World in a spin

My world has been in a bit of a spin of late and its not been due to the chicken pox (thank you every much, and yes, it does itch quite badly). Allow me, without going into details to let you know how to deal with the female of the species (this one is for the few male readers that I may have left after this post):

1. Do NOT "test" them with ideas that your family wealth may be of any importance to them. If they are educated and earning twice as much as you, chances are, they dont give a damn about the fancy chandelier at your mummy's place.
2. Not all women are gold-diggers. If you happen to chance upon one, do NOT ask her to marry you.
3. Try to use general world-accepted rules of etiquette in dealings with her family (watch "Meet the Parents" for a pointer on what NOT to do).
4. Keep your word. If you promised to get her flowers and chocolates for her birthday- show up with them on said birthday!

For now I think these should suffice for most of the men I know. Try to keep these 4 points in mind and hopefully you might even keep a woman happy (though thats a feat no man has been able to achieve yet, Romeo killed himself trying).

Poxy-lady is Back!

Sarah has very sweetly demanded that I update my half-dozen or so readers about the status of my pox, so here I am. The life of an adult with chicken pox is quite honestly pathetic. The boyfriend did actually agree with me just the other day when he sms'ed to say I was "indeed pathetic". Oh the context or the rest of the sms is not necessary or relevant in this context, but all you need to know is he called me pathetic (hmph!).

In other news:
It has been brought to my notice that I am "super-frantic" simply because I like to keep my word. For instance, if I was to tell someone that I will get back to them, I usually contact them within what I feel is a reasonable time (less than 2 weeks). I always imagined that was "normal" until I was informed that in fact, promising people stuff and then not responding is how the world works. So next time you hear from people around you - "we will get back to you", consider it NOT done. Words, after all, are exactly that - words. As long as there is no written proof of such sayings, no court of law will surprise you by being on your side.

Given that I am unwell, people have been pointing out stuff to me that for some strange reason I would never have figured out for myself. Like everytime someone calls to enquire the first question is "hey.. is it itchy?". Part of me is dying to respond with a "you dont say??" and another part of me just wants to slap the person really hard. Unfortunately, usually the adult in me (yes there is one of those as well in me) wins with a charming "oh yes, its really disgusting stuff".

Meanwhile, saw a really crappy movie while I was at watching movies and devoured tons of ice cream. Instead of losing weight and going to work with people saying "aaaw.. you must have been really unwell, you lost so much weight" the reaction is going to be more on the lines of "err... they fed you a lot when you had chicken pox na?" Am almost about to watch another really sucky movie though am tempted to send it back to the video renter guy (Pappoo his name is and from a 2 square feet cigarette selling "business" he now has a roaring 4 square feet corner all to himself with even a "warehouse" somewhere where he was caught doing business in blue films a while back - I have rented non-blue movies in case you were wondering.. really!!). Anyway, I think my next post will be dedicated to flourishing capitalism in India.

Memoirs of the chicken-poxed

So, in case any of you have been missing me, I am back despite many attempts by the parents and doctors to keep me drugged and asleep, I am awake now (although briefly I am sure) to write a bit on how chicken pox feels when you are an adult.

1. Everyone finds it incredibly amusing. People have guffawed (quite loudly) into my ear as I told them the sad news on the phone.
2. Its itchy as hell and instead of finding the sores "amusing" (as one of my friends claimed she did when she had chicken pox at the age of 7, when practically anything is amusing), one finds them to be a bit of pain in the back-side.
3. Nobody comes to visit except the brave sardar with a bouquet of carnations no less. Very sweet- love that man. Cant blame the others because it seems chicken pox can happen twice and its best to avoid one with chicken pox.
4. I am now the ugliest person I know with pox marks all over my face and body and it does not help that due to the pimples I had as an adolescent (read just 2 weeks back) one cant tell whether that is acne or chicken pox.

Meanwhile, in more exciting news, the boyfriend is on to Florence now and in fact called me TWICE today. I didnt know whether to be amused or alarmed esp since he insisted on torturing me about finalising a wedding date (for the 2 of us not anyone else silly!!) as we spoke for exactly 42 nano-seconds on an international long distance call. He is a caring man, can you tell?

Neil's mentioned me in his blog and so has Nina. Thank you guys.. really sweet of you to think of me all the way in Europe. Since your blogs are infinitely more popular than mine, the plan now is to wait for a publisher to go through some of my posts and decide to sign a book deal with me. Till then, the poxy-lady must retire (AGAIN)..

Obituary

It is with sincere grief that I report the untimely demise of my holiday at home due to chicken pox. All my wonderful plans of meeting friends, partying away to glory, watching movies and shopping to my hearts content have been ruined. I must stay home for the next 7 days it seems. Ridiculous. Sympathy is welcome (visits are not, since I am quite infectious it seems).

My blog shall be my contact to the outside world, except for people who have already had chicken pox, they can visit me (thank the lord). My dear brother who has never had chicken pox is going to curse me I know. Should I hide under the bed? Would that help?

While on the subject of holidays, the boyfriend is on his way to Florence today. Sounds like he is having a really good time, even though he does try to soften the blow by saying "I am not having fun because I am missing you". While this may be entirely believable if he was holidaying in Timbuctoo (wherein it wouldnt have helped even if I was there), it is entirely unbelievable as he travels through Rome, on to Florence and Venice. Sweet of him to try anyway I guess. However, it appears that making up believable lies is not one of his strong points (luckily for me).

I must now retire to bed as I am unable to stay up and must get some sleep. The chicken pox virus is taking over my body and demanding I give it some rest.. I shall oblige.

Good Lord

I know nothing of American cities and have only visited one city in that whole entire country in my life- Atlanta. Here is what this quiz said about my being an American City (I have NO IDEA why I took the quiz):

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

New York
You're competative, you like to take it straight to the fight. You gotta have it all or die trying.

The Delhi-ite

My boyfriend is not from Delhi and there in order to educate him, I send him information about the characteristics of the breed of people that emerge from this city. There are a species in themselves and I have studied them for years (having been one myself does help). Yet another bit of an email I found I had sent him about the characteristics of Delhi-ites. Learn from this- ye who have not encountered the creatures yet:

In Delhi, if you are from any of the 4 southern states, you are a madrasi. This odd naming convention is not as funny as one would think because those who come from Kerala, Andhra and Karnataka definitely do not appreciate such behaviour, not to mention the good ol' tamil person from a town other than madras itself. And yet, the thick skinned Delhiite continues to call all south indians madrasis... out of some evil sadistic pleasure. The Delhiite, I have decided, is quite a unique creature. I shall keep you posted on its characteristics as and when they reveal themselves to me.

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In other characteristics while I am at it is the staring. I never realised how conspicuous this habit is. Men in Delhi stare at women. No no, these dont have to be hot women, or even scantily clad women. Just women in general I think, get stared at. In Bangalore, the lecherous ones are few and far between and looking back at them immediately makes them back down. The Delhiite on the other hand, stares right back thinking its some form of vindication that the woman/girl may actually like what she is being stared by. Herein lies the problem. Making faces does not help, neither does digging in your nose (apparently in some cultures, this is actually sexy and it seems we have some of those cultures residing in the unique habitat known as Delhi). The best thing to do is complete avoid eye-contact and let the starer find the next suitable prey (usually the girl in the next car). As Alanis said- you live, you learn.

Ah, how I love being back in Delhi. More on that soon...

Theory of the speed of time

I was going through some mails I had sent to Fido today (given that I am home now and have a free run of the computer here) and came across a theory I had postulated in the early months when we had just started seein each other. Here are my pearls of wisdom (I really do think, like Jane Austen's works, this is timeless stuff):

Have you ever wondered how the same units of time seem vastly different at different points in your life. I have therefore decided that time, like light and sound, has a speed. This speed quickens when you are busy and have a lot of things to do. When a loved one is around, time seems to stand still and yet move on. It is indeed a revelation somewhat on the lines of the recent revelation by my friend that cows can crap while walking. This must be a feat because I cannot imagine it. This friend of mine was witness to one such walking-crapping cow. Poor thing was quite traumatised by the whole scene I think. However, I digress, indeed time flies by and yet sometimes it seems to stand still and there the speed of time is not like gravity or the speed of light or some such constant. It varies, hence proved. Right.

Signs

If you believe in signs, like I do, then almost anything could be a sign (good or bad depending on your mood at the time). At present I am generally giddy at the thought of climbing into a flight (I LOVE flights) and climbing out of it into Delhi tomorrow morning. As a result, I saw a really good sign right now. In the sky (look out now I say) tonight is the most fantastic natural picture I ever saw. There was the moon which was lit only partially - the narrowest band of the bottom part the crescent was lit and right next to where the light of the moon ended, there twinkled a star. It looked like a lamp. NOT those lamps you use lamp-shades with.. no no... those Indian earthen lamps. Diyas. It looked like a lit diya with its flame welcoming me home. Like diwali in summer... sexxcccy stuff as one friend of mine would say. Sexy is the word I think for the month... oooh yeah!

Here are my predictions for my trip there - Diwali is a festival where people worship Lakshmi. Therefore, I shall come upon great sums of wealth and never have to work again. Ummm yeah, thats what I predict. Watch this space as the story unravels...

Here I come!

Had written this before I left for Delhi and somehow it got saved as a draft. Was wondering why it wasnt showing up and had attributed to some high-tech tomfoolery but voila, as I log in today I saw the post! There you go then:

I am going home tomorrow... somebody asked me a few days back why my mobile phone had my residence number stored as "Nidhi Home" and not as "Home". I wondered for a bit. Almost attributed to my usual scatter-brained actions. And then it hit me- Home is Delhi. My mobile phone therefore blinks "Home" when I get a call from Delhi (usually my mom - thanks bro for calling, I love you too) and obviously does not blink when I am out from my place. Since I live alone, such an event wouldnt unduely worry me... it would induce a heart attack, in fact, and present pictures of george clooney in black climbing in through the balcony to steal my lovely... errr... curtains? mattress? dining table (though that might be harder to swing down the wall with as opposed to curtains)? Yes dear folks, there arent too many valuables at my place that can be stolen except for my lovely flat screen tv and my cute fridge (with the ugly stand- thanks mom) and ummm errr yeah thats pretty much it. This sounds like a plea to have my house stolen.. all thieves out there reading this- I do NOT live in Bangalore.. err.. yeah!

There she goes

Thats one of my favourite people.. old friend of mine who is, to be completely honest with you, quite mad. She is going through a rough patch right now but is behaving surprisingly maturely about the whole thing - that pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea aint helping the whole mature look though I am thinking. But then, she has always been the wise one among us (which may not be saying much given my stupendous lack of wisdom). You go girl.. cheers *hic*!

P1010001 Originally uploaded by fvariava.

"Care-full" Torture

Its the inability to get through to "Customer Care" that gets my blood really boiling. Eventually the anger gives way to despair and then inertia sets in. The mobile phone that needs a new tariff plan because bills are too high- remains as is. Sometimes its mind-numbingly horrifying just how doctored the responses you get are. I almost feel bad for screaming at the 20 year old with a screen in front of her blinking rapidly as she types "help.. customer screaming" only to have it say "system unrecognised error: no such command available" or some such thing. Then the moment passes and I just let it go.

My mobile service provider has obviously learnt from such criminal activities as mine and refuses to let any customer get through to its "Customer Care" people. As a result, I actually hung on for exactly 30 minutes with "Raindrops keep falling on my head" being sung cheerily in the background really badly by a bunch of loons. I have a sneaky feeling they were testing me and snickering in the background. I have decided now to just live my life as is without tampering with anything at all. No more calling people to help with things that are out of order- it just does not work. Its a new state of consciousness.. much like meditation I think.

The other thing I have come to terms with is this - Customer Care is really code for "Torture the Customers" in corporate-speak. Client is NOT King.. Client is SUCKER.. lets treat her so!! Thats what they say to each other, in such companies, and dance around happily naked around a bonfire in some remote village (or just around the corner in one of our cities) while we keep trying to reach them on their phones.

Hmph!

The Pressure

I am now an author on 2 blogs- the one you are reading now and this one (The main author of which is Anand- 1 of the funniest people I have ever met - apart from my boyfriend of course - 3 million brownie points)

The pressure of writing on multiple blogs is quite intense. Ordinarily I would open my blog and generally wonder what to write. Then I would decide "nothing" is an excellent place to begin and write some trash about nothing really. Unfortunately, today I have already pissed on Anand's blog (to mark my territory and all that, if you didnt get it) and hence, am unable to think of what to write about on mine. Everything that could be said about Nick Berg, the Indian elections, the Israel-Palestine situation and more has already been said. So politics is out. Sex was never part of my blog and wont be for all you folks out there trying to find another blog to read now. That leaves, let me see- food and music I think. Thats what it shall be then. I shall write a song about food (perfect, she says to herself while the world holds its head in anguish at the very thought)

I like food, I really do
dobedobedo....
Except for sambhar and rice
I dont think thats nice

Chorus
Everyday at work you know (echo-harmony thing in background)
South Indian food is fed to us, though
Rotis are also given (echo-harmony thing in background)
Rice is the only thing that can be eaten

Umm yeah.. thats about as much as I could write. Popstars, here I come!!

My good deed for the.. err.. day..

In order to rid myself of the guilt of living the way I do while millions go hungry in my country itself, once in a while I do something nice. Today I donated blood. I am hoping that this will somehow absolve me of my responsibility to a society that has been able to educate me and pay me well enough so that my main concerns are which diet to try next, what furniture would look in my house and what to do with the extra room that lies empty there... Some may call it evolution.. I call it decadence (sometimes I feel like I am extremely poor though, I must admit.. this isnt one of those days). Very often I wonder what its like to be on the streets or in the middle of war. You know, when your greatest concerns are where the next meal may be coming from, or will you live through the next day. And suddenly I feel so fortunate for having the troubles that I do. Oddly, they seem very small suddenly.

Of course, the very next day it feels like my world is collapsing around me when my boss peeks into my cubicle and finds the internet window open for blogging constantly, or just simply when the coffee machine runs out of coffee at work (that can be excruciatingly painful you know).

Instead of giving my time to the world, I decide to give money, or blood. I am fortunate enough to be able to give blood. There were people who did not have a choice about it- some had high-blood pressure, otehrs were underweight, or whatever else that eliminates you from donating even if you want to. Although while I was at B-School I did get involved in various "social" activities and since I have started pursuing greater wealth at my new job I really have not had the chance to do much. But like they say "Life's all about choices"... am I choosing not to do anything much? I hope not...

Cute

The question I often want to ask people (and quite often I want to ask question, only this is a recurring question) is why we cant be cute at the workplace. The pointy-haired-boss is obviously not just a figment of Scott Adams' imagination. All bosses lack imagination.

Today, I was tempted to sign of an email which was sent to colleagues with some reports to be sent to their clients, with the following "cute" line:

Thank you for making this extremely tedious (I kid) project a resounding success (we have yet to receive feedback from the client though ;))

Oh I was tempted to send it off. Better sense prevailed. Tried the boyfriends number to get approval and fortunately his line was busy. I have a feeling he would have cackled and encouraged me to send the email, thus closing my fate as one of the many million over-qualified unemployed youth of our country.

I then called my brother who laughed hysterically for a bit. When he finally decided to get up off the floor (on which he was rolling with laughter), he advised me not to send the mail. Usually, my first instinct when ANYONE says ANYTHING to me is to do the EXACT OPPOSITE. You know how that is - "Dont dismantle the phone.. okay okay.. dont dismantle it so much.. dammit!! put it back together now" was a commonly heard refrain from parents in Delhi (I kid you, of course.. somewhat) But this time, I showed incredible self-restraint and the email ended with a plain and simple "Regards, Nidhi"

Cute... NOT.

Celebrity Status

I am a celebrity in Delhi. Just today, my face has been plastered on the front page of a daily city supplement of a large national daily. Unfortunately after hours of searching on the net (at company expense), I have given up on trying to find the picture on the net. Bummer- millions of NRIs who probably access the site for news from India will no longer get to have a look at my smashing face. However, millions in Delhi would have noticed my face fleetingly before turning to the back page which usually has pictures of jennifer lopez and britney spears wearing as little as possible in the usual "who-can-stand-naked-pretending-to-wear-something-that-just-about-passess-off-as-body-paint-and-still-be-featured-in-a-regular-daily-as-opposed-to-playboy" contest.

I have to now slowly inch that picture to the social page of Delhi (page 3). Page 3 is the place to be seen usually... preferably with a glass of wine in hand and a film star standing somewhere in the vicinity. The caption for such a shot would read like so - "Nidhi and Insert-Cool-Filmstar-Name catching up at the gala opening of insert-name-of-hip-new-nightclub". Very original stuff that.

We will ignore the fact that the article was about ridiculously lavish secondary schools in Delhi with individual laptops for students. The mention of laptops has been made briefly in one sentence somewhere in the middle. It appears that the ditzes had to find a picture of people with laptops who could probably pass of secondary school students. My picture from b-school is the one they decided to pick since it had a laptop (and hey- "23 is not too young for secondary school", they thought). Not so suprisingly, most people in Delhi who have informed me of my newfound celebrity status seem to have missed the article completely (for some very obvious reasons, the least of which is that the article writers in said city supplement suck).

I hope I dont get mobbed when I land at Delhi airport now... I will never be the same again...

Brownie Point Scoring Mechanism

After much thought (precisely 42 long seconds) and some arguments that I have lost with my boyfriend, I have developed a brownie point earning mechanism. As of right now, I have earned 109 brownie points while I dont see him keeping track. This has GOT to be a winning strategy I think.

The mechanism was developed after careful research into the psyche of a particularly cranky individual (no no, I am not referring to you Fido!!). After hours of studing such a psyche, it was decided that keeping track of brownie points and redeeming them against valuable gifts was the only way out. However, before you jump to the conclusion that must be a highly unfair scoring system and begin to feel sorry for Fido, let me tell you that I have negative scoring as well. Already I have lost 12 points because Fido now thinks I referred to him as a cranky individual (even though in brackets I have denied all acccusations- that makes no difference). It is a highly subjective system and I grant you that.

What now needs to be done is assign a rupee value to these brownie points and then claim gifts of the value. Any suggestions? Careful consideration of data suggests that Rs. 50 for each brownie point is appropriate. I must add now that my boyfriend has been extremely supportive in my efforts. Not once did he protest at such accumulation of brownie points or random allocation of such points in my emails to him. Honey - You are the best (42 brownie points).

Its been a rough day, what with developing new scoring systems and all. I must now find a bed and lie down and relax. I could also, instead, just head for a coffee break (right after the blog break) at work.

Note: All references to research and data must not be probed further. Suffice it to say, I was scientific in my approach.

And then...?

Its a perfect coversation filler. Its between that and "aur bata"? Thats when I usually know there is nothing left to be said and the conversation must be ended immediately or severe boredom must be tolerated. Severe boredom is not an option really for me. As a result, usually I rack my brains quite frantically to come up with original conversation starters like "ummm.. errr... yeah... so like... ummm... whats up?" This usually has one of the 2 consequences:

1. The other person walks away in sheer disgust
2. The other person walks away in sheer disgust... yeah thats the same as the other one. Surprised? Really??

Either way, it works well for me I think. I am the queen of sucky conversation. Beat me at it, I dare you.

Cut Costs!!

A very dear friend of mine reminded in my last post (and very randomly at that) that all costs must be cut. Rewind to just a year ago when I had just joined b-school. All I wanted to do is contribute in whatever destructive way I could. As did this friend of mine. As a result, for one of the courses that we didnt particularly like (or understand) our standard contribution was usually - "Cut costs!" A typical study group meeting for such courses usually went something like this:

Man-who-thought-he-was-sexily-smart-when-he-really-was-not: I think we should split this work.. you do this.. you two do this ... *wink* *crack silly joke and laugh hysterically*
*crooked smile that he thinks is winning many brownie points*
Mad engineer - If you are going to take any longer at this, I might fall asleep. I have calculated everything with my special algebraic formulae and cracked the case as I woke up at 4am and have not had much else to do till our meeting now at 7pm apart from attend all classes twice over and watch the news on tv....
Verbose dude - I also cracked the case but I did by simply talking through the night in sentences that were at least 17 words long where each word had at elast 5 syllables. Fantastic stuff..
Dude-with-rosy-cheeks-and-not-much-to-say - ...
Cool people of study group (thats me and friend, for those who havent guessed yet) - We have cracked it!! *excited waving of arms in the air* As soon as we found that we had missed all our classes for the day (by mistake of course), we got down to some serious shit like downloading music and just as we were about to leave to meet you guys we met and discussed the case ourselves. The answer is, hold your breath, CUT COSTS!!

Usually these suggestions were shot down immediately and to a large extent I blame my gpa (or lack of it thereof) on them. Then there was the time we had to make a class about social responsibility entertaining and I discovered a superhero - anti-corruption girl who was to jump into the middle of a serious presentation and rid the world of corruption. I had even planned a cape and a costume for the whol thing (minus the underwear on the outside)... this too was shot down. And you wonder why I didnt top... they didnt let me!!