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.

‘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?

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?

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.