Of God and me..

Was thinking the other day if I am one of those people who blame God if life takes a bad turn. The answer is: No, I am not. I reflected back on all the times when life threw really bitter lemons at me. And not once during those times did I curse God for making me miserable. I cursed my own self extensively, but never God. I prayed fervently to God, yes, but never held him responsible for the circumstances. I am not sure if this discovery with respect to blame-shifting during a crisis is anything that makes for a big epiphany in life, but it made me happy. It felt like one of those moments when you know you have matured, even if only by an inch. It was a growing-up moment for me. The ability to corner such a subjective thought and have a definitive Yes or No answer, really surprised me, because I am really not the kind of person who ponders over the kind of person I am. Surely, being able to know something like this, admittedly a minuscule fact, about myself makes me a little wiser in life.

Food and the Likes

Oh how I have missed good food this past few months. I have been a student before, but I never craved a half decent meal ever before like this. Penny pinching and an excess of pizza and sandwiches have deadened my taste buds. Today, after what seems like a gazillion years I got to eat a really nice home cooked meal and I just cant stop dreaming about it...what has my life come to :(

This is not my Life...

That's the mantra that I keep chanting to myself these days. I never thought that going back to student life will be so so stressful. My hopes of fun and games came crashing down this August, when I took up a full Masters course. I have never before wished for the day to have more than 24 hours. All my time is spent in trying to catch up with my readings for the classes, assignments, projects and squeezing in some sleep between all this. These are really trying times for me. And when it becomes too much I just tell myself "This is not my life...this is just a year, which will pass away (the sooner the better)". I want to hunt down every person who told me that "LL.M is so fun" "NYC is awesome" and strangle them. All lies. NYC is NOT awesome and Masters is really really tough. 

Waiting for my actual life to begin!

The City!

I am pretty sure no one reads this space anymore. Its good in a manner, because I can write pretty much anything here without being bothered to create a new anonymous blog. Not too sure about my coming out in the open after being a closeted blogger. I do think twice before writing anything here.

That aside, I have managed to land myself in Gotham City itself: NYC. Been here for two months and my reaction: Yeah well...

The city has failed to impress me completely and utterly. Its dirty, smelly, grimy, full of rude people, bad food, crazy expensive AND everyone here wants a TIP! If you ask a person to spit on your face, he will do that and then ask for a tip! And may spit again on your face for good measure if you tip badly. Sigh! I wish I was a millionaire, but if I were a millionaire, I wouldn't stay in this extremely over-rated city. I will pack my bags and leave for the Bahamas, unless that also turns out to be a disappointment like this.

More later.

Flipping on Fashion

Its been a long long time. As usual the resolution to write more regularly sank without a trace when faced with the other forces of my life. So what is happening with my life? Nothing much, except I have been spending inordinately large amounts of time checking out different Indian fashion blogs and other photo blogs. Pictures maketh any blog a trillion times more interesting. And to my amazement some of the blogs that I have been reading have blown my mind away. For example I look forward to new posts on http://thetwistedelegance.blogspot.hk/ and http://jahn18.blogspot.in/, to name a few and these blogs have inspired me to no end. I love clothes and am crazy about dressing up, as per the occasion. And I love mixing and matching too, but only to a safe extent. Also staying in Hong Kong, which essentially is just one big mall, for the last year has done something to me. I have never been more conscious of what I am wearing and sometimes who am I wearing. I plan to buy a camera and do a few outfit posts myself. But then again that is just one of the things that I plan to do, so lets see if I actually get around doing it. Till then...enjoy the weekend!

Cheers.

Girl look at that body!

I really want to be the kind of person LMFAO sings of in Sexy and I know it. I try hard..really hard to lose weight, but woe is me! I will have a healthy breakfast of cereal and milk, then an even healthier lunch consisting of a salad, I move on to an energy bar and a fruit in the evening..but come nightfall I transform into a binge eating monster uncontrollably devouring chocolates, oreos and aloo bhujiya. By the time I hit the pillow, I am drowning in guilt. But the next day, the same vicious circle is repeated. What do I do...I love, crave and absolutely fanatically adore food. It is near impossible for me to not eat something that is edible. I am a vegetarian and I stay in Hong Kong, but that has in no way stopped me from going into all and sundry restaurants and eating all and sundry foods. The only good thing is that I am maintaining a constant weight, since I do exercise thrice a week. But *much sobbing and wailing* when o'when will I hear people pointing at me and saying "Girl look at that body!" Yeah..never! I know that! So stop sneering at my superficial-ness.

The "I" that is so "I"rritating!

There is this one fashion blog that I read occasionally. Unfortunately the author of that blog insists on talking about herself on the blog...which is what every blogger does I guess, write about themselves, their lives, their views, their opinions etc. But this particular blogger...Oh My God!!! she is so very annoying. She just WOULD NOT shut up about how the whole world thinks she is so lucky, how her husband is like a knight in shining armour, how she gets annoyed when strangers act too chummy with her, how she think this annoys her and that annoys her and what not. Just zip it woman, already. Its infuriating to read her blogs, she is seriously full up to here (imagine me pointing to 2 inches above my head, and I am fairly tall) with it. I know, if her more-than-usual-blogger-narcissism irritates me so much, I should just stop reading her blog, more so since her fashion experiments are not that delightful to the eye, but I don't know why I have this perverse need to check her blog twice a week and then go on fuming about it. I have not really told anyone in my real life about this particular irritant, so I thought its best to get it out here.

Here is wishing everyone a very happy new year of the dragon.

Cheers!

The New and the Year

The 28th year of my existence has begun...or will begin this year in August. So much has changed in the last year - I left a a job that I never imagined I would leave, I agonized over my joblessness for almost 6 months, I built up a social life right down from scratch.

These unavoidable changes that result from moving to a completely new country have also forced me to make some temperamental adjustments. I am not as socially awkward as I used to be. Earlier in the day, just the thought of starting a conversation with a stranger made me break into a sweat. I would just stand and stare and occasionally try to smile through a clenched jaw, which almost always gave the impression of haughtiness. Only I knew how uncomfortable I was and how I envied the people who could effortlessly start a relaxed conversation with a stranger. But leaving behind the life as I knew it, forced me to put myself out there and taught me the importance of easy-breezy conversation starters. I am so much more at ease now when I speak with people that I have never interacted with in my life before.

Another thing that the year has taught me is the importance of cherishing the time you get to spend with your friends. Its downright depressing to realize suddenly that I never will be able to be with all my friends together at the same time and same place. My friends are now all across the bloody globe!!

I also realized that whining and crying and blaming others gets you nowhere. If I don't like the way my life is shaping up, I will have to change it myself. No amount of wallowing in self-pity will bring about any good. The moment I sat up straight and decided to take control of things, the doors to all sorts of opportunities opened up.

I am glad that my five years of slumbering received a much deserved shake-up in 2011. I look forward to 2012 and here is the short list of my resolutions, for no-one's benefit in particular:

- the usual, lose weight!!

- keep your cool,

- stop being a cynic,

- write regularly,

- be more forgiving..some people cant help it if they are born a@#holes!

so long and have a wonderful year ahead.

I could really use a wish right now....

The thing that is keeping me happy these days is my new set of "Chinese Checkers". Ain't it pwetty !! I bought it a couple of weeks back from this quaint little shop in Wanchai which housed all sorts of pre-dominantly Chinese games...Mahjong, Chinese Checkers etc. I saw a similar set in the museum shop at the Forbidden City (Beijing), but it cost a bomb. So when I saw this set with its shiny colorful marbles...I was in love. And it cost a pittance, so all the more reason for me lusting after it. I took it home and unveiled it to CC, who was sufficiently excited. Little did the poor soul know what was to come. So initially it started just as fun and then as is with all such things, it has become an obsession. I just wait all day long for CC to come home, at which point I take out the set and start arranging the marbles, completely ignoring CC's groans and grunts about "Not AGAIN!!". I force him to play atleast 3- 5 games with me, before letting him off after his groaning and grunting reduce to pleading. You see, I love this game so much, because my winning rate at it is almost 99%. And I think CC hates it so much, because he hardly ever wins against me. Admittedly, there are very few games at which I am able to beat CC (Scrabble prolly, but CC will deny it vehemently), so when I have finally found a game where I can feel that rush too, where I can be smug too, I ain't letting it go, not yet, anyway, even if my husband has taken to retching (symbolically ) every time I pull out the set. *evil laughter fills the air with the sound of marbles being placed on the checkers board*

The Perfect Drug

I have decided today to talk about my drinking patterns.

DISCLAIMER: I am a social drinker and not someone in need of an AA course, so save your sympathies for where they are actually required.

So me and a few friends experimented a little with alcohol when we were in college, but we were social retards considering the knowledge and expertise of the college-going population today and for that matter quite a few of my fellow collegians. So in college it essentially started in my 3rd year with a 60 ml (me thinks) bottle of white mischief which was shared between at least four to five people with tonnes of sprite. The first time I seriously got drunk (at least I thought so) was on I think 2 sips of the above mentioned drink on my birthday and I kept on crying after that. However I had to bunk the night at a relative's place, so when a friend echoed the concern I immediately became un-drunk. I am pretty sure I imagined getting drunk. The next time was a day before my college placements where I SERIOUSLY got drunk and came back to the hostel with a blasting headache and severe scolding from one of my best friends. On the day of the interview, the hangover had disappeared, but it didn't take away with it the fact that I had not prepared one BIT for the interview. Praise be the Lord, I was the last one to be interviewed and the interviewers were pretty bored and tired, so they didn't torture me all that much, and lo-behold, I got through and landed a job!! Finally I landed in Bombay, and gave my body and soul to everything that was alcohol. C'mon I had abstained for long enough and now I had the job and everything and best was I had the bloody money to buy whichever kind I wanted. So I started with Rum, which I dint like one bit. Then for a while it was Tequila Shots. But I was in no mood to be labelled a skank, so I switched to pretending to like Vodka. But Vodka made me do bad things, BAD THINGS. So I decided it was time to leave the wild ways behind and turned over to demurely sipping wine. Wine, I stuck to for a long long time. I think 2 years almost. But I was bored of it and hated the fact that bottoms-up with wine was not the COOL thing to do. So I searched and wandered waiting for the perfect thing to come my way. Then it happened. I was reading the reviews for the recently re-opened ESCOBAR in Bandra and I chanced upon someone saying that they had the best Whiskey Sours. So I went there with the girlfriends one Saturday evening and ordered one Whiskey Sour....and that was it. I haven't looked back ever since. I actually found something with alcohol, that was yummy and tasty. I had something that I could drink just for the taste of it and not for the purpose of getting high. But it is not a very very common cocktail like a Bloody Mary or an LIT, so because and ONLY BECAUSE, at a few places my beloved cocktail is unavailable, I have developed a casual affair with the Cosmopolitan. Of course the Whiskey Sour and I have a passionate and committed relationship, and it does not mind my occasional rendezvous with the Cosmopolitan. So thats my history.

Statutory Warning: Consumption of alcohol can be injurious to your health.

Happiness is a Warm Blanket

So here I am. Living as a "housewife" in an absolutely new city. "Absolutely" here refers to the absolutely absolute. I literally had no friends (okay, okay, perhaps one) when I moved here and I had not given this whole shift a moment's thought, till I landed here, when I went "O'Oh".

Your old city is always like a warm blanket, cozy with the familiarity of friends, places, food, activities. So even though you may feel an odd chill or two, with the old city you are always wrapped in a soft warm blanket feeling all balmy and lovely. Then a day comes when you intentionally trash the blanket and try to be adventurous and decide to sleep somewhere cold with nothing but a few threadbare sheets. The result, dear reader, is hypothermia!

So you get it right, my symbolism? Hypothermia being homesickness?

Err...the point of this post was to familiarize you all with my state for the first couple of weeks after moving here, I was MISERABLE. But CC has been very nice to me, even when I lost it completely, he most often than not, let me rave around and feel really sad.

But then I started meeting new people and realized Hey! I am in this new place, meeting new people, doing new things (food remains a sore point though), so I better start treating this as the adventure it was supposed to be.

So yea, I will be fine and you needn't worry (if were not worried after reading this post, you just have a stone cold heart! ).

That's all for now and I sincerely hope that I will be writing much more than the current sorry state of affairs.

TTD

Taking cue from a fellow blogger’s post (and due to lack of anything better to write about), here’s a list of the things that I can tick off the "150 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU TURN 30" list:

03. Climbed a mountain

08. Said “I love you” and meant it

10. Bungee jumped (does reverse bungee jumping count?)

13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise

23. Gotten drunk on champagne

36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking

38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment

41. Taken care of someone who was drunk

42. Had amazing friends

43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country

47. Taken a road-trip

48. Gone rock climbing

49. Taken a midnight walk on the beach

58. Sung karaoke

59. Lounged around in bed all day

62. Kissed in the rain

63. Played in the mud

64. Played in the rain

65. Gone to a drive-in theatre (open air theater with picnic basket and rugs, without any cars…counts?)

68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken

69. Toured ancient sites

70. Taken a martial arts class

72. Gotten married

74. Crashed a party

80. Gotten a tattoo

83. Gotten flowers for no reason

84. Performed on stage

86. Recorded music (songs in my own voice)

88. Kissed on the first date

89. Gone to Thailand

94. Spoken more than one language fluently

98. Passed out cold

100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (will be doing that soon)

102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking with the windows open

110. Broken someone’s heart

115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears

118. Ridden a horse (juhu beach rides count?)

122. Slept for 30 hours in a 48 hour period

127. Eaten sushi (and major yukkk!!)

128. Had your picture in the newspaper

132. Touched a cockroach

146. Dyed your hair

147. Been a DJ (at house parties…yeah sure!)

148. Shaved your head

One hundred and six (106) tasks to finish in 2.5 years….what a laugh!

Kutte main tera khoon pee jaoonga!

Often, while watching a hindi television serial, I find myself wondering “puhleese! Who talks like that in real life”. Then I have to remind my self that its only a serial and obviously no one talks like that in real life.

So this post is dedicated to certain words/phrases/dialogues that I have repeatedly come across in movies and serials and that I am pretty sure only a half-wit/drama queen will use in real life:

- ma-babuji, humaare liye to aapka ashirwad hi kaafi hai (mom-dad, your blessings are enough for us)

This line is preceded usually by the parents’ effort to gift something material to the children. C’mon now, which one of us will actually NOT take the gift on offer and that too from our parents and instead blurt out the above stupidity!

- iska to main wo hasher karoongi, ki iski saat pushte yaad karengi (I will do so much harm to him/her that his/her next seven generations will remember)

I know we have all had murderous thoughts about somebody or the other atleast once in our lives and we want to do exactly what is written above to the intended target…but have we ever EVER used the lines above aloud to express what we intend to do..EVER

- shaadi aise dhoom dhaam se karenge ki saara shahar dekhta rah jaayega, aakhir “add surname” ke khaandaan ki shaadi hai (we will arrange the marriage with such pomp and show that the entire city will remember, afterall its “add surname” family’s wedding)

The number of times these dialogues are used in the movies/serials, the poor population of the intended cities would have a hard time remembering the numerous weddings that they are supposed to remember for their lifetimes

- us gaadi ka peecha karo (follow that vehicle)

Infact I recently used the line above (asking our driver to follow a friend in another car who was supposed to show us the direction to some place), but only because I have wanted to use this line for almost all my life and never ever got the opportunity

.- dosti ki hai, nibhani to padegi (since we are friends, we will have to work on this friendship)

Or not! Alternatively, you can drop the above-referred friend like a hot potato, rather than living your life with such a “friend” being a pain in the backside, just because you made an error in judgment in the past and decided to befriend him/her

- tumhaare liye ye keval kale moti honge, par mere liye ye mera suhaag hai, meri taakat hai (for you these must be just black pearls, but for me these are my married woman’s marks (??), my strength)

“!!!!!”

The following two phrases are probably not that cheesy, but I find them irresistibly funny

- tumhari itni jurrat (How dare you)

Ofcourse, that’s why I did what I did and what led you to blow your top off and use these lines!

- machuaaro ki basti ( colony of fishermen)

This is seriously funny and I am pretty damn sure that no one in the past decade in a real life conversation would have tried to describe any piece of geography the above words

Hope you survive the week!

I searched for a foreign land, for years and years I roamed

So recently I went to Maldives for a vacation. The island nation was chosen as our vacation destination after much consideration, the key factors being- distance (less than 5 hours of travel, check), weather (more than 18°C, check), expense (will not result in us filing for insolvency and allowing us enough to be able to feed ourselves for the next month, check), clean beaches and water sports (hell yeah! check), not falling geographically in southeast Asia (check) and most importantly – number of Indian vacationers statistically (less than 5, check).

The last factor was important to me not because I have some misplaced pseudo inbred sense of superiority and disdain for vacationers from my own country (whatever that means), but because every previous time that I had gone outside India for a vacation, there have been sooooo many Indians all around, that I never truly felt that I was on an international vacation. Secondly on my last vacation which was a beach-y location, I had very very bad experiences with drunk and lecherous fellow Indian vacationers.

So after braving the very cold climates of Rajasthan and enduring the surprisingly chilly temps of Bombay we packed our bags and were looking forward to the balmy Maldives. When we boarded our flight to Colombo I was full of dread since all around us were typical Indian honeymooners (you know the girl with the chooda in hands and funny fitted jeans/ weird length shorts/ midi skirts) and loud Indian families. I prayed hard and thankfully very few of them boarded the connecting flight to Male. However the flight to Male had its own share of obnoxious passengers (count me out). There were these two huge families, presumably from Delhi, where the aunties were so well turned out, I wanted to throw up. They were wearing absolutely too much bling, talons were predictably varnished in blood red/fuchsia pink, cropped pants, silk stoles, lip liner (!! It was an overnight flight), eyeliner, eye-shadow in place and I even suspect that their hair were blow dried! I was feeling absolutely dowdy next to these shiny and not-a-hair-out-of-place-people. I mean after all I was just dressed for traveling- 3/4^th jeggings, over-sized shirt, spectacles, slightly oily hair, knotted in a bun and the only shiny thing about me was my super shiny T-zone. The uncles left me speechless, one of them was wearing a broad vertical striped blazer (blue and white), with silk lapels and a silk rose (huge) stuck onto the lapel, a hat and shiny white shoes, for chrissake! And these uncles and aunties went on and on about “that edition of Vogue”, “At my golf club”, “Taj Exotica” and blah blah and I had to endure them throughout the flight since they were sitting right behind me.

Thankfully they went off to some other island (housing Taj Exotica I presume!) once we landed at Male. The only other fellow Indians on our island was a very quiet honeymooning couple of the type described above. I was happy and frolicked around the beach wearing whatever I felt like wearing without anyone raising so much as an eyebrow and I tried my hands at all the water sports available, without anyone staring or smirking at my pathetically unsuccessful attempts.

But after 2 days I realized that I was strangely missing the bonhomie and laughter of my fellow Indians that I was so desperately running away from. The only other Indian couple had also left by then. It was strange because we were in the middle of firangi population who hardly ever spoke even English, mostly Europeans, who stuck to themselves, who didn’t laugh loudly, who didn’t people watch, who didn’t stare at you, who didn’t participate in the “treasure hunt” organized by the management of our resort (I was soooo excited about the TH but there were only two couples apart from us who participated), who didn’t dance on the DJ night. And finally on new year’s eve, when the dance floor was open, all these bloody-firangs just sat there in groups sipping there stupid drinks and laughing in that infuriatingly cultured manner! I missed my fellow Indians so sorely, I wished there were loads of Indians who would by now have been half drunk and would have been laughing LOUDLY and doing the jhatkas and matkas and demanding the DJ to play “munni” or “sheila”. If that was the scene then I wouldn’t have stuck to a mild form of head bopping feeling shy of being the only few people on the floor. Instead I would have been half drunk and would have been laughing LOUDLY and doing the jhatkas and matkas and demanding the DJ to play “munni” or “sheila”, in other words, I would have behaved exactly the way the people I was terrified of bumping into on this holiday, would have behaved.

Mental note: kick myself for the misplaced pseudo inbred sense of superiority and disdain for vacationers from my own country (whatever that means).

If this aint love then how do we get out?

I came to Bombay in May 2006. 4 years and 6 months have passed since then….and HOW!! When I first arrived, I lived my life very quietly, just going about my work and on weekends visiting Hill Road to shop and then going to Mocha for a cuppa and then retiring as quietly. The enormity of the fact that I had actually rented my own apartment, I had my own unlimited (atleast at that time I thought so) money to spend and that I had no curfew (I had been staying in a hostel during college years) and there were soooooooooooooo many places to go eat/shop/party at, had obviously not sunk in. Few months into this lifestyle, I regained my strength (I had a bout of typhoid just before reaching Bombay) and my mother, after making sure that I had satisfactorily settled down, had left and soon thereafter my closest friend had made a new boyfriend who was from Bombay.

THEN there was no looking back. I plunged into what was about to come so hard, that my head still hurts when I think about that. I am occasionally found wondering “what came over me??”. I suddenly started going out ALMOST EVERY SINGLE NIGHT OF THE WEEK. It was crazy. I was perpetually hung over in office. If I dint end up going out on the then sacred nights of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I underwent depression thinking that my social life is finished. I cant even recall the names of the sooo-many people that I met and befriended in those times and where all we partied. It was possibly the craziest time of my life. But alas…all good things come to an end. I never knew when I stopped enjoying going out every night, when I actually started making excuses for not going out, when I actually started looking forward to just having Chinese food delivered at our place and watching splitsvilla instead of getting plastered and throwing up.

My 2nd year was spent in making and retaining great friends and discovering the best places to eat in and around Bandra.

And ofcourse then I fell in love and the only thing that mattered to me a while after that was waiting and planning life around CC’s visits to Bombay. My 4^th year itch began I think towards the end of my 3^rd year. I started hating my job so vehemently that I cried for hours all together thinking why am I stuck in this city doing this crap work. I seriously started considering relocating to Delhi. But since I am such a sloth and such a wimp, nothing materialized even after my endless hours of raving and ranting. And then by the time I was actually able to build up my resolve, things took a different turn, and everything settled into place.

But when I look back at what I have lost, loved, lived and made in this city, I become almost nostalagic (4 years is not time enough to feel nostalgic)..but that’s that. I am so glad that I lived the way I did, met the people that did, ate where I did and loved the things that I did and I would never want to change anything about these past years (except may be I should I have started exercising a few months earlier J).

P.S: the title of this post has got nothing to do with this post, its just the song that I was listening to while writing this).

Flippity Flippity Flip

I am forced to think at times...do i treat my life too flippantly. I mean I see people all around me planning their lives so meticulously: what stream to pursue after HSC, which job to pick after graduation/post-graduation, which guy to date, where to live, what to eat for dinner, WHAT MOVIE TO WATCH!! (seriously!), how to plan a wedding. Just thinking about all this makes my head whirl. I have never ever ever EVER planned anything in my life. I am, what they call, a drifter. I have just gone along with whatever life presented at that instant. I never struggled against it, never sat back and thought "ok so what options do I have? what will the consequences of this be?" Now when I look back at all the "decisions" I made, I wonder whether I should have held back, whether I should have taken a moment to ponder and not jumped head long into whatever that life had offered. Well, I am not sure if I would be what I am if I would have waited for another opportunity to pop its head up. But then I think nah thats not my style. I mean I joined my college because i thought the college campus (which later turned out to be NOT my college campus) was pretty cool. If I feel like watching a movie, I watch whatever is playing that day. I picked up the first job that came my way. Anyways what is the point of pondering over all that. I, well almost, am always happy with whatever choices I have made. But it does irk me, at times when people think I am flippant. I am not sure why it bothers me, because collective historic data does suggest that I AM flippant. May be I want people to think that I am serious about my life and I am responsible with decision-making. But then what the heck, I will be bored to death if I have to hold myself back. I am a NOW person. If I want something, I want it NOW, this very SECOND. It gets a little annoying for people who have to deal with this quirk of mine...but alas I am who I am.

Booked

I am a huge HUGE fiction reader. A book is a hit with me, if it keeps me interested. That’s the reason why I usually don’t end up reading a Paulo Coelho or a Yann Martel. My absolute favorite books of all time are listed below:

Love Story (Erich Seagel)

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.

Go on … finish off your sniggering. Done? Done. I am a girl and I like mush…I rest my case!
The first time I read the book was, I think, around eleven years back when I was constantly in the throes of one crush or another and, understandably, I was completely floored by the book. A couple of years later, I chanced upon a paperback of the book again. Just to check whether the book would have the same effect on me as 4 years back, I re-read it. I was reduced to tears the second time around (again!) at the end. I have read the book once more and it has managed to have the same effect on me and to the same degree.

Anyone who would actually have the nerve to tell me that they didn’t absolutely adore the book, would I know, be lying through their teeth and pretending to shrug off this poignant tale as a piece of mush chick-lit.
I must admit though, that the movie base on the book, was a complete DISASTER!

Dracula (Bram Stoker), The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova), Vlad: The Last Confessions (C.C.Humphreys)

First of all, let me clarify that I am no Vampire Tales junkie. The books listed above are listed here only for one reason- Once you start reading them, you just cannot put them down.

Dracula and The Historian are fictionalized accounts of Dracula, the Vampire. The Last Confessions is a near to truth account of the real Dracula, Vlad III Dracula. All the three keep you gripped for different reasons.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a cult classic and has given me many a sleepless nights. The Historian is something like the Da Vinci Code..it has the same mish-mash of interesting historical facts and is a complete historical thriller which will keep you engrossed from the first page onwards. The Last Confessions, on the other hand, has no supernatural elements and no vampires. Its an honest attempt to demystify the legend of Dracula by drawing out the person that Vlad Dracula was and the circumstances which lead him to commit the atrocities that he did. It’s a most compelling read.

The Palace of Illusions (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni)

This is one of my recent reads. The portrayal of the big war (Mahabharata) and of the Pandavas and their lives, in the voice and view of Draupadi is fascinating. Apart from refreshing my memory of the Mahabharata tale (based almost entirely on the television serial), the book also managed to shed some interesting light on the core character of each of the Pandavas (I always thought them to be the greatest warriors/heroes of their times) by stripping them off their glorified versions. Must read for the sheer novelty of it.
Curfewed Night (Basharat Peer)

This is not really a fiction novel. It tells a gripping tale of Kashmir and of the eruption of the separatist movement and other developments that had lead Kashmir to become what it is today. For me, this book was an eye opener. The romanticism of the militancy which attracted young boys towards it, the reasons why kashmiri muslims have been spilling their blood for the right of self determination, is something that I could understand and now appreciate. If you are a tolerant Indian, I would strongly recommend this book.

And then there are the classicly inane books like Veronica Decides to Die, The Alchemist, Life of Pi, which I absolutely refuse to appreciate simply because the rest of the world appreciates. This genre of books does nothing (except wastes my time) for me.
Anyways, do drop in a word of recommendation, if there are any books that you feel everyone should read.

Humph!

To make friends and to maintain the “friendship”, is, I believe, one of the most arduous tasks on this planet. To begin with, it is next to impossible, to find a person that you genuinely enjoy having a conversation with, and conversation to me, dear reader, is the most important pre-requisite of striking the bond that we call friendship. Even if you manage to go past the initial hindrance and can indeed have a brilliant conversation with a person, this city does you in. It does not allow you the physical proximity, that you require for having the much desired conversation (I just CANNOT have any meaningful conversation over the phone).

I happened to have had an epiphany today which left me a little disillusioned. I realized that quiet a few of my friendships are not what I had hoped them to be. So I am simply going to prattle on about how I feel all wrong about certain friendships that I have maintained.

Certain of my friends treat me like the “Friend Finder” option on facebook! They make “my” friends “their” friends, which for some reason really ticks me off, and then the “my-converted-into-their” friends become better friends of theirs and then I get to hear things and developments about such “my-converted-into-their” friends from the Friend Finder friend. Yeah, I know, may be I am behaving like an over-grown kid, but that’s that…so sue me!

Another set of friends are those who follow the ideology that if one has to become their friend, then they must eat, drink, breathe and everything else together! Well, I am all for spending time with friends, but doing over-time is really not my cup of tea, which leaves me sort of at the periphery of this group, and that saddens me at times.

Then I have certain friends with whom, if left alone, I cannot have any conversation at all. These are, what I call, the “group-friends”. This category is rather strange, because I know all that is to know about these group friends and vice-versa, I know what are their likes and dislikes and vice versa, but STILL, if we are alone without the “group”, there is no consequential conversation that can be had between us. This really perplexes me to no end.

Then ofcourse I have the “party-friends”. These are the ones who share the most honest bond with me. With them there is no pretence of being BFFs or any such thing. The deal is clear from the onset. We drink together, we party together, we dance together, other than that we are nothing more to each other. I have, quiet often, wondered about what would it be like to be REAL friends with some of these “party-friends”. But then I do not want to spoil the perfectly balanced relation with them. What if they become too clingy, what if they turn out to be absolute bores when sober, what if they don’t bother about me at all. These fears have always restrained me from making any efforts towards being real friends with this set.

But thank God for small mercies. I do have a handful of friends who are just that – FRIENDS. They indulge me, yell at me, hate me, love me and never ever judge me. I have never pondered so much over the nature of their bond with me.These are the ones with whom I have shared the most interesting conversations and the most companionable silences. And these are the ones, I know, I will always be friends with.

Atithi Devo Bhava...

You guys must have seen the promotional ads for Indian tourism which are endorsed by Mr. Amir Khan. This post is dedicated to the attempts made by me and friends to make all visiting firangs feel at home in India.The success or failure of such events... you will be able to gauge by the end of this post.

The first account involves VR's bachelorette party in Goa. There were four of us (ofcourse all girls). Those of you who are familiar with the Goa scene, would know how a group of girls, unaccompanied by the male of their species, can find the absence of the latter, both boon-ish and bane-ish, since we were subject to a lot of unwanted and wanted attention from locals as well as firangs. So this one night, we are at Mambo's and we are trying to find VR a pretty boy to flirt with. Now VR is like this super-duper choosy one, and we are having a hard time finding a cute firang to make VR want to flirt with him. After a lot of people watching, VR suddenly starts a frantic tugging of my non-existent sleeve and then coyly points out this MAJOR HUNK (australian, so we thought). The rest of us went..phew! Then, in sync, we started beaming towards THE HUNK, who rewarded us with his pretty smile. VR decides that she needs a couple of shots before actually doing anything about the beaming happening across the distance. So we move towards the bar counter (where THE HUNK was standing too). For the second time, I experience VR's frantic tugging at my non-existent sleeve, only to be pointed towards THE HUNK cozying up to another hunk (!!) which eventually turned into you know what! So in this case our efforts to make visiting firangs welcome in the country were totally wasted, as you can understand by now that they had already made themselves quite comfortable.

The second account also belongs to the same Goa trip. Change the setting to Tito's, where this REALLY REALLY cute guy (a Brit .. Tom) took the initiative to smile his pearly whites at us. So I decided, enough of acting as the wingman for VR, and smiled back. Eventually we started chatting up (or rather communicating by writing notes on the table napkin...the music was really loud!). Oh FYI - I was not single then. We did some harmless flirting and when Tom suggested that I accompany him and his friends to some other shack or some such place , I politely excused myself and re-joined my friends. Next day, I get a message from Tom while I was relating the whole story to the boyfriend. When the boyfriend, who anyways was not very amused with the story, gets to know about the message, he asks me "He messaged you ...meaning??". Me "Huh...he smsd me..." mental note "Sheeeeetttt!!" (You see I had forgotten to tell the boyfriend that I exchanged numbers with Tom!!) And I ended up getting an earful from the boyfriend. So this attempt too, to be nice and friendly to the visiting firangs, got me no brownie points.

The third episode is a more serious one and involves a recent trip to Colaba causeway. SA and I were standing near a footpath sandal stall when this weird lady came upto us and started pointing towards a near by fruit stall. She was trying to make us buy her some fruits. Now if she looked like someone who really was in need, we would have bought her the fruits. But this one was pretty decently dressed and had that cocky manner of the streetwise which gave us that peculiar impression that after taking the fruits from us she would walk off to her air conditioned shanty and start watching some daily on a plasma screen television. So while we were ignoring her, this firang uncle came by and stopped at the fruit stall to buy some bananas for his kid. Predictably the aunty swamped him with her pleas and the firang uncle, just so that he is left alone in peace to buy the fruits, agreed to comply to her requests. In a split second, the aunty left us speechless when she actually started picking and choosing what fruits she wanted and even after the poor firang uncle had bought her the fruits, she generally kept haggling for more, till the firang uncle walked away exasperated. While I witnessed the entire scene, Mr. Amir Khan's virtuous face from the tourism ads flashed in front of my eyes, and when the aunty restarted her ranting while pointing towards SA and me, moaning how heartless we were companred to the firang, I lashed out at her saying "Aapko sharam nahi aati. Koi bahar se aaya hai aur aap usko aise pareshan karte hain". SA, egged on by my bravado, also added a couple of lines . Bad move. The spate of cuss words we had to hear from her after that, made us run away, red-faced, as fast as was possible from there, while the faces of all the surrounding shop keepers (who were watching the entire drama with much curiosity) lit up with amusement.

Understandably, it was MAHA embarassing and I dont think I need to tell you, whether this attempt was a success or not.

But rest assured, these minor bumps will not deter me from till being warm and welcoming towards all the visiting firangs, albeit from a safe distance.

I am sick of being sick

As the wheels of my life rotate, they pretty regularly, for some karmic reason (I suspect) end up getting stuck at “falling ill”. And when I fall ill, it is not usually the standard flu, cough, food poisoning brand of sickness…no that IS NOT what my sickness is about. Well I get sick with perplexing and outlandish diseases of the following ilk:
- Its not a UTI. It has all the symptoms of a UTI. Its not IC (go google it!). It has all the symptoms of IC. The gynecologist, the urologist, everyone is baffled by what it is. Its making my life hell ‘cos I want to pee like “ALL” the time. Then after a year of it raising its queer head, me having popped a gazillion pills and basically having lost all hope in the magic of medical science (isn’t it a cute oxymoron!), it disappears as mysteriously as it had appeared.
- Its not flu, because I am not running any temperature. Its not thyroid, because the tests negate it. It’s the middle of April, and I am having shivering fits! My general physician (who CC thinks, should now start giving me reward points or entitle me to some such scheme considering how often I make a trip to him) gives me a tired smile and tells me to go home as nothing seems to be wrong with me. Then, as is the case with most of my diseases, this one also disappears after 2 months.
- Its not arthritis (even though I have gone ahead and sobbed the story of me having arthritis at such a 'tender' age to anyone who would care to listen!!). But this one most definitely has all the symptoms of it. All my small joints keep hurting and blah blah blah. But this is the seventh month of the mystery and sadly it has not disappeared till now.
- The current cause of my woes is this peculiar headache that I am getting. This is not a disprin-headache, but it is something that makes my head go dizzy, and it is (strangely at times) accompanied by temperature.

So this time my resolve weakened and I came running to Mommy Dearest. Yes I am back home!!
Being sick at home and being sick in Bombay are two totally different experiences. In Bombay, if you fall ill, you are holed up in one corner of your flat feeling sickly and lonely. By the time you battle traffic and reach the hospital, after a crazy 20 minute rickshaw ride, you think it is not possible for you to feel any sicker. But…BUT, nothing on this planet can make you feel sicker than that one moment , when you gingerly look at the amount left in your bank account after paying the doctor’s consultation fee and the bills for the umpteen tests that you are made to take…they take your blood, they take your p@#$$, they take your s!@#$ AND they take your money…they take away everything that you have ever called your own (ok..I will stop the melodrama, but then I am sick right now, so these spurts are discounted.right? right.)
Then the repulsive oil-dripping food your maid will cook, will make you want to puke and the thought of ordering from outside (because of health and financial aspects involved) will make you want to puke some more.
Then you will slowly and steadily become delirious, the lack of money, lack of food, lack of company will make you hallucinate and (mostly when you are alone at home..which you usually are, because everyone else is at work) you will hear sounds of water dripping from the tap in the bathroom and you will “feel” that someone is brushing their teeth in there (don’t laugh..I totally freaked yesterday..and YES it did happen to me). And then all you want to do is run..run as fast as possible and reach the safe havens of your own home, filled with the smells of home-cooked food and inane chattering of your mother.
And what a relief it is! The path-lab guy actually came home to take my blood sample! The doctor was an acquaintance and took time to be nice to me (unlike the Bombay lot of doctors- frigid asses! Except my GP, who is always ready with a smile!) and cracked jokes. I am getting cut-washed-seed-removed-fruits to eat. I don’t have to get up to heat my milk or even get a glass of water, I don’t hear any weird sounds except my mom generally talking away to no-one in particular (don’t be alarmed..that is usual for her)…. I actually cant think of one good reason to go back to manic Bombay and fall sick all over again!