tactic to intimidate the Germans, the British military spread the rumour that British pilots were able to see enemy plans even when flying in the dark due to a diet rich in blueberries -- apparently it helped improve night vision!

Meanwhile, have a lovely Sunday and here's to my bit of indulgence for the weekend.

A Porn Star Martini for you, dear November

I had it two ways. The Porn Star Martini.

But before I launch into a diatribe on it, know this that it is a glamorous cocktail of sorts and it is all about the passion fruit. Though along with passion fruit liqueur and passion fruit puree you should expect vanilla vodka, vanilla sugar and half of a passion fruit too. And a champagne chaser.

The first time I tried it, I bit into the luscious passion fruit (never mind the seeds), took a sip from my martini glass and subsequently downed the shot glass of bubbly. Oh it was such a beatific feeling, I promise. It even brought the most beatific grin to my face. It was my cousin brother's 38th birthday at the Hoxton Hotel in London and a few rosés down, it was time for the martini.

The second time, it was bought by this drunk stranger, but boy was she fun and vivacious. She made me empty the shot glass into the martini glass and down it all in one go. The buzz was passion fruity and I could feel happiness bubbling all the way to my brain cells.

November, this year, has started on an exciting note. The very first day of the month, I did the quintessential girly thing to do. Shopped. For a few wardrobe essentials such as a black Paddington Coat, a black trench coat with military -style epaulettes with vintage gold buttons, a Christmas-sy red woollen skirt with little reindeer in white prancing around on it. There were more of course, but these were the highlights of my time out.

The weekend meanwhile was spent trolloping around London. And boy, was it cold and so windy that I could feel numbness and needles strike at the same time. But husband A spent time at his two favourite places -- Chipotle and Abercrombie & Fitch -- and declared that he wanted to return to London. Imagine my relief.

London is one of my favourite cities. There is colour, people, coffee shops and bars -- a medley of which set my senses running amok with happiness. What charms me more than anything is that you can walk almost anywhere and then there is the tube which makes life so easy. I am not really much for driving. So I give kudos to a city that encourages walking and using public conveyance as much as London does. Plus as the lights start shining from the nooks and corners of ancient white buildings of the city, nothing compares to it.

To return to my rambling, I have already got my first two gifts for my 32nd birthday. A vermillion red dress coat from Mango on Regent Street that screams chic. And a small jewellery box in wood with an enamelled top along with a beautiful raspberry-flavoured cupcake bath bomb.

November, you are happiness. Salud.

Pujo Leicester-style

I am a Bengali. As must have been established more than a few times in my little corner of cyber space. So one of the biggest things in the life of a Bengali is an annual festival called Durga Puja. Or Pujo rather as we Bengalis tend to refer to it. The 'O' sound being our favourite, much to the amusement of the rest of the world including my husband. He often mouths out khabo (will eat), korbo (will do) and jaabo (will go) etcetera as examples of the fact that my community loves the expression 'O'.

Well, this year is our first year in the UK celebrating Durga Pujo. It is interesting. We have our invite to attend the pujo organised by Leicester's probashi (NRI Bengalis) club.

The lady in the image I have put up above is Ma Durga. She is the Goddess who I have known as Ma (mother) Durga ever since I was a wee kid. She, according to legend, defeated the evil buffalo demon called Mahishasura and ever since it has been celebrated every year by us.

No city can do justice to Durga Pujo like Calcutta. It is the city where I grew up from the age of 8 years (before which I was in Oman), the city which taught me to love shorshe ilish (mustard hilsa), showed me how a festival can be enjoyed for five days (Shashthi, Maha Saptami, Maha Ashtami, Maha Navami and Vijayadashami)at a stretch with unparalleled pomp, gave me a pujo that has now been organised every year in the family since the last 80 years, instilled a deep love and appreciation for food.

Pujo for me has always been a time for new clothes. It is a common question that is bandied around during this time of the year among Bengalis, "Kota notun jama holo ebar (how many new clothes do you have this time)?" When I was in my teens I would be almost frantic with worry. I had to get at least five items in my wardrobe. How could I head out with friends every day to the pandals without one new salwar kameez or kurta each day? Now that I look back, I almost laugh with a little bit of derision at the vanity that prompted me to go ballistic. On the other hand, it was a childhood pleasure.

It was also the time of the year, when I would be forced to get up early -- I have never been much of a morning person -- bathe, put on my new clothes and drive off to the family pujo which would be held in rotation at three houses in the family each year. Our house is one of those three luck houses.

Every fourth year, the pujo shifts to my place in Saltlake.

Mornings during those five days were almost always to be started without food unless we had prayed and offered anjali (chants with flowers) to Ma Durga. The chant went thus:

(O, Jayanti, Mangala, Kali, Bhadrakali, Kapalini, Durga, Shiva, Khama, Dhatri, Swaha, Shwadha, my earnest dedication to you all. Ma Durga, salutation to thee).

Then the prasad (blessed food) would come in the form of pats of banana and lentils mashed together, various sweets, and my favouries: white and chocolate coloured narokler naru (traditional roundels of sweets made with coconut).

I have memories of helping my mother grate the coconut on the dau (a sharp iron instrument for chopping and cutting) and her making narus with milkmaid. The narus especially tasted delicious when made with milkmaid.

After some time spent with cousins bantering around, we would trip for lunch made by the thakur. And most usually there would be steaming platefuls of rice, accompanied by beguni (fried eggplant), jhuri bhaaja (thin juliennes of potato fried crisp), shukto, some other vegetable dish. On Ashtami or the eight day, there would be kosha mangsho (spicy mutton) with luchi as a special meal. Oh, how it makes me nostalgic.

The day that I would really cherish and at the same time feel horribly sad was the last day or the 10th day of Vijaydashami. I loved it because of the tradition we have of going on the visarjan (immersion) of the idol to the ghats of the river Hooghly. It happens usually on a truck. So the idol is hoisted onto the truck and then the family clambers in, taking their place on chairs placed within the truck or simply on rugs. It is not a very clean affair. CClothes do end up getting dirty. After all, you are in a truck. So most of us tended to wear old, worn clothes. After a beautiful drive in the truck passing by the picturesque Victoria Memorial, which looks even more beautiful at night, when we arrived at the ghats of the Hooghly the girls would chomp on bhelpuri and jhaal muri and all kinds of fried snacks. While the men would carry the idol to the water for immersion.

Last year, I got to sit atop the truck on its topmost deck above the driver's cabin. It was my high point because when I was small, only the elder brothers had the privilege.

Once back home, we would see a small fish tied to the gate as a symbol of good luck and prosperity and enter for a small puja after which we would touch the elders' feet and then hog on big, syrupy sweet amrittis (a fatter version of jalebis). Dinner followed right after when we would feast on the most sumptuous food cooked for the occasion. My favourites were always the shorshe ilish -- I would have three to four pieces of fish -- and the Durga Doi (yoghurt tempered with spices) and tauk (tamarind water). Then everyone would go home and just suddenly I would feel incredibly sad.

Here is a chant from the Durga Shloka to leave you with

Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu Matri rupena samsthita
Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu Shakti rupena samsthita
Ya Devi sarva bhutesu Shanti rupena samsthita
Namestasyai Namestasyai Namestasyai Namoh Namah

(The goddess who is omnipresent as the personification of universal mother
The goddess who is omnipresent as the embodiment of power
The goddess who is omnipresent as the symbol of peace
I bow to her, I bow to her, I bow to her)

Chancing upon a ghost town...

...is always exciting, yes. What is its story? Why did it transform into a ghost town? Who were the people staying there and how did it affect them? The questions run amok in my mind.

While reading a travel writer, Bill Bryson to be precise, I came upon the story of this town called Centralia in Eastern Pennysylvania. Now, maybe some of you have already heard about it, but this is a first for me. I am curious, and intrigued, and I am contemplating putting it on my must-see list.

Centralia became a ghost town because in 1962 a fire on the edge of town ignited a coal seam. And thereafter, as much as the fire department tried to douse the fire, it kept springing back to life. Bryson quite aptly makes an analogy to 'those tricky birthday candles that go out for a moment and then spontaneously reignite'. Now what is of crucial importance to this incident is that Centralia was a coal town mining anthracite which is hugely combustible. The fire therefore never really died out.

Yet people continued to live there. Till two major incidents forced them to do a rethink. In 1979, the owner of a fuel station found the temperature in his undergroud tanks scaling up to 172 degrees farenheit while roads started caving in. The second major incident took place in 1981 when a young boy called Todd Domboski, aged 12, almost felt into a pit spewing noxious fumes of carbon monoxide in his grandmother's yard. The town was abandoned slowly but apparently a few people are still hanging onto their houses and residing there.

The same year, in 1981, The Time magazine also did a story on it calling it The Hottest Town in America.

The photographs I have culled are images of the town that smokes on, its caved in roads and the last image is of Domboski staring at the pit he was rescued from.

The Naked Chef

No, I am not just going to launch into a diatribe on Jamie Oliver -- remember he is often referred to as The Naked Chef. I am assuming not because he cooks in the nude, but more probably because of his book that went by that very title.

My naked chef was a petite lady in an all-white ensemble and a white turban who presented her guests with the most fantastic naked food lunch on her 60-something birthday.

So have you ever been to a raw food party? If the answer is a resounding no -- given that you are probably thinking I am loony to even suggest it -- you should simply procure an invitation to one. Seriously.

On a particular afternoon, while feeling horribly bloated, I had to still make my way to a studio in Jangpura for Ms S's lunch. Lest you are a bit curious, she is a raw food specialist along with a host of other things. Read: acupuncturist, hypnotherapist and yoga instructor.

You can imagine my state of mind. It was ruled by three things at that point of time – bloating; the fact that I was working and had to be on my toes noting down everything; and last but not the least, the prospect of digging into raw food.

With great reservation, I climbed the steps of a two-storey house to find a round table of lunching ladies – a gathering of a bunch of socialites and expats. At the head of the table was the hostess.

It all started with a prayer and an exhortation from Ms S to start chewing in slow motion.

The first bite had me hooked. It was a dehydrated onion cracker that kind of inaugurated the session for me and I cannot tell you how I craved for more. But all I did was tell myself to behave and continue munching demurely.

The affair with raw food started with a plate of appetizers of those delectable onion crackers, a dense non-flour bread, non-dairy cheese, fig tapenade and sundried tomatoes.

Next in line were small crunchy sticks of vegetables wrapped in collard greens, mushrooms stuffed with raw falafel and a zuchini apple salad. Then came a course of ravioli, made not of flour but ingredients like spinach, flax seeds and non-dairy milk (churned out of almonds).

Yes the courses were many.

The denouement but lay appropriately enough towards the end when Ms S started rolling out the desserts bit by bit.

Mint cookies that were inspired by American style- Girl Scout-esque cookies (reminiscent of Ms S’s childhood growing up in America), a parfait of vanilla cream, strawberries and chocolate, macaroons, some spicy ginger sweets, chocolate hearts, chocolate brownies, and whew, a non-dairy ice cream too made with coconut and non-dairy cream.

It was washed down with soothing lemongrass and ginger tea at the conclusion of the afternoon.

Sounds like a food-filled noon right? Yet I felt not the slightest hint of sluggishness and returned a raw food enthusiast.

A little ode to times gone by on a slow Monday

There are days you turn up happy and hearty at work. You have that skip in your step. You love the cute, cosy office with the chirpy orange walls and the tight knit group of colleagues you think of as friends. Then there are days when you would rather be anywhere but work.

You could be browsing through book shops in the cobbled alleys of Khan Market, reading a book while nibbling on a delicious crepe and washing it down with a soulful mug of cappuccino, deciding on the must-have clothes for summer, dozing off at home with no agenda but to do a few asanas and some 30-odd rounds of surya namaskars. Pet the dog, watch a few episodes of Gossip Girl, sip on a cup of green tea before turning into bed. Snuggle upto the husband. Just talking about it makes me feel good. And it makes me sigh.

Ah yes, I do sigh a lot it seems. Though not very volubly. After all, I do not want to risk being branded the archetypal Barbara Cartland heroine who always needed healthy doses of hartshorn and a rugged hero to faint on, do I?!

The rhetoric apart, as you can detect, I am in the I-want-to-do-nothing-for-a-while mood. There are these bouts of nostalgia that are threatening to take over my day even while I strive to file a cover story for the Sunday magazine.

Memories from long ago flit in and out. College. Friends. Canteen. Promod da (the portly owner of the canteen). His chicken shingaras. Playing cards with the most random set of guys in the dark recesses of our canteen -- oh, that beloved canteen with political rantings inscribed all over its walls!

Collecting a rupee from each and every one around just to make up the requisite ten bucks to buy Pepsi on those hot summer afternoons. Casting puppy eyed looks at the crush of my life. Going for cheap Chinese meals at the hole-in-the-wall joint called Gunjan. The paan shop off College Street offering a hundred varieties of paan that included my favourite Dilkhush paan. Bengali rock bands playing in the college grounds on those evenings during the college fest.

Browsing for cheap books on College Street. Wandering off into Coffeehouse across the street from college to see the big deal about it. Reference: Manna Dey’s wistful number, Coffeehouser shei addata aaj aar nei, aaj aar nei…The disappointment that almost always accompanies heightened expectations to see a shabby, smoke-filled old place instead of the place that was known for the kind of people who frequented it. Yes, it was the point of rendezvous for everybody from poets to artists and people from the world of art and culture. Names like Satyajit Ray, Manna Dey, Amartya Sen, Mrinal Sen and Aparna Sen all were regulars at a point of time.

The simple life of a college-going girl in the city of Calcutta. Growing up the simple way. No frills or furbelows. How I have missed you Presidency!

And yes, thank you. For all the times I have had since the time I entered your historic porch in 1999.

These are Chic Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bite of the new

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

O Walt Whitman!

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

The Have Tos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That Icing On the Cake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love at first sight?

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

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

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

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

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

A Letter to Giulietta

Dear Juliet,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you feel the same way?

When everything seems bleak...

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

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

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

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

When back with my books, nothing compares.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am over the moon. My boy returns.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But my afternoon began as I made for Carter Road.

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

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

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

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

I am back to my longing for Bombay phase.

Haunted by the mango mouth

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

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

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

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

Till tomorrow, love and happiness!

Dark chocolate overdose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.