Whatever things

Lost

2006-07-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

I lost my mobile phone yesterday and did not panic when it happened. I did want to panic. I wanted to sink to my knees and cry. But somehow I could not. I have made losing phones a habit. This time I remember speaking to someone a minute before reaching home and finding that the phone was missing. Much hunting and running around led to no results.

I then waited for F to return and find it. Thats what he does for me. I usually panic and cant see things that lie just in front of me and he can find them for me. It is usually tricky to remain calm around a hysterical woman, but he manages. A typical conversation between the two of us sounds like this:

N (after looking frantically, EVERYWHERE): Honey!!! I cant find my spectacles!! Help... I am going to die, I know it!
F (calmly - almost whispering): No you wont die love. The spectacles are perched carefully on your nose.

OR

N (after looking frantically, EVERYWHERE): Honey!!! I cant find my dupatta!! Help... I am going to die, I know it!
F (calmly - almost whispering): *Looks behind me on the bed and calmly picks up "lost" dupatta* Looks like you wont be dying anytime soon honey...

Its sweet I know and I have come to depend on his "finding" abilities quite a bit. As a result, when the phone was lost and "unreachable" I figured I probably cant see it and its probably lying somewhere around me only. It was a classic case of denial. F was put on the job of finding my phone as soon as he returned from work. None of the "how-was-your-day?" or "want-some-water?" conversations for him yesterday. A torch was handed to the man and he was instructed to "search and retrieve". He searched and searched and then calmly returned to tell me that my phone was indeed stolen.

I plan to stick to my sasta-sunder(NOT)-aur-tikau phone now which somehow never manages to get lost (for very obvious reasons - its ugly!!).

Rain on my Parade

2006-07-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

Its raining heavily in the city of Mumbai. Somehow I am braver than I was before about it earlier and am among the few in at work today. This is a fabulous thing because it means I can post in the middle of the day without having anybody find out! Arent you glad its flooded in this city?? I can, in effect, seem like a dedicated worker while blogging at work. Things just could not get better I think.

In the most exciting news of my life - my second soulmate (apart from F) - Re - moved to Mumbai. The joy at this occurrence has known no bounds for me. Of course around her, I am quite restrained and not jumping about in excitement, especially after her boyfriend suggested that I have a crush on her. I certainly dont want him to think he has competition in the form of moi. He would stand no chance, of course, with me around - so my self-restraint is actually a special gift for him. I am sure if he knew, he would drop to his knees and thank me profusely. He is not a profuse sort of chap- but this act would reduce him to it I think.

In other news, soccer appears to have overtaken my life. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that it allows me to stay up all night drinking. Nothing at all. Instead of partying, I now insist we go and watch soccer at a pub. Much easier to convince the husband that way. Clever, no? Of course, I know all of three names in the soccer teams and usually root for the guy-with-braided-hair or guy-with-no-neck or guy-with-pony-tail (uh-oh.. was that the entire Argentinian team??)... Its the enthusiasm that counts! I will make no bets, no predictions and discuss none of the finer points of soccer playing especially since I still dont understand the concept of "off-side" fully!! All I will say is - have a drink and enjoy the games!!

Chiclet

2006-06-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

I was recently informed that mine is a chiclet blog- something you chew on but cant digest if you swallow. Something you need to spit out at the end of a read. While initially I was going to protest (and wildly at that) I decided that perhaps I need to introspect on that. Perhaps it was my 7th martini at the time, but I just felt too relaxed to wave wildly and refute such accusations. Mine is not a serious blog- I dont write about news, politics, football or even review movies. Mine is a blog about whatever strikes my mind at a particular point of time. Quite often it is stuff like -

1. Who thought of the word chiclet?
2. How did it become popular - this chewing of stuff and then throwing it out in case it created a mass of goo in your tummy?

Clearly, mine is no intellectual blog. Dammit! But this revelation has made me realise that writing for me therefore must not require as much effort as I have been thinking lately it does require. Its all about being bored and not having much else to do. Somewhat like that time I purchased a guitar when I had no clue about playing and it lies there collecting dust now. Let the party begin I say... I assure you I shall be more regular from now... watch this space (in case you are watching it at all).

Je Suis Desolee

2006-05-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

I tried the whole knowing of the 1st line of the songs on my ipod recently when its on shuffle and it turns out I suck at knowing lyrics. Madonna helped me with little openers like the one that forms the title for this post. Of course, its hard to tell why she is apologising while making such awesome music (can you tell i WORSHIP her?).

Actually I also wanted to mention that during a recent conversation with respect to job prospects at a particular organisation I realised I was perhaps less interesting than I think of myself. I think quite highly of myself and sometimes fascinate myself so much that I dont feel the need for any company whatsoever!! When asked if I had energy, all I wanted to tell them is that I have the energy to haul my arse back home everyday and curl up in bed and sleep (and sometimes stay up to watch Sex and the City)! Is that not enough I say? Sounds like an exhausting lifestyle, doesnt it?

I am bored, BORED, bored... and as I wait here for my friend to finish her work and prepare to go the gym where everyone (including the trainers) are waiting to do their point-and-laugh thing at me for going there percisely once a week!! More on exciting stories from there coming up...

Tagged!

2006-04-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

Almost a million years ago, Ekta tagged me and given my usual slow reaction to most things in life, here is my response. Since I am meant to state the rules, here goes:

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. You have to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game and leave a comment on their comments saying they've been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

So here is my list of must-haves in the Ideal man:
1. He should be Parsi.
2. He should be most adorable.
3. He should love the water.
4. He should love the hills.
5. He should be very energetic.
6. He should have a crazee sense of humour.
7. He should love snowpeas (yuck!).
8. His comfort food should be "steak in wine sauce"

And since I am supposed to tag 8 people after this and I dont know 8 people well enough to do this, here goes:

F and Re have to do this 4 times!!

Its a features magazine

2006-04-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

I have decided to change this blog from a commentary on the story of my life to an occasional magazine on ramblings that occassionally enter my mind. Bear in mind that as I age, fewer thoughts will enter my mind (as has already started happening) and hence the frequency of posts my fall (as has already happened in fact).

At present I am on a diet and all I can think of is food. Everywhere I go, I notice food. I hear the crunch of chips that I was previously oblivious to 7 cubicles away from me. I find blogs of people who love to cook with recipes I cant try out. Not only that, for some strange reason, our maid took out all the recipe books the other day to clean out the kitchen and they have since been lying in front of the tv, as alternative entertainment! I now read recipe books and drool at the pictures of the invitingly fattening food for entertainment. Yes I know, tis a sad life I lead. I see skinny chicks and wonder what they eat (if anything at all).

The good news is that after 2 months of frustrating exercising which lead to no weight loss, I have finally lost some weight. I have miles to go before I sleep though and dreams of food will probably disturb my sleep anyway so hopefully the loss of sleep will assist in my endeavours to lose weight. Wish me luck and strength to keep this up. I assure you that I am not starving myself although I am eating only salad or soup for dinner almost everyday which among some communities may be referred to as starving oneself!

This is going to a be a year of discipline. 2006 will be etched in my memory as the first year of discipline in my life - discipline with respect to food may not last much longer given my hallucinations of deliciously deep fried food but discipline with respect to spending can already be seen by the fact that I have bought only 3 pairs of shoes this year! Surprising, isnt it? If thats not self-control and discipline, I dont know what is!!

Whatever Monthly

2006-03-09T03:33:00.000-08:00

I am seriously considering changing the name of this blog from Whatevery Things to Whatever Monthly Things. Lets take a poll on this. Tell me what you think my lovely readers (not you Ma).

In my defence, all I can say is I have been busy. I had a surprise birthday party thrown for me which was just fabulous. So many people and so much alcohol (I think there was some food there as well) is always a good combination. The especially excellent part of the party was that everyone felt obliged to bring me a gift and hence many gifts were collected (the gifts of wine being consumed upon entering the home itself). Many glasses were broken and, in sheer frustration, it appears, our neighbour tried to get our attention by whacking our balcony by reaching across from his with a long wooden stick (probably a branch of a tree). We were informed of this only the day after when one of our friends mentioned a vague memory of being hit by a stick while he stood out to smoke.

The exciting thing about the surprise party was that it was more surprising for the guests to have me open the door for them in an increasingly flamboyant (and loud) fashion as the evening (and alcohol) wore on, screaming as the door opened - "SURPRISE!! I KNOW!!". My poor husband and Re felt awful that I was getting increasingly depressed at the idea of having nothing to do on my birthday. So while I was complaining that I was getting late at work (even my boss was roped into the whole act) and that I had no reason to complain about it since I didnt have anything to do on my birthday anyway... F felt awful and decided to tell me to get home immediately. Besides, they needed all the help they good get since they had called all 45 people we knew in the city (and some that we didnt)!

Photos of the madness can be seen here.

Thanks to F and Re for just being the best friends anyone can ask for!

I have also been tagged for a Meme and that shall be my next post.

Another Wedding

2006-02-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in the previous post (which you probably did not read), I attended another very close friend's wedding in Delhi earlier this month. Now, going to Delhi is always fun and as usual I have stories to tell again. But before I do that, let me recount the 7 most favourite moments from the wedding for posterity -

1. The time the bride refused to remove the rather enormous looking hairdo even after the ceremony was over (and she had changed into her pyjamas!!)..
2. Butter-scotch ice-cream in the middle of the night..
3. The bride looking crest-fallen before the wedding ceremony as 2 bindis fell off her forehead..
4. Running to get kaleera's (for those of you who dont know, in Punjabi weddings the bride is given charms that are tied to her bangles as good wishes from close friends and family) at the last minute..
5. Mehendi..
6. Taking blurry photos (AGAIN), thus making me say to EVERYONE who posed for photos "err.. once more please... this one's a little blurry"...
7. Referring to P's friend by her sisters name, even after being corrected (repeatedly!)..

I also made a new friend in a 2 year old niece of the bride. Now you may think that 2 year olds are annoying and that was my opinion of them too (unless of course its a meeting of a few fleeting moments, in which case I ADORE 2 year olds). But this was a surprisingly mature 2 year old. She was able to understand and not throw a tantrum about why she could not go to the garden and play when a particular ceremony was on. Impressive. I am quite sure I would have thrown myself on the floor and demanded to be taken to the garden, if I was in her place. In fact, I would have held my breath till I was blue and then proceeded to scream my head off (much like what I do nowadays). Not only that, she actually liked me! Ah, finally a mature two-year-old who does not appear to want to sob uncontrollably at the sight of me (as is usual with such small people around me).

My mother also participated in the wedding by reprimanding people into eating the wonderful food at the wedding itself. Thankfully, she also made herself useful by relieving us of our duty of standing guard with the gifts in the room at the back when one particularly exciting bit of the wedding was going on. As we ran out, I was afraid my sari was going to become a part of the carpet by disintegrating and fortunately for me, that never happened. All in all, it was a brilliant wedding with the bride running helter-skelter organising everything and scolding everything into perfection.

Sporadic

2006-02-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

Clearly I am not blogging as regularly as I should but I must present my defense:

1. I went to Bahrain again for a few days (photos to follow shortly, stories to follow immediately),
2. I went to Delhi for another friends wedding,
3. My birthday just went by (wish me people!!)
4. I was lazy..
5. I was busy...
6. My birthday just went by (didnt I say that already?)

Watch this space for some exciting (NOT) stories!!

Paper

2006-01-15T21:22:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, we have completed a year since we officially vowed in the presence of what appeared to be a million people along with TV cameras, beaming our faces "live across continents" (I exaggerate a little) to be husband and wife. I am yet to figure out how things changed on that day apart from the fact that I now had an additional family to call my own.

I would like to say something sappy at this juncture but I really cannot think of much. F and I spend a lovely weekend (along with the occasional cockroach in our room) away from the city. It was lovely and the idea that I almost beat F at Uno was probably one of the most exciting moments of our relationship. That said, I want to thank F for a wonderful year gone by especially the following (itemised for easy reference at a future date, if required for any gratefulness-related emergency):

1. For coming to Delhi when my mother broke her ankles and pretended to be fine fine fine...
2. For following me around the house picking up the trail of clothes, trash that I may leave behind..
3. For making soup when I was unwell (and getting the recipe from V)..
4. For not screaming at me (too much) when I locked you in the house..
5. For driving to the office with food when I was working late..
6. For leaving the boring concert sooner than expected...
7. For staying in the fun concert longer than expected..
8. For holding my hand and taking me into the sea (and not drowning me in it)...
9. For wondering why the woman in the cola ad was thanking Mr. Bean...
10. For forgetting everyones names and pretending to remember them by saying "aaha..." everytime an unfamiliar name was spoken..
11. For telling the man from Timbuctoo he "really shouldnt have" come all the way for our wedding..
12. For pretending that swimming (read splashing about in the pool) for hours with occasional breaks for beers is the best exercise we can get...
13. For being the best cooking partner (read person who does not complain when food is burnt right into the cooking utensils)...
14. For pretending to be Punjabi and insisting on saying "Balle Balle te Shava Shava" everytime you didnt have much to say...

There are a gazillion other items that I can thank you for but I am at work and must pretend to get something done before someone else walks by my desk and sees me writing love notes to you my love (as have some 10 people already).

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Happy

2006-01-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all my readers (yes thats you - re, ma and f.. Thats about all the readership I have right now). Another year has gone by and I feel a little older and lot less wiser for it. I am not sure if the "old" adage that wisdom comes with years is really true because looking back on my life I feel I may have been a more mature individual while I was an adolescent than I am now. The following highlights from the past year may illustrate my point:

1. The shangria was so delicious at a particular party that my greed prompted me to immediately down a whole jug of it. I realised exactly 5 nano-seconds later that perhaps that was not the best idea. The remaining part of the evening was spent woozily wondering why the world was spinning out of control...
2. Being concerned that the old and practically blind maid that we have is stealing our cutlery only to find that I have carefully stored away large boxes of said cutlery in the loft (only to be used for cutlery-related emergencies)...
3. I refused to meet one of my best friends because she paid "too much attention" to her boyfriend... who, by the way, she was meeting for a week after months of separation...
4. I continued to watch TV as though its the 8th wonder of the world...
6. I took a gazillion pictures of our matching socks in London... and was indeed quite excited about the very idea of being sock-twins of yet another chaddi-buddy!
7. Maggi continued to be a proper meal for me... and now its enriched with nutrients as well (enough to provide you your daily dose of nutrients should you consume 5 packets in 1 day)...
8. I commented on every outdoor sequence in movies now that I can recognise locations in Bombay and frequently refuse to suspend disbelief when people leap out of Leopolds to suddenly appear at the Gateway - that leap would require several pole-vaults I assure you!
9. I gave up Scrabble because I have no choice but to lose horribly pathertically against F...
10. I have resolved to instead go for time-based word games like Boggle (as soon as I can find it in some store here)...

Bahrain

2005-12-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

I am in Bahrain on work. Thats what they told me when they sent me. I have realised though, after 2 days of finishing work before lunch followed by hectic socialising that the definitions of work are different across cultures. For instance, in Bahrain, a terribly hard day would begin at 8am and end at 4pm. I like this culture.

I think the people here are exceptionally friendly and the guards hand you the passes in a very endearing fashion by calling out to you as "ah, my friends, here are your passes". Come on now, you have to admit that is endearing.

What is not so endearing is the fact that when you hand in some dollars to exchange to Bahrain-y money, all you get is what appears to be pocket change (given the coins they hand you as well as 2-3 seemingly low denomination notes). Bah!! We are used to handing in dollars to the guy behind the counter and getting large wads of notes in return, making us feel like the king of the world, much in the same fashion as my good friend Leo felt in that ghastly movie called The Titanic. This is unjust!

I have also realised in Bahrain that my photography skills are somewhat lacking (to say the least). As a result, most pictures I have taken are blurry and only show the fact that I missed the actual subject due to my excited waving of arms while taking said photos. However, I am not ashamed of my lack of skill and am therefore willing to allow you to ridicule my horrific photo-taking skills by viewing them here.

Dissolved

2005-12-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

The Monday Club has been dissolved. After much enthusiasm and a few hundred pitchers of beer, the members felt it was too expensive and having fewer pitchers of beer was not an option. Furthermore, going out on a Monday was too much of an effort for the ageing members (an of course I dont include myself in this group).

Arrgh! My one opportunity to rule the world has been trashed! Dashed! Thrown to the dogs!!

Meanwhile, one of my best friends has fallen in love and cant get enough of it. Its like she is on a drug! So nice and yet I want my little space - as her favourite person, the one she couldnt do without talking at least once a day to - back. I want it back, you hear me young man? I am, of course, very glad for her but I already know she will get married and move to a land where the timezones are strange. Its like the country likes being awake when one is meant to sleep! I already lost one friend to a foreign land, another one leaves in a few months with her husband (London is snatching my friends away, give them back I say!!) and this one may leave in another year or so... Bah!

In other news, I have a headache that refuses to leave the warm and cosy place between my skull and my hair..... I am off to kill the headache or myself with immediate effect.

Countless Pointy People

2005-12-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

In case both of my readers (including myself) were wondering where I have been lately, I would like to tell you the story behind my disappearance from the world of blogging. It was one of my closest friends wedding. I was away and enjoying myself being introduced to all and sundry as "the bride's best friend". It is a privileged position to hold I tell you. I got to take annoying pictures of her (and with her) and pointed and laughed at her silly behaviour throughout. Not only that I further aggravated the tense bride by repeatedly wondering why she was tense because I "remember having so much fun at my wedding" (NOT).

The thing about human memory is that we tend to remember the good parts (if you are optimistic... you are obviously likely to remember all the bad parts if you are a manic-depressive sort) and forget the bad parts of certain events in our lives. Child-birth for instance tends to evoke such happy, emotional responses from mothers who have left the experience behind them. However, from what I see on TV (and I do watch a LOT of TV) it does not appear to be a pretty thing to happen to anybody. Therefore, much like the mothers who forget all the pain they went through dring childbirth, I forgot all the tension at the time of my wedding and only remember the fun parts -

1. My brother aiming the flowers at prayer ceremonies at my spectacles,
2. One of seven dwarfs (grumpy) making a brief appearance at the wedding,
3. F telling one of the gazillion guests when told that he-came-all-way-from-timbuctoo-for-the-wedding that he REALLY SHOULDNT HAVE,
4. Drinking pitchers of long island iced tea;
5. Doing tequila shots;
6. Reminding everybody of my Mumtaz-look and then having to explain to them who Mumtaz was by singing the famous song to them (in a very out-of-tune fashion for that extra special effect);
7. Laughing till I had tears in my eyes while all my friend got their mehendi done for various reasons, the foremost among them being the fact that my friends are clowns,

This wedding was no less and I am sure Sav will remember all the fun parts and just to remind her, those moments were as follows:

1. When we had to paint her face black with a purported face-mask;
2. When we got to pour oil on her hair (pity about the shower cap she wore for that prayer meeting)
3. When she very seriously told us that someone was asking very POINTY questions about her ex-boyfriend
4. (This one is priceless) When I mentioned an exaggerated number, as I usually tend to do, and Sav jumped up and said, "You dont know how to count... you are countless!"
5. When we drank ourselves silly at Buzz and she did her cool chicken dance with her fiance in public!
6. When I said to her (as she sat in one corner alone) that someone is getting engaged today and looking unhappy about it, referring to her of course and she jumped up (yet again) and said "who?? who??"
7. When the singer scolded us for not dancing and Sav proceeded to do her chicken dance in public AGAIN and this time she had people she knew around her!

Thats enough I think, seven fun memories for her and for me. No more, no less. I shall be back with Sub-Urban tales soon..

Goa

2005-11-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Over the Diwali weekend, we were off to Goa. This clearly is an unusual practice judging by the number of "Really??-You-went-to-Goa-for-Diwali?"-reactions I got from people. Its like Christmas for us - Diwali. You HAVE to spend it with family. I guess my husband IS my family now so in effect I did have a traditional Diwali. Not only that, on this beautiful and unspoiled beach we even had some clearly psychotic caucasian travellers of undetermined origin who were walking into the water to deliver some extremely-toxic-yet-pretty (isnt that ALWAYS the case though - like with toxic waste sent to third world countries and Nu-killer power plants?) lamps. So in the darkness one could see sweet lamps (threatening the end of the world) floating in what appeared to be mid-air, but was actually the sea.

Of course, we noticed that in the event of a tsunami NONE of us would survive. The beach was populated with thatched roof stilted shacks. This housing would not survive a hearty gust of wind, let alone a tsunami. Comforting thoughts these were...

We went to a beautiful beach with a whole bunch of friends and some annoying people pretending to be our friends for the time being. On this beautiful beach, we watched the sea behave in a very calm fashion which induced us in turn to be much calmer than usual ourselves. We did not mind the fact that our room had the fan located just next to the door, so that all incoming traffic could feel the relief from the heat except us! We also did not mind the fact that we had the shower was located directly above the pot, which meant we had to stand on the pot to shower in a precarious dance of sorts ever morning and evening. We also did not mind (and in fact enjoyed thoroughly) the dogs barking at the cows (yes, thats right, COWS and DOGS also roamed this beach freely - very much like the rest of our cities in fact! This was an interesting phenomenon to watch - the dogs barking wildly at the cows who calmly watched the sea unperturbed by the frantic leaping around of said dogs around them.

What we DID mind however was the fact that our holiday came to an end when it did. And more than that I was upset about the fact that I had to wake up very very very early in the morning (4.30 am is still the dead of the night as far as I am concerned and not early morning) to catch the darn flight...

Monday Club

2005-10-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

Mumbai has a Friday Club it seems. I was informed that of it a while back and always wondered how I could be a part of this elite cool group. All my life I have always been excluded from the cool social / peer groups and instead been included in the anti-establishment (read sour-grapes-like) social / peer groups.

In school, there were people in Theatre clubs, Hostel clubs, Day-Scholar clubs and I was in the Editorial club. Not really anti-establishment really but it was not mainstream or cool either. Then came college and I thought I would have it easy this time. I had learnt my lesson from school. And yet, when Prom Night came along, there were those with dates at the party and those without dates in the Kela (Banana) Club. You can guess which group I was in.

Then came work and this time I was determined to be cooler than previously. Clearly the Friday Club would have been a good beginning but I never managed to make it. The cool people in the club appeared to be a tad too obnoxious. And in an effort to alleviate the boredom and sheer depression of Mondays, I decided after a Monday night of drunken pool and darts at a bar followed by teen patti that we shall found a club. The Monday Club was therefore formed. In the two Mondays that we have gathered, the following rules have been instituted under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol (bee to be precise):

Beers MUST be had!
New members will be subjected to a very predictable interview which will begin with introductions and a quick test of memory by asking new members to repeat all names. Forgetting names will not be held against anyone, but will generally provide amusement to the rest of us. We are sadistic that way.
Missing the dart board by miles is completely acceptable and in fact, preferred in most cases.
Running to the dart board, however, with your dart is only allowed for 3 founding members.
Missing 2 Mondays means automatic expulsion from the group. You can cry but you will not be allowed back into the hallowed circle anymore... hmph!
Monday before Diwali is our day off!
Please treat these rules seriously, or I will have to drink many more beers in the sheer depression of the mockery.

We have also given founding members titles such as Treasurer, Secretary, Security Council (with veto power) and President (yours truly). How cool is that huh? Huh?

And before you can say it - I will tell you myself that I am very very bored and this is truly one of the most exciting things in my life at present. I suspect most members will soon start wondering why the whole week is seeming like a hangover and figure out the linkage between all that beer they have on Monday nights and the hangover-like feeling that persists through the week. This will make them more susceptible to miss Monday nights and soon the world will come to an end.

Until then, bring on the party I say!

2005-10-25T06:48:00.000-07:00

Its been a while I know. The 3 readers I had have probably stopped checking if I am alive even. Well I am. Deal with it. I have been so busy with work that I have not had the time to breathe. But in the while I was away, the following events have taken place in my life:

I lost weight over the last 2 months and have rapidly put it back on just before I wrote this blog (like in the last 5 minutes)
One of my friends decided to get married. Now I know this is not an event in MY life specifically and must therefore not be added here, but really, must we be so technical about things?
Anyway, how this affects me is that now I have 3 weddings to attend in the next 4 months.
And while I wrote this, another friend of mine called to invite me for his wedding taking the toll upto 4 weddings in 4 months. Am I popular or what?
I won at teen-patti for a change. Of course, I only won some 50 rupees, but it was worth it I say.
I made a severely career limiting move by rebuking my boss at the said cards party (where I won 50 rupees mentioned in point 5 above) for being annoying. Not only that I handed him his 45 rupees change and all when he got exceptionally annoying.
I went to a beauty salon of my own free will in Mumbai and (I hate to admit this) actually enjoyed it! They asked me for tea and instantly won my approval and patronage for a lifetime.
I started driving exceptionally well (if I may say so myself) and got 2 stop-sign jumping tickets to prove it as well.
I started controlling my temper and the lack fo a third ticket is proof of the same.
I initiated a Monday night club, details of which will be shared in another post shortly.
I got a raise - woohoo!
I made new friends - yeehaw!

All in all, a reasonably eventful and happy absence from the world of blogs. But I am back, so watch this space now.. please?

Red!

2005-08-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

You are red. Living life to the fullest is
important to you, and you aren't afraid to take
risks. Crazy adventures are exciting to you,
and yoou love to meet new people. You love to
party and flirt, and you have a decent amount
of friends because of your personality.

What Color Do You Represent?
brought to you by

High Potential

2005-08-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

I think I have the potential to be a real pain. And its not because all the clients I deal with actually demonstrate their pain-worthiness repeatedly, its just that sometimes I can feel the pain my clients go through... and feel happy about it!

My company has a programme for such high-potential people... high potential to be awesomely cool in the system and not painful jack-asses like the rest of us! They get to go on a training programme, which to my mind is a tad ridiculous. They have the potential - you think so, they most definitely think so, so why not celebrate the very realisation? Why not send them on a pardeee to the Bahamas instead of a training programme to China? I would think there should be certain criteria for everyone to realise you are a hi-po-

1. Superior ass-licking skills
2. Flexibility in vacation programmes (cancelling vacation plans is a big to-do among my geeky friends in the elite community of hippos.. oops! Did I just say that?)
3. Supreme lack of other-things-to-do

For all this, I should think they deserve a break. Give them a party I say! Let them leave their laptops behind for a moment... or just let them take a day off I say!

While I ponder these very profuound questions, I realise the reason for my not being one of the people training to have even higher potential than I already have - my super-coolness for such things. My potential is so high, its not something that people can even see... I cant blame them for their short-sightedness about the whole thing. Although I am not terribly sad I did not attend a hectic training programme in China with some not so exciting food and not much to do in the evenings other than homework, I do feel its time I lowered my potential levels to a place where people can notice them, what say?

Gym Instructors

2005-06-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how gm instructors come up to you just as you start doing warm up exercises at the gym? "I think you should try this exercise instead.." And so from my usual head-spinning-shoulder-spraining routine I start a new one. "Yes yes.. now do this 10 times". But I already knew some warm exercises!! Why do I need to know more?

Having been through such instances a few times in my life, it came to me like a tire-burst in the middle of the highway. Gym instructors like to teach you THEIR OWN warm up exercises. If you have some of your own, they suspect that some other gym instructor may have taught you those and we cant have any of that in THIS gym!!

Having begun with my theory you may have now realised that I have actually started going to the gym. Primarily to lose some of the excess weight I have put on in the last 2 years to the point that people have now started calling me fatso! I will show them I say... but 3 days in a row at the gym and I still get tired at the very mention of a treadmill! But I plan to continue as long as interest remains. I am also on my own version of a diet - the watch-what-you-eat-based-on-how-fatty-it-appears-to-be diet. Wish me luck!

Moving on to Paris!

2005-06-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

So we left London safe with the knowledge that we can pretend to have visited the Buckingham Palace what with the picture of the solitary guard at the Tower of London. We were almost delirious at the idea, in fact (at least I think I was because I remember my lovely husband having a conversation with the London taxi driver on our way to the airport about levitation.. or meditation and maybe even sex... yes I think I was most definitely delirious at the time).

It was a short (and also cheap) flight to Paris. We would have loved to take the chunnel but it was a most expensive alternative to the cheap flight that makes you walk to the plane from the terminal (on to the tarmac and all) and walk right out when you land to the terminal (on the tarmac and all). Its a wonder that the passengers do not wander off to watch flights land and take off from up close... I think thats EXACTLY what these flights try to avoid by scheduling them at un-godly hours like 4.30am in the morning (or is it night still....)

So we landed into Paris and took a train and as soon as we walked in a man with the accordion was playing the French national song (you know that music that immediately reminds you of France, even though you have never been there? Yes, thats the one). How sweet... I tried not to notice all the ugly buildings we went by on that train, and the grafiti that adorned ALL the walls EVERYWHERE until we reached the center of Paris. As a result, until we reached the center of Paris, I wondered if some very rich delusional maniac had pronounced it to be one of the most romantic cities of the world only to be followed by all our delusional media and hence the popular delusional notion.

But as soon as we emerged into the center of Paris.. close to our hotel, I was awestruck. I had never seen so many gay people all at once! Apparently, we had booked ourselves in the "gay" part of Paris. How appropriate! It is after all Gay Paris! Cafes with rows of gay men appeared to be inviting us to sit and watch other gay people walk by.... Fabulous stuff dah-ling!

Buckingham Palace - Almost!

2005-06-07T02:13:00.000-07:00

Buckingham Palace - Almost!
Originally uploaded by fvariava.

Its been one long holiday since the last time I posted. I went to *ahem* London, Paris and Agde (in the south of France) for an iddy-biddy honeymoon-like holiday with my dear husband who has now fully recovered from jaundice. In fact, he demonstrated how well he had recovered by carrying some very heavy flooring tiles along with ALL the rest of our luggage himself across Western Europe. It was indeed, one of my proudest moments as his wife.

In London, we stayed with Sav and pretended to have visited the Buckingham palace by taking pictures of the solitary guard we found outside the Tower of London. Hah! What a dastardly plan that was. Now, even without having any photos of Buckingham Palace at all, people jump up and say with confidence as the photo of the lone guard is shown - "oh that must be Buckingham Palace". Here he is - very buckingham like looking, no?

In other entertaining moments, Sav and I discovered we had very similar taste in socks (yes you read that right - we own similar looking socks) and spent most of an evening admiring and taking pictures of them. With that out of our systems, Sav decided to keep her eyes closed for any photos we took of her. she claimed the lash made her blink and my efforts to hold her eyelids up also did not work. She refused to open her eyes as long as they camera was pointed at her.

Even though there was a conflict of interest - my husband wanted to shop while I just wanted to curl up and die because of the awful, cold, wet rain - we managed to find a compromise. I was left to sit grumpily at Starbucks while Firdaus ran about Oxford Street for the rest of the day looking for the appropriately branded clothes. I was quite okay being left alone because it was really not like being in a foreign country you know - ladies in salwar kameez walked by at regular intervals, as if just to make me feel a little comfortable there and I even heard loud hindi songs being sung by some very obviously Indian students. Could life get any better?

More photos can be viewed here.

Watch this space for more...

New levels

2005-05-04T00:53:00.000-07:00

My annoyance with service providers in general has reached new levels. Levels that I did not know could be reached by a single human being. And really, I dont think I can blame the service provider this time. We dont need for them to know this, but this time I my ignorance did me in. All is fair in love and sales I say. And I suppose my ignorance was only fair game.

Thankfully my severe lack of a bank balance have led to a mitigation of losses, so to speak. So now instead of losing a few tens of thousands on an investment that was clearly meant for clueless fools like me, I will be losing not that many tens of thousands. Phew! What a relief right? Not!

But perhaps this is not such a bad thing. If I wait a full 15 years, I may actually get a return on the money that I have, without fear. handed over to a bunch of apparent buffoons, thus acting very much like an idiotic buffoon myself. It reminds of the dodos who killed themselves in that move - ice age - where they ran around like, well, dodos, in order to save themselves from the end of the world and instead ended themselves well before any danger came near them. I ran around like one of those dodos wondering where to "invest" and ended up killing myself in the process. Yes, that sounds about right.

And for those of you who have better gramatical skills than me, please help me with the commas. Where should they appear? Here, like so? Or, here? Or nowhere?

Of Intolerance

2005-04-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

Brace yourself, this one is going to be a rant.

I cant tolerate it when people around me display more bigotry than I imagined they were capable of. Educated individuals at my workplace will not eat from places where food was cooked by people from a certain faith for fear that it "smells funny". Dude, for saying such a statement aloud, you most definitely smell funny to me. As if this is not enough, moving into a new office has meant that the lack of soundproofing subjects us to prayers via loudspeaker from a certain place of payer. "Thats scary dude..." I was told. I dont know how to react. Should I punch him in the face?

I also cant tolerate smelly people. While I know some people who may actually gag at smelly people around them, its not so bad for me. And yet, I cant tolerate them.

I cant tolerate uptight people. Just relax and chill. Now I know what you are thinking and some of you may even say it to me (But Nidhi, you are such an uptight person yourself!!) and I will tell you to ex-zzziiiiippppit (Dr. Evil style) at that!!

I cant tolerate pompous fools who think they are better than me. And thats simply because the mere thought of such a thing is prepostrous? Non?

And on that really boring note I will end my really boring post. Yawn...

Guest Post

2005-04-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

After Nidhi's last happy shiny post about marriage, I thought I would post one that is more grounded in reality.

Yes, I am easy going, but that doesnt mean I dont have my off days, my grumpy days and the same for her. So what happens when those days occur? You see a lot of fighting, whining, grumbling, bitching, moaning and general tension in the air...

But you know what? I think thats what makes the relationship stronger. I think if my marriage was saccharine sweet all the time I would have to kill myself.

As someone said...two people who are married are like stones rubbing against each other. After a while, the sharp edges get rubbed off and they get more rounded, more closely fit against each other. And thats the good part. Then you can go and kick other peoples ass together!

Or as this guy said in that movie with Ashton Kutchner..when you see a couple's photos album, you see the couple smiling and laughing and hugging. But behind those Kodak moments are lots of little tiffs and fights. The important thing is to make it from one smiling photo to the next.

And with that, I surrender this blog back to my wife, my best friend...

What changed?

2005-04-08T01:46:00.000-07:00

Marriage for me has been a breeze. Its not supposed to be. I am quite sure I am doing something wrong. I am not sure why married life has been so breezy - perhaps it has something to do with my very easy-going husband. Or just my breezy self *throat clearing noises*. But I see others around me "setting up house" as soon as they get married. Conversations tend to drift towards how expensive curtains are, and it appears that people suddenly have a lot of household chores to do that they didnt have earlier. Either that, or they just didnt talk about their chores earlier. This is not to say I did not "set up house". I did so put up a few paintings at our place when we got married!

I have therefore lately been wondering if I did something wrong. Why is it seeming like life didnt change much other than the fact that I am sharing everything with the my most favourite boy on the planet now? Am I not supposed to be getting upset about the fact that my maid has not cleaned the dishes properly? (Who cares really... she can clean them better tomorrow I say and keep them in the sink again.) Am I not supposed to wake up every morning and make breakfast for my husband? I tried that- really I did, but I am not a morning person. Waking up and getting myself to work is a task in itself... breakfast to door ki baat hai.

As for cooking - I think I cooked more when I was single!! Who needs to cook when Dominos is right across the road, and there is a Pastry shop in the building!! Fatty foods, here we come! Not to mention the fact that we have stocked up on cold meats and bread and cheese and gorge on toasted sandwiches every chance we get!! Go fatty foods! Woohoo!

Life is just perfect in fact. Minimum effort and maximum joy! I go to work and back with the boy and if I land the job I have been eyeing lately I may be working soon just across the road from home (near Dominos and across the road from the pastry shop)... The best part is that I dont have to worry about my mother hearing Firdaus in the background on the phone now, I dont have to coordinate to meet my boy - others have to coordinate to meet us! Hee haa haa!! As McDonalds would say - I'm loving it!

Maybe not...

2005-03-28T02:45:00.000-08:00

I dont know now. I do like writing. Even if it is once a month. It is the only time I am at the workplace and looking like I am working and actually enjoying it!! At ALL other times, I look like I am working and am quite tortured by various clients whose only source of entertainment, it seems, is my misery.

Take for instance, my sweet client (NOT) who believes that since he begins his work day in the afternoon, I must extend my working day to be able to keep him informed about "trends in the industry" till the middle of the night when his little workmen arrive to take calls from irate customers around the world. Lets have a presentation at 10.30 pm he says to me and I am so stupefied by such a ridiculous suggestion for one who starts her work day at 9.30 am that I am unable to react. Quick to notice my disadvantage, the man assumes silence is approval until my brain begins functioning and he is kicked in the nads, pardon my French (in my dreams). In rality though I politely declined his wonderfully inviting offer (NOT).

Have you ever noticed how managers' managers do not take their subordinates word for any information provided, unless its througgh an approved "third party". Here is where we come in.
We make pretty charts and graphs for stuff they already knew and present it to them. We then charge them pretty little sums of money for looking as good as we do. In the whole scheme of things.. you know, life in general.. we add so little value and earn so much for it. Whoever thought of this business was a mastermind I tell you.

Meanwhile, wait for posts on our trip to Sri Lanka. This long weekend that went by, while everyone else went to near-by hill stations or to Goa, we packed our bags and went on a little holiday to Sri Lanka. Imagine that... a foreign vacation for a weekend. Brilliant stuff! I love my life. Go on, you can hate me for it.

Firdaus loved the country so much he has decided to stay another week. I got used to being on holiday with him and now getting used to the routine and not having hima round to get through the day is seeming harder than usual.

On the brink...

2005-03-28T00:24:00.000-08:00

... of closing this blog. Its been a whole month since I last posted and primarily because I have nothing to say. Nothing particularly amuses me anymore and if it amuses me, it has the distinct possibility of offending someone. As a result of which I have only reports to give and nothing particularly clever or funny to say anymore... Watch this space for closure.

21 days...

2005-02-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

She emerges 21 WHOLE days later. There is one blog less to read everyday now - Neil has quit the world of blog and I have no idea how to find him. Bummer!

I wanted to write so much about the wedding but have forgotten about it all now. Weddings are positively exhausting and if you are considering a beautiful wedding - please stop wondering how the day will be for you. Just think about how the day will be for your parents because honestly, I think we dont elope only for the sake of our parents.

I can remember laughing hysterically at the mehndi but I cant remember why...

I can remember that Re, Divya and Preeti got lost on their way to the Shagun reached some village on the outskirts of Delhi (I exaggerate, of course) and cant imagine why that would be so hysterical...

I can remember telling the guy at the gate who refused to let me in on my wedding that I was the bride and he MUST let me in...

I can remember (in fact I can still hear) my dad saying "oh what a wonderful sign... very good omen this is" for every little thing like broken glasses, rain, broken plates, some more broken glasses...

I can remember my brother aiming flowers so they would be stuck inside my spectacles....

I can remember endless "folk" punjabi music that none of the young people seemed to want to hear, except for Preeti who not only wanted to listen but had an endless supply of the music as well...

I can remember feeling bad that my friends were too shy to put up a performance a-la-Monsoon Wedding for the wedding, but then I suppose they are too cool for this stuff you know...

For all this remembering, I now see that I looked FAT on my wedding. The photos are fabulous except for an enormous double chin that seems to be attached to my face. Really a pity but I suppose its my own fault for not bothering to think that gobbling up large amounts of food without a git of exercise might actually make me look FAT (not actually have me put on weight.. no no, for thats impossible! I will never put on weight.. I will just look FAT.. perception is reality they say).

For a wedding that had the Prime Minister of the country visit, I surprisingly 'HAD' NO friends in this godforsaken city (Neha is back now). While I could go up to the premier of this country and generally ask him to have a drink with me every now and then (NOT), I do feel like I dont have anyone to hang out with who is less than twice my age in this city. My Saturday social events (and dont hold your breath about this.. no really) are now reduced to dinner at "the club" to relive the era of The Raj with liveried waiters who take forever to see you wave frantically and bring you blueberry cheesecake from an age gone by... ah the life I always imagined I would lead - dressed in my shiny best with my most prized pearls around my neck and some rotting blueberry cheesecake! The good life is here to stay!

How Old Are You Really?

2005-02-04T04:38:00.000-08:00

You Are 22 Years Old

22

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.
13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.
20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.
30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!
40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

The Wedding Album

2005-01-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

My dear sweet husband has created an album for those demanding to see photographs from the wedding, even though he suffers from jaundice at present. How sweet, no? Now go see it I say-

Wedding Album

Social Networking Websites

2005-01-27T03:35:00.000-08:00

Its as if the world has gone mad. Its driving me up the wall- what with a gazillion "social networking" websites mushrooming all over cyber-space.

So in order to not seem rude to your friends you decided to accept their 752nd invitation to be their friend (which you already are) through a website. And magically, it appears you need to "sign up" yourself. Surprising no? Before you know it you have also sent everyone in your address books an invitation to "be my friend". Gaah!

Initially it was exciting you know, to find that people you knew personally (and in some cases not so personally as well) had their names on the same website as you. But then, it pretty much ended at that. What next? The damn website clutters your mailbox with "updates" on how close they are to world domination now that another 12 people have registered on their site. But thats pretty much where it seems to end. Apart from seeing peoples names on such websites I doubt if there is really a particular purpose to these websites.

I am still wondering if they get their employees to rite the recommendations they usually have on these sites like "Its the Greatest thing to happen! - Stew Pidity" They might as well write the employee id as well under these massively annoying quotes. And if these are real people, how bored are they to be so excited by names of other people on a website to think its the best thing to happen to them?? Is it them or am I in the Twilight Zone??

2005-01-25T00:47:00.000-08:00

Legal Proof of our Marriage

Missus

2005-01-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

I have returned as a married woman to the world of blogs. Congratulate me people! My parents threw some fabulous parties - thank you! And it has to be said that we looked gorgeous even though my boy was gripped by jaundice. Fortunately it was not a very bad case of jaundice and the colour yellow is considered supremely auspicious by Hindoos. If my father was around, he would now tell us what wonderful good luck it is that he has got jaundice at the time of the wedding. But before I tell you the story let me tell you about the OFFICIALS at the wedding of a lifetime (at least for me :)):

The Official Grumpy: My oldest and somewhat-mistakenly-known-as-funniest friend did not get sleep for over 24 hours prior to the wedding. Several tequila shots later, she was still grumpy as ever sitting in one corner and lamenting to anyone who bothered to go near her that she felt very lost. Grumpy is as grumpy does (?) and hence she was named the official grumpy for the rest of the wedding.

The Official Vicks Inhaler Provider: Shoving Vicks Inhaler up the brides nose during the henna/mehndi session is not a pretty task, but yet another of my oldest friends did it with elan. Not only that, every morning when I woke up with a blocked nose for reasons nobody can decipher for me (perhaps it was the fact the temperature refused to rise above 12 degrees centigrade!!) and Uma cheerfully provided relief in the form of the inhaler- bless you!

The Official Runner-Arounder: That was my best friend running around like a mad person trying to make sure my wedding was perfect - and it was! Anytime the bride, or her mother or her father or... well.. the entire family needed anything we screamed out for her and she would come running to our rescue. Never mind the fact the for all the running around, she decided to drive around Delhi on the evening of the ring exchange ceremony for a few hours before reaching the venue despite the presence of an appropriately positioned map in the co-passengers lap even!

The Official All-Photgraph-Presence Person: Another friend of mine seems to have sidled her way into most photographs (especially if she was not meant to be there). As we scanned through the 742 photographs in the days after the wedding and all the parties, a strange phenomenon was observe. T was is practically ALL the photographs and she was not being subtle about it! She was looking right at the camera and smiling in the background...

The Official Punjabi Music Provider: When the family felt lost for traditional punjabi music (because my brother and I kept hiding it), she provided an endless supply of music from her place. It was as if she had been hoarding this music for this exact situation! So just as we thought we had hidden all the music, she would bring out some more!!

The Official Packer-Upper: Pretty bows and golden tissue roses were crafted for all the gifts that were eventually opened by severe tearing as the people we gave them to (such as me) were too impatient about finding out what was contained in the wrapping). Our sweet neighbour of 20 years, who we had never spoken to until the wedding appeared to wrap things and claimed she was tense about wrapping everything properly. Thank goodness for psychotic behaviour like that or everyone would have gotten gifts thrown at them in polythene bags given how worries we were about the wrapping!

The Official Must-Have-Crying-at-the-end-of-the-Wedding-Person: My mothers oldest and bestest friend decided that everyone must cry and even organised a ceremony for it. The perfect end to any wedding is a bunch of women in a lot of make up crying and trying hard not to ruin their make up... thanks Neera Masi!

Just remember - there's nothing official about any of this!

14 minutes remaining....

2005-01-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

or so it says on my Bloatus Notes for a mail that I am trying desperately to send to the client. It has come to my attention that Bloatus Notes is THE MOST pathetic, irritating, non-working-from-home email client ever. While I sit here and wait for the irritating mails to be sent in 12, no 14, no 17 minutes.. well in some time, I thought I might as well blog - something I have not done in ages. There have been multiple reasons for this:

1. I have a severe paucity of time to even think;
2. I have a severe paucity of things to write about;

The paucity of time has been created by a client that I have mentioned before, may god bring her great amounts of pain. It must be said that she has the brains of an ant - a very stupid ant, in fact. Unfortunately she continuously calls me during the day because a brain the size of an ant cannot comprehend excel sheets the size of an elephant (I know I should stop with the animal metaphors now) and has made me reach a stage where seeing her number flash on my phone makes me want to throw up.

This, I fear, is not an abnormal response to a revolting client experience. I have therefore decided, in the interest of my mental health, and of those around me, to actually give in to the temptation of wringing her neck next time I see it. Just for kicks.. nothing dangerous.. we dont want her to die... we just want her a little breathless (she says as she rubs her hands in glee). Before I become more psychotic I shall end this post. Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!

2005-01-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

My dear blog-world,

Although I am one of the gazillions wishing you a wonderful year ahead, let me at least be a little original and sing it to you in the form of a little ditty I just wrote:

The new year,
It is here
Should be fun
As long as you stick with your hon
And if there isnt one yet
He/She will walk by you, just as you read this I bet
Err yeah thats it
Have a whale of a time, and a bit (?)

I cant wait for this year to begin properly now. The wedding is almost upon us and the excitement is only now beginning to dawn on me. Much like a ton of a bricks, one could say. I am off to Delhi on Friday as the countdown begins in earnest to the day I sign a piece of paper to claim my rightful posession of the boy. He is mine, all mine I say and I shall have papers to prove it before you can say - "no really".

Its 1.46 am and despite my protests of preparation of wedding, my clients are under the impression I can work all night as long as the appropriate excel sheets are provided. I am their excel-sheet provider. Why they could not get someone internally to work on excel is quite simply beyond me. Of course, the apparent lack of brains among some of the individuals working with us may provide pointers. And as consultants, there is nothing we love more than stupid people (makes us look that much smarter.. if we werent already looking dashing enough to be spent luxuriously on).

Ah well, its sleepy time now and I must retire, having sent all the material to the client to hopefully not hear their voices again. Aaagh! But tomorrow is another day...

When I was very annoyed - Thankfully I never sent it!

2004-12-16T03:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Insert-Name-of-Incompetent-Telecom-Customer-Service-Employee,

This is to inform you that the telephone instrument so graciously provided by you will, from now on, be lying outside my residence. I have realised that apart from taking up space, it is not performing any other function. Please eat that blasted phone that you have (for reasons unknown to me) installed in my house. If it was just about looting me of my money - no phone was required. You could have just taken my money and run.

Please keep my money and feel free to divide it amongst your completely inefficient colleagues as well.

Ever-so-grateful-for-a-phone-that-does-not-work

Tired

2004-12-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

I feel exhausted like just tired in general. I have nothing funny to say and in fact, it appears, I have nothing in general to say. Except for the latest story from a day in my jet-setting consultant life.

I had to go to another part of the country which was just a few hours away on "client work" (ahem) and had summoned a driver to assist me with this effort. Unfortunately the driver that was summoned was at least 112 years old (and I am not exaggerating) and could not hear a damn thing. We found out, much to our dismay, that he could not see very well either. He did not hide either of these remarkably dangerous problems from us too well either - as he hunched forward to try to miss teetering the edge of the road while driving. Our regular screaming everytime he came close to killing us (every 7 nanoseconds for the 5 hours that was the journey) seemed to not startle him at all. What a calm and composed (albeit deaf and blind) driver I say.

A journey that would have ordinarily taken us 3 hours, took almost double that much time as we kept having to ask people which way to point the car at in order to get it to move (very very slowly) in the general direction of Mumbai. This of course, also reminds me that I am thinking of changing the "about me" bit on this blog, also very very slowly - much in line with the general scheme of things in my life it seems.

Twice, we were told to turn around 180 degrees so that we would reach Mumbai and not some other part of India to which our driver was determined to have us reach. Not only that, he wished for us to experience "rustic India" by missing the expressway by miles and taking us through the old highway. Now come on, I know it USED to be a road but we have an expressway now and in comparison, who are we kidding - that old highway aint no road hon! As far as I am concerned its just a clearing in the wilderness. It could also be that our driver was driving just off the road so we actually missed the road bit thus leading to my supremely arrogant city-bred notion of roads and non-roads.

Call me

2004-11-23T23:50:00.000-08:00

I dont understand it at all. In general, I am not a terribly popular individual. I am not barraged with calls on my birthday and though I like to believe that I get calls from people who enjoy my company all the time there are really only 3 people who call me regularly - Re, Ma and Fido. Apart from these my phone constantly rings for the following reasons:

1. Wrong numbers
2. Clients with problems
3. Wrong numbers
4. Clients who are problems themselves
5. Wrong numbers

Right, so that about covers it. And the few calls I get, I get them ALL at the same time. Strangely, the 3 people that do call me, seem to think of me at the same time as I think of making an official call at work. Brilliant. So I have no missed calls as long as I do not talk on the mobile. As soon as I make/ receive a call on my mobile, the 5 nanonseconds that I talk to someone will have at least 7 people try to reach me.

It is therefore hard for me to explain to people that I am, in fact, not so popular. It is not that I am costantly on the phone, but that people are constantly ONLY calling me when I am on the phone. Get it? Its almost like karma.. like God telling me - "you wanted to use a phone, so use it now, use it!! Use it!! Look at it ring like that annoyingly while you are on another call..." Yeah, God can be quite mean sometimes I think.

Blessed

2004-11-23T04:06:00.000-08:00

I think I am truly blessed.

Caution: For those of you who may get queasy on reading mush, please dont proceed. Oh fine, I see some of you are continuing to see how mushy I can get. Dont say I didnt warn you then.

So I am working hard(ly) at my desk and get a call from the boy. He says 'lets meet for tea' and who am I to refuse a cuppa chai? Especially if it means a bunch of roses and 2 cds as bonus reward points. They were more like bribe to stop complaining. So who is going to suffer the consequences of my lack of complaining? Err yes, thats right, its going to be you.

Out of the blue today I have received a bunch of roses and audio cds. If I felt more affectionate towards the world in general and Firdaus in particular, I think I might explode. I love days like this... of joy and happiness and general excitement for really no reason in particular. Come to think I dont think I have days like this very often. And imagine if flowers and cds can put me in this mood, what would the effect of balloons added to all this and some ice cream would be? The sugar high would make me hyperactive and drive everyone batty I would think...

Thank you love for being the best.... Whatever I say now will seem too corny so I will just end with something thats corny and yet so perfect to explain how I feel about you -

"You had me at hello..." - Renee Zelwhatzername in Jerry McGuire

Clubbing

2004-11-22T02:20:00.000-08:00

Clubbing in Mumbai is an interesting experience - to say the least. Much like the rest of your experience in this city, "crowded" will be a good word to describe any club here. So we head to a club - all girls in our most provocative clothes (given that we cant be very provocative even when we try, you can just imagine how we looked) to find we are not dressed provocatively enough. The bouncer wont let us in and tells us patronizingly - "its very very crowded inside, you dont want to go in.. no really". I did the whole leaning-forward-to-display-what-appears-to-be-the-lack-of-a-cleavage, but the bouncer was obviously getting his jollies with actual cleavage from others! Ah the unfairness of it all!!

So off we go to the club next door only to find creepy crawlies all over the place. No I am not talking about lizards, but well, to be honest with you those men could practically be lizards and one wouldnt know the difference. Ooooh bitchy!! So back we go to the bouncer man at Club 1, this time a few beers down and lot more confident of the powers our cleavage held. This time he relents (maybe he had also had a few beers) and lets us in. Ah joy, we were in a local train with fancy music and lights. Not once did one feel like one was not on ones way to work, except the people were dressed in much cooler clothes and the music was truly deafening. Ah yes, critical differences one would say, but not this one, no sirree!

And then, just as the mood was beginning to get peppier... tequila shots had been downed, we were seeing the beginnings of some conversation, they stopped the music. Cops wanted a piece of the action as well but club 1 decided they werent cool enough. "No cleavage no entrance", the bouncer must have said. In response the cops would have lathi charged the crowd and to avoid violence the club was unceremoniously closed. And we still had coupons left! Ah the injustice!! These coupons will be used next time around surreptitiously mixed with the new coupons we will buy. Club 1 will never know the difference... muahaha!!

Chandni Chowk – Lehnga and the End of an Adventure (Part 4, the final story)

2004-11-01T06:09:00.000-08:00

Noooo… you are STILL around?? How I love you… so we had reached the deserted shop. The fat men who looked very bored pointed at a precarious looking ladder pretending to be stairs to another floor. We went up the ladder.. err stairs to find a whole new world.

Fat ladies from south Delhi were sitting there in all their finery to select some more finery for their girl-children. There were fat ladies from other parts of Delhi as well. We were there, it seemed, only to add to the confusion. Lenhgas were being flung around the room. "Oooh! I like that one there", one heard some woman scream and next thing you know - some shiny fabric that weighed a few tonnes was flying across the room.

We definitely upped the cool-factor of the place a few hundred notches. While the person next to us saw rainbow coloured dresses with stones that would put the Kohinoor to shame... we decided rainbows were best left in the sky. Draping superlatively heavy lehngas after another... each glitzier than the other, Ma and Re 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the appropriate moments (whenever they liked someone else's stuff - only to be buried under the fabric the very next second!!).

Compromise was finally reached, I wanted peach so we got peach fabric, the mother wanted red so we had red net over it and Re wanted "antique" work so we got a bit of "antique" work and not so antique work as well. Yes I know it sounds pretty clownish right now, but when you stand there at my wedding (holding your sides and wiping your tears)....

Shopping complete and lighter my a small fortune, we decided 2 rickshaws were the mode of transport required. The mother zipping past like Road Runner in one and us chugging along trying to navigate the people, cows, buses, cars, cycles, autorickshas and motorbikes who all seemed to be standing facing the direction perpendicular to us at the crossing. They stood there pretty much motionless for fear that someone might actually want to move in the direction that the road was MEANT to carry!! Motor vehicles were a new concept it seemed, and the joy of driving one around to prove the sheer existence of such marvel of modern technology appeared to be the aim.

Finally we caught up with the speed demon who cycled my mom in the face of very very real danger to life to be brought home safe. We are yet to recover. Can you blame us?

Chandni Chowk – Unending Parathas and Alleyways (Part 3)

2004-10-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

You are around still?? Good good, I have a story to tell and if you remember I had found my mother after losing her in the enormous crowds.

It was almost 3pm and we were famished. Partying till earlier today, we woke up too late to think of breakfast and needed nourishment before we collapsed. Sridevi was demanding to be fed immediately. So we went to the famous parathe-walli gali and sat down to have a few of the famous deep-fried parathas. They have the whole operations perfected amazingly – one guy chops the veggies, the other guy stuffs it into the dough, another flattens it to be fried, and another guy fries it till it’s unhealthy enough to give you several heart attacks.

As we lost track of what we had ordered and started having other people’s parathas as the little boy (barely 13 years old) announced them, it was as if life was being injected into our veins. A hearty glass of lassi topped the whole effect. One can’t have a Pepsi even if one tried – I don’t think they have heard of such a drink. How charmingly rustic, I thought. I was being the foreigner in my own city, in my own country!! It was all so new, so different…

Stomachs full, we decided to ignore the unhygienic conditions and found to our horror that the mother was running off into some alleyways. We thought we were going to head back onto the main road, mommy… that’s where the big shops would be, no? Apparently not. As we stumbled into step and found that the mother was in fact following some man who claimed he knew where the shop was. And what if he was just taking us around the galis to commit heinous crimes?? Delhi is an unsafe city people.. it’s a perfectly plausible situation! My mother is indeed courageous. We went through alleyways that only had the capacity to have two people stand in its width (preferably face to face so that there is some space in the middle).

Through corridors of other buildings and narrow lanes we finally reached a deserted shop where some fat men sat folding saris. Is this where I can find lehngas?? There are no women around to suggest it might be a preferred destination for such things….

To be continued (I promise I will end the story in the next one)…

Chandni Chowk – Losing ourselves (Part Deux with special appearance by Sridevi)

2004-10-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

Remember where we left off – my mother had jumped off a nearly stationary car in a traffic jam without specific instructions about what we were to do.

This was obviously a trip that required some improvisation because our driver continued to drive as we lost a frantically waving mother in the crowd. So we also manage to get off the car in the middle of the traffic jam and dodging a tempo that was determined to not let our car go more than 7 inches away from its side. Rather the guardian tempo that was. Also the inconvenient tempo it was, as we found it difficult to open the door (well we could open the door, if you MUST be technical, but couldn’t get out).

Yes yes, finally we did manage to get out of the car leaving a clueless driver to manage through the traffic all by his lonesome. ‘Woh dekho, Sridevi’ (for my international readers – yes all 3 of you – that translates into “Look, Sridevi” who was a really really famous Indian movie starlet of the 1980s and early 1990s). Apparently my darling friend in her Gucci dark glasses, open flowing hair and super tight jeans and tee reminded a father of the goddess from yesteryear who had to point the same out to his son.

Meanwhile, my mother was refusing to pick up her cell phone. I don’t think I have ever been more grateful for mobile technology, when she finally did pick up her phone. What she told us had us wondering if we would ever be re-united with her again. She was in the middle of the road, it seems. In front of the Gurudwara… right… so she wishes to commit suicide before the abode of God. That does make sense (NOT).

Re and I clung to each other for dear life as people shoved us out of their way. The millions of pedestrians that were walking around were walking around not without determination to reach their unspecified destinations within that street that was Chandni Chowk that day. As we started walking ahead, hand in clutched hand, we spotted the mother waving frantically yet again. It was as if we had never lost her.

Wow, this is turning out to be a good story for a book… to be continued

Chandni Chowk – Some History (The Prequel)

2004-10-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Fine, I decided to lift the history bit of Chandni Chowk from a dear friend’s blog. I know she wont mind, will you babe? *Sheepish (and I hope, irresistibly cute) smile*

".... Chandhini chowk is 350 year old trading centre that was originally built as an accompaniment to the Red fort. it was designed by Emperor Shahjahan's budding interiour designer daughter jahanara because nobody else would probably give her a job. A large chowk( Square) with a central pool was built ...it was named after the moon "chandni" and called the moonlit square becaue the moon would shimmer in the water...so pretty!! yes ...those were the days...soon after this area had water problems and jahanara's pretty pool transformed into a useful canal connecting the fort and fathehpuri mosque. it pretty much died a little later...but it can actually provide water to the whole of old delhi if put to good use..."

"Chandni chowk is in fact famous for its food...which can be traced back to the 17th century!!...there is a sweet shop that is 200 years old... Chandni chowk is in fact the birth place of chat...because when the canal was dying, it was the hot bed for disease which is why the emperor 's main physician at the time asked the local folks to have a lot of chilli stuff..with loads of herbs and so was born chat!!"

Chandni Chowk – Part Ek

2004-10-28T23:16:00.000-07:00

Writing about our escapades (there is no better word to describe our adventures there) at Chandni Chowk is sure to take up a few posts. I could write it all in one post and lose my entire readership at one go. Instead, I have decided to prolong the pain and let you read a few posts before you decide you have had enough. Yes I know, rather thoughtful of me. I thought so too.

So in order to get the most perfect lehnga for what (I hope) will be one of the most perfect days of my life, we decided to embark on an epic (no really) journey to Chandni Chowk in Delhi. This is the old part of Delhi, the part we New Delhi people tend to forget about unless absolutely important – like getting to University campus, or buying wedding lehngas. Re gave a whole history in her own post, which to be honest I was amazed at. Not the history, dodo, the fact that she knew all that about my li’l ol’ home town. A darling of a friend of mine volunteered to come along for the whole adventure of it, without my having to beg her. This could be attributed to the fact that she is from London and unaware of the implications of going into the old part of any city in India.

Turns out we had landed there on the worst day possible. A tiny street in the name of a road was crowded with pedestrians, cycles, cycle rickshaws, more pedestrians, cars, tempos, cows, motor-cycles and for added effect – some more pedestrians. It was taking too long to get to the appropriate gali, so my courageous (and sometimes quite silly) mother got off the car without informing us of the plan of action thereafter.

To be continued…

Incredible !ndia

2004-10-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

I write this while I wait for my flight back to Bombay. Given how busy my social life is (NOT), I felt this might be the only time I will get at a stretch to write at peace. It also looks very cool and gives the impression that I could very well travel business class had it not been for the Santa Claus outfit I am wearing (bright red capris topped with a white and red shirt and red slippers for the unusually coordinated look).

The ‘inspiration’ for the topic line came from the big hoarding at the airport. Oddly, the picture on the board suggested NOTHING about India except a scantily clad Indian woman in various yogic postures with the hills behind her. Incredible, my arse! Whoever thought up the ad was obviously a very horny man and could not even think of one thing that could be uniquely India for the tourism advert except for highly un-distinct looking hills in the background of the sexy chick doing yoga. I almost missed those highly generic hills…

I have been in Delhi for 6 days now and think I have material enough for several hundred posts. It’s really crazy how many wide-ranging experiences this city has to offer ranging from awe to horror. Shopping for the impending (I am kidding Fido) wedding has been exhausting and so much fun. Stories from that will follow but right now I leave you with a hilarious bit about the Enclave where I live.

Just under our apartment is a little notice that screams – FLOWERS ARE PRETTY. DO NOT PLUCK THEM. Strangely, there are no flowers to be seen around the notice!! Is that a general admonishment to those who pluck flowers? I am not quite sure.. perhaps there were flowers around at some point of time there. All I saw was overgrown grass surrounded by fern. Maybe the fern was pretty for the person who put up the notice and he/she thought it was a mutant flower of some sort. Indeed theories about the reason for such a psychotic notice can be many (several of them I have posted here already).

More on the idiosyncrasies of Delhi later..

Entertaining

2004-10-21T01:03:00.000-07:00

So I had a meeting today all the way in the boon-docks of Mumbai and my boss came along for it. I think I should change the profile on my blog which is still giving the impression that I am in a city, that quite honestly, I am not in. If that makes any sense to you.

My boss, I have decided, is very entertaining. The journey to this clients office took an hour and we chatted along the whole way about life in Mumbai, real estate, movies, hitmen, philosophy. And I always thought the purpose of having a boss is so that someone is around to police the fact that you may have too much fun, if you were left to yourself. You know how they are - walking around your desk and giving disapproving looks should you happen to guffaw too loudly. Unfortunately for me, I guffaw quite often for seemingly un-hilarious things. As a result, I have been the receiver of a constant glare from each of the bosses I have had.

I think he has got the whole boss thing wrong, you know. He is actually a fun guy.. whoa!! I cant believe I said that of somebody who is in the role of a boss. Hmmm... I am suspicious about this. Maybe its the lack of sleep thats making me think this way.

Ah Delhi.. here I come..

Been a while

2004-10-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Wow! Feels like forever since I last wrote something on my blog and suddenly it feels like I have lost the touch. My life is now a mediocre spectre for people to ignore. I want to be famous, I want to be rich. I didnt realise that my dreams required work. Dammit! So given how lazy I am, I decided mediocrity was it. No more waking up everyday with a smile on your face, ready to face the world in the hope of glory that will be attained some day. Today, I wake up to the idea that work is what pays the bills. Weekends are what I live for. And before I get even more depressing (as if that is possible right now), lets talk about the weekend.

The boyfriend was out of town this weekend which meant socialising would be done alone. Err... well the question that then arises is - if you are socialising, how are you alone?? Fair enough and I wont bother with mystical deep-rooted questions like that but head to the activities of this weekend. Saturday was pretty much a blur for the following reasons:

1. I had many many beers for many many hours on Friday night
2. Do we really need a second reason people?

On Friday I realised I dont think I fit in with any bunch of people that I go out with. In celebration (or mourning... I lost track of which after the 3rd beer), I decided to have beer. I was not alone in my plans, as it turned out. My colleagues decided to head out for beer and fries by 6.30pm which is decidedly early by any stretch of imagination - at least at my workplace. So we sit around and polish off a few pitchers of beer after which I head to the suburbs only to go out for more beer - this time with dinner. And if you are thinking that was the end, you are mistaken. Post dinner (and beer) we headed to a club for (say it with me now) more beer.

Naturally, I dont remember much of Saturday except for dessert with cranky cousins who are trying to lose weight (because you remember how it is when you are 15 and think the world looks so thin and you are soooo fat... wait a minute, I still feel like that 10 years later - and STOP calculating my age with those numbers people !! Aaargh!!). Sunday was the air show. The Indian Air Force flexed its muscles while sweet Iteeva, who is all of 2 years old, screamed "blue blue" as we watched the planes draw a heart in the air with blue smoke. Fabulous stuff darlings, you really had to be there.

Its a pity the weekend had to end, but I was glad because this time it meants a fabulous week ahead because Fido was headed back from the Ashram. As it turns, out I was right. The week is just into Tuesday and I am having a rollicking (this word has not been used since the 1930s Iin my estimate) time. Its always great to have the boyfriend around you know. Headed to Delhi day after tomorrow... watch this space!

Onion breath

2004-09-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered who was the first person to bite into an onion before it was decided that these items of food can be eaten? Somebody bit into it and thought, "Its yummy but it makes my breath smell. But thats okay really because like I said before, its yummy". I dont think that onions are yummy. If you were my brother you would detest them so much as to find the smallest sliver of onion, no matter how carefully sliced by the mother, and throw it in people's faces. As if to say - if you MUST tick me into eating onions, try to be subtle about it.

There are people I know, consultants in fact, who meet clients after lunch with mouthfuls of onion in salad form (read smelliest form). It is indeed a great surprise to find that these clients have stuck with us through an onslought of onion-breathing consultants from our firm. But the question remains - who started eating onions?

The 2 drink phenomenon

2004-09-27T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am so cool after a couple of drinks. This is a scientifically proven fact. After many years of experimentation with alcohol (and sometimes even without alcohol) it has been comprehensively proved that I am uber-cool with a bit of alcoh0l in my systems. Suddenly I am really funny, able to walk up to people and make conversation with them. Sometimes, I even spit at them while talking (inadvertently, of course), which is funny and conversational at the same time.

However the distinction is 2 drinks. After 3 drinks, I am clearly out of the entertainer category and into the self-entertained and highly irritating category of party-goers. Naturally after almost three quarters of a bottle of wine and some additional food through dubious means at a club recently I noticed I was having a whale of a time and had no idea why. The next day was spent wondering why daylight existed and consuming copious amounts of water. Upon trying to remember what the jokes were, my brain refused to throw up any hilarity except for our tumbling along the road in hysterics towards the car at the end of the night.

However, I have noticed that this is a universal phenomenon. My friend, of tumbling-along-the-road-with-me fame, also had no recollection of why we were hysterical. Not so surprisingly, we both remembered having tears stream down our faces because we were laughing so hard. We were laughing so hard, we were inching along towards the car so slowly that the others had to wait as many as 12 minutes at the car waiting for us to get our acts together and in the car.

In other experiments, at brunch on another day, lack of alcohol made me stand around and search my brains for conversation with a seeming interesting person who designed bags for a living. Wittiness was a far cry when conversation itself seemed like such a task. I felt so shy - ah yes, that feeling I thought I had left behind in high-school along with that supremely ugly pair of glasses I wore. All I needed was 2 drinks - not more, not less.

How cool is this??

2004-09-15T02:55:00.000-07:00

You are Form 1, Goddess: The Creator.
"And The Goddess planted the acorn of life.
She cried a single tear and shed a single drop
of blood upon the earth where she buried it.
From her blood and tear, the acorn grew into
the world."
Some examples of the Goddess Form are Gaia (Greek),
Jehova (Christian), and Brahma (Indian).The Goddess is associated with the concept of
creation, the number 1, and the element of
earth.Her sign is the dawn sun.
As a member of Form 1, you are a charismatic
individual and people are drawn to you.
Although sometimes you may seem emotionally
distant, you are deeply in tune with other
people's feelings and have tremendous empathy.
Sometimes you have a tendency to neglect your
own self. Goddesses are the best friends to
have because they're always willing to help.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by

Binny and Bubbly

2004-08-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Those are not cartoon characters, in case you were wondering. These are sophisticated (err well almost) ladies in the heart of south Delhi who design jewellery for the typically enormously wealthy, and yet sometimes quite ugly, ladies of South Delhi. Whats surprising is that they keep a gazillion pieces of jewellery in what looks like an ordinary godrej cupboard. I say that it looks ordinary because it is obviously protected with some super-cool safety procedures, because if that was not the case I fear that we are being rather bold with entrusting our jewellery with Binny Auntyji. As she waved jewellery worth probably millions of rupees in my face, I wondered what we would do if a man with a gun walked in right then. Binny Auntyji may have screamed enough to make the man run, but if hewas resilient enough, chances are high that he would have been able to take trays full of diamonds and run as fast as his little legs would carry him. Enough speculation for the time being though - given that she has managed to keep jewellery safe from such gun-toting individuals, we have no reason to suspect this might be a real scenario (right).

My mother and I spent some quality time with Binnyji today. Here is a sweet lady who knows the first names of each and every person who walks through her doors. Not only that, she will carefully enquire about their twins, or children's exams, their dogs health and grandmother's arthritis problems. This is truly a quality I admire. Indeed, I often try to emulate this quality with disastrous results. More often than not, the person who I end up experimenting my memory skills, will usually not have children, or have a grandma who is quite hale and hearty with no signs of arthritis or have several cats but no dog. Such is my luck.

For those of you wondering why there has been no post lately, I have left Bangalore for good and am vacationing in Delhi for a few days before heading to the most energetic city in India - Mumbai. So while I wait for a hectic life in Mumbai to begin, at present I am stuffing my face with hot chocolate fudges from Nirula's and butter chicken from various other places. Of course, all this has been thanks to my company which decided to hold a "capability conference" read "turd-like training" in Delhi over the weekend. The weekend, it seems, is not yours if you work with my company. When you sign that dotted line, you sell yourself to weekends of conversation filled with words like "competence", "strategy" or "competent strategy" and .. yawn. Yes, I can tell you cant wait to hear more about this one. But hang on dearies... what will I write in my next post if I write it all here? So watch this space. I'll be bach (you know what I mean!!).

The new place to be with your loved one

2004-08-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

This one is going to come as a surprise to some of you - Beauty Salons! Fido and I went to one on Sunday and found that we were not the only couple there waiting for our hair to be styled simultaneously while we chatted with each other about things like what styling gel to use to make ones hair look appropriately toussled (is that the right spelling?). I have therefore come to the conclusion that the coming of the metrosexual has opened yet another avenue of entertainment for couples who have been seeing each other for a while. So you did the whole clubbing scene when you first met, then you did the romantic dinner just with the two of you on occassion, have watched movies together in movie halls and at home and gone on holidays together. What do you look forward to then?? I recommend the swankiest neighbourhood beauty salon. Makes for watching pretty people and decent conversation as well.

Now that I have that out of the way, I have to complain about queues. What is with queues everywhere one goes in Bangalore on a weekend? I think its probably the same in Delhi as well, but I prefer complaining about Bangalore. Its understandable on a Saturday night. I understand that EVERYONE in Bangalore likes to go out and preferably to the same 5 places in the city. Understandably there would be queues. But why at 2.30pm on a Sunday afternoon are you (residents of Bangalore, I am speaking to you) people queing up for lunch?? Should you not have finished lunch by n0w?? Why are you torturing me by making me wait for 30 minutes before I even begin to order???

Much beer has been consumed over the weekend accompanied with large quantities of food. The week will therefore consist of smaller quantities of food at meals and less beer (preferably NO beer, but lets not get carried away with the resolutions, shall we?).

On this note, I shall end my rant for the day.

Whatever.

Supplies!!

2004-08-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

That was meant to read "Surprise!!" Err... well it was actually meant to read as it does because I was pretending to be Chinese (no offence to my Chinese readers, if any). So I was pleasantly surprised today with Fido dropping by out of the blue. At 8am in the morning, I woke up to the monstrosity that is my doorbell. Of course at 8am in the morning, anything that wakes me up is a monstrosity. So I groggily open the door expecting the maid to tumble along and do her work and clean up my place while I continue back to my cozy bed. Instead, Fido stood there screaming "Supplies!" in his best Chinese accent.

Nobody was a happier child than me at the time (and nobody ran to brush her teeth faster than me at the time either). The boyfriend has come bearing many gifts for Pateti - thats the last day of the Parsi year, the new year's eve so to speak. It is quickly followed by Navroz (oh, go follow the earlier link for Pateti will you?) which is new years day. Gifts are exchanged and general feasting is in order. Ma-in-law-to-be has gifted some gorgeous fabric which I plan to look fabulous in. Boyfriend also gave socks (?) - I love socks, no really I do - and some tees. Very nice. I am pleased.

Enough now, its time I returned sleepy-head here who is talking in his sleep talking about 0.2% of the world's population doing something. Must figure this one out I think...

The Ritual

2004-07-30T05:05:00.000-07:00

I dont understand it at all. I cant take it when people call about work and make small talk with me for agonisingly long minutes on end before finally asking me what exactly it was they had called for. Please, please dear caller upper, spare me the fact that you are doing well and that your dog, in fact, has put on some weight because he has been lazing around and drinking so much beer like any regular Bangalorean would. Spare me the whole ritual dance around the topic of the actual POINT of the call. I think I may have ranted about this before... but come on people, I am entertaining you with this one. No really.

I try to spare people this torture when I call them for work. As a result, I fear, I may have come across as rude. Instead of enquiring about said dog and the health of the individual I usually jump right into the point of my call. While some may laud me for my commendable efforts in reducing the stress of small-talk in their lives, others may wonder why I dont care enough about baloo, the dog!

Lets not get this wrong. I LIKE dogs. No really I do. And its not like everyone who calls me has a pet dog, but it makes for good humour does it not? It also conveys the whole irritating small-talk picture quite well I think. And I dont hate small talk but there is a time and a place for everything. If I am standing around with a beer at a pub, go right ahead and tell me about your dog. I will actually respond with feigned interest (the beer helps by actually making my brain cells think everything around me is fabulous). In fact, if at such time, as my holding such beer, you were to do the whole dance around the point of your conversation, I will think you are a brilliant conversationalist.

Daytime small-talk though, just does not cut it for me, if you know what I mean. So I am at work and a client will call and talk to me about stuff and I am thinking - "I just spoke to you 3 minutes ago!! Things have NOT changed too much since then (not too much anyway)!!" Now I know the client is thinking "she is a pal, a buddy who will work on some stuff and not charge me for it if I ask her about her dog and tell her inane stuff about mine". Well, here's news for you. I dont have a dog. I am just dandy and if I was not okay, I would not have picked up your call.

Maybe thats how I should greet people when I pick up the phone. "Hello. Nidhi here. I am fine and dandy and dont have a dog. I also have no interest in your dog. How may I help you?" Hmmm... just a tad rude eh? I thought you might think that... dammit! So I should stick to my usual greeting - "What is it?" - then?

Mediocrity

2004-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Somebody in a western multinational organisation came up with the idea that to motivate exceptional performance, we need to make everyone feel mediocre - average - "meets expectations". This was hailed by all in developing countries as a marvellous thing. We could now make people feel that they were more ordinary than they ever thought they would be and work harder at not being so ordinary after all.

The eternal question of how do we make more profits by not paying the serfs is being answered slightly differently in today's day of feel-good "people management". So my firm tells managers everywhere we go that an interesting finding of our most recent surveys has told us that companies are making a "greater differentiation" towards outstanding performers. Right. Joy. Err yeah, what does that mean? That means that more and more employees are being told they are mediocre. Fewer employees are being told they are sexy. Right.

Let us examine this - you were born one day and your parents eyes were filled with joy and hope. At the tender age of four, you decide to be a fire-fighter or a ballet dancer or an auto-wallah (glamour is made of such different things at that age) and change it slightly by the time you hit the ripe old age of 8. Its about time you started dreaming of fame and riches and all. Yeah and all that lasts right till the time you start working at about 20 or so. Thats when the cookie crumbles. Hope is still there, maybe you can study some more and be that guy who owns that cool car (though you have no clue what he does during the day, he sure does look sexy in that car.. sort of). And then you do study some more, loans and bills pile up. Companies keep telling you that ordinary is exactly what you are no matter how hard you try. Your friends seem to be doing fairly ordinary things though they make it seem extraordinary making you wonder if its just you unable to rise above your most ordinary ciscumstances. That sexy car seems to be nowhere in the vicinity of your affordability unless mommy and daddy help you with it. The one thing you thought you wouldnt be doing - taking help (because that would be the only thing that made you extraordinary in your very very very ordinary circumstances) is exactly what you end up doing.

Thats where it stands. Close to 25, and feeling more ordinary than ever before.. one of my most depressing posts in a while now. I shall end now before some people I know (you know who you are) start complaining about the length of my posts.

Dolly was fat!

2004-07-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

It is official. I am officially lacking a social life as I knew it. On a saturday night I went for an amateurish musical and topped it off with pizza (without beer even!!). So its that time again - the time when I rip apart some part of Bangalore. Bangaloreans reading this are requested not to take it too personally. Nobody I knew was in the play I saw yesterday (and hopefully none of the actors etc were known to readers of this blog either).

Last night, for lack of anything better to do, I stepped out for a musical. Upon reaching the theatre an hour ahead of time, I realised tickets were only available for 3 more morons. The only way to get 2 more people to go with me was by threatening to go by myself. Turns out, I managed to sucker my colleague and her boyfriend to come along with me for the musical theatrical version of Hello Dolly. You remember that dont you? The one with Barbara Streisand.. the one where she steps down those stairs while everyone sings along (but what else) "hello dolly.. well hello dolleee"

So here's the difference between the staging of musicals in Delhi and in Bangalore. Delhi musicals are slick as hell and everyone looks sexy! Its like going to the movies.. and wanting to be like the actors. In Bangalore, however, they believe more in making you glad to be part of the audience. Dolly was FAT!! She had a beautiful voice, I must add in her defence - but a FAT Dolly?? Whoever thought of that!! The backstage helpers were using torches to change the sets. So you could watch them as they stumbled across the stage in semi-darkness. Made you want to jump up and help them.

The costumes lacked lusture. For the title song, Dolly sported part of a jhadoo (read broom) with golden glitters in her hair! I think they might have rented the costumes from the local tailor or something.. The dancers managed to bounce about the place with significant effort and in quite a few cases were not even remotely coordinated. On the whole though - it was fun because one of the actors was super, all their voices were wonderful.. and I had something to do!! Can you tell I cant wait to be outta here??

I was meant to..

2004-07-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

I was meant to write more often. I was also meant to write about my weekend after the whole toy train ride etc because all of that was just Saturday. But I have not done any of the above. As a result, we will pretend that none of above were ever any resolutions made by me. Clearly I am not as disciplined as I had hoped to be.

Recently, I promised myself that I would make an effort to lose some weight. As soon as the word "diet" was uttered, squeals of laughter emanated from various quarters of my office. It appears, they have been witness to such resolve (or lack of it) perviously. Of course, "an effort to lose some weight" could not ever translate into "an effort to exercise maybe err.. on sundays". So diet it was. I lasted through all of 1 day with my diet of "no-coffee-or-tea-during-the-day". Lunch the very next day consisted of some extremely un-flattering foodstuffs, including a ton of ice cream. I continued to labour under the impression that I was on a diet, despite that lunch. What can I say in my defense but that I am sometimes foolish! However, more helpings of ice cream the very next day brought me to my senses. Sensory deprivation will no longer be used to look pretty (except for those gorgeous black shoes of mine which kill me everytime I wear them).

In other news, I am not quitting work. They have realised their mistake (or just cant afford to lose people right now because there are so few people and so much work) and offered to move me to the very ugly city of Mumbai! Joy!! No longer shall I have to wait weeks to meet the boyfriend. We will be in each others faces everyday!! Woohoo!! The brother arrives here next month for a weekend of fun before I give up my little palace for a house in Bangalore. Should be fun I think. I have also been assigned on a "prestigious" international assignment so I travel to Pakistan (yes I know, its not particularly different from India to be really internation travel, but then we do need a visa to visit there you know). Thats it for today methinks ... err.. over and out.

Toy Train

2004-07-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

An old friend of mine was in town this weekend. This is not to say that my friend. Just that I have known him for a long time and err.. well sometimes people use that phrase ok? We decided to behave like tourists and spend all of Saturday finding out what Bangalore has to offer tourists. Quite honestly, I was under the impression that Bangalore attracted visitors only for the free-flowing draught beer in every corner and steak. It appears I was mistaken. They have more than that in fact.

Bangalore has parks/gardens all over the city. No wonder its called the Garden City. I never really paid attention to that. Figured it was just the beer that got to the officials when they decided to call the Silicon Valley of India the City of Gardens. So we went to Cubbon Park where 15 minutes into our stroll we realised we were back where we started. Oddly, suddenly there was a ton of kids from where we began (which I had seemingly missed seeing just a while back). Upon investigating the scene, it was discovered that paying 5 rupees got you a toy train ride which lasted probably 6 minutes. Who was I kidding? I couldnt wait to take a ride and fortunately for me, neither could my friend. So we clambered on to the train which had a proper station and everything with all the rest of the 4 year olds there. Apart from going through junk-yards at an irritating 1 km per hour, it also had a wonderfully screeching whistle and went through a rusty tunnel as well.

We followed the train ride with a trip to the botnaical gardens where in search of a 200 year old banyan tree people kept pointing us to a tree stump. Closer inspection revealed it was a 20 million year old tree fossil and the display board next to it said it was there to "inspire people". Giant dinosuar fossils may inspire me to make a movie, whale fossil might inspire me to eat fish but tree fossil would inspire me to... err... eat more veggies? Anyway, the highlight of that trip was the world's worst aquarium. The little pond had so little water that the poor fish had to lie on one side and swim. The tanks had the little fish people tend to have at aquariums at home you know. Quite ridiculous. I supposed we should not have been surprised given the ridiculously small amount of money (2 rupees) they charge for entry. To be fair, they should pay people to go there!

I realise this is turning out to be a very long post and before you decide to NEVER visit this site again, I shall end. Watch out for more in my next post.

Beware!!

2004-07-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Check me out!!

How scary am i?? Got me wrong with the whole "you like things tidy and ordered"
thing right there though. Whaddya think? Accurate? Not? Vote now!!

Wackiness: 60/100
Rationality: 56/100
Constructiveness: 38/100
Leadership: 68/100

You are a WRDL--Wacky Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you an enemy of the state. You are charismatic and winning and a very dangerous enemy. You favor justice over compassion, and would almost rather see your opponent fail than you succeed.

You impact the lives of those around you more than any other personality. People remember your name and respect you. You are a tremendous amount of fun to be around and astonishing to watch. You are generally abstinent in your habits, and you like things tidy and ordered.

When picking teams, it is smartest for others to pick yours.

Yawn!

2004-07-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

I think I am on the road to self-discovery. I recently discovered I have no patience for boring people. If within the first 10 minutes of meeting, you are not entertaining me with interesting things to say (or allowing me to entertain you by saying interesting things - I never run out of interesting things to say) I would appreciate it if you could end the evening and drop me home immediately please.

Went out for dinner with a couple of friends err.. classmates from b-school. Turns out they are planning to get married. Naturally (or so I thought)my question to them was "who is the girl(s)". Apparently, this was a mistake. Asking a man who he is planning to marry is a nosey thing to do. I have two theories on why this could be-

1. They dont know who they are planning to marry!! Mummy and daddy have brought the girl from their native village so they really dont know themselves. After all, who cares when the role of the woman is to produce children, cook and provide regular sex!
2. The girl does not know of their plans. So while they are announcing to the world they are getting married, they really are not sure how the girl will react to such plans and hence the secrecy.
3. They are lying. There is no girl. They are feeling left out because everyone they know is either already married or planning to tie the knot.

Either way, I suggest they NOT tell me they are planning to get married if they refuse to divulge personal (??) details of the said fiance like her name!! Anyway, after that, things steadily deteriorated. Conversation turned to the stock markets and real estate markets (whoopee!! perrrfect saturday night dinner conversation I say). No alcohol was had (at least that way I may have, under the influence, felt they were mildly amusing.. and perhaps amused them a bit myself) and the night ended by 11pm (Thank the Lord for small mercies.. any longer than that and I might have shed very real tears).

The moral of the story children is therefore that you must always head out on a Saturday evening with alcohol. Without substance abuse its very tough to tolerate boredom..

Its over

2004-07-13T02:56:00.000-07:00

I have not been blogging regularly for a while now. As a result, I suspect I have lost the dozen readers I had. Some of them are still checking though (probably because I tell them to). Anyway, thought I should pop by and keep you posted (get the pun??) on my life.

They say it is not over till the fat lady sings. I would like to change that one to "it isnt over till the fat lady on a moped runs over a cyclist". It was a life-changing event you know. There I was, contemplating the meaning of life (apart from the fact it looked like a pot-hole in the road was being carefully covered by randomly shaped bricks and stones, all being overseen by a traffic policemen without a care about the traffic) and suddenly I knew that the wait was over. The indecision of whether I should quit or not came to an abrupt end. A fat lady on a moped with jasmine in her hair was hurtling towards a puny cyclist. It was a sign - it was now or never. The man could either watch her run over him or jump of his cyle and out of her way. It appeared for a moment that the man was inclined to do the former. Fortunately for him, better sense prevailed and with an impeccable sense of timing he jumped out of her way.

I have therefore decided to throw in the towel. I give up. I cannot deal with people who dont appreciate me anymore... I never really could, truth be told. The pursuit of happiness is my new goal. Originally this was a subset of my larger goal - the pursuit of greater wealth. That has been abandoned with the hope that my generous parents and loving boyfriend will repay my education loan while I pursue greater happiness.. err.. what? you didnt know you had to pay my bills now?? oops...

Drag Fest

2004-07-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I went for a drag show. I wondered for a while whether I should write about this man-woman who wowed Bangalore audiences. Had it not been for Kumar (say it with me – Cooh-maar!) and his troupe of gorgeous young men-women (for want of a better word for them).. I don’t think I would ever have managed to watch a show of the sort. They don’t have entertainment of the sort in Bangalore.. come to think of it, I doubt if they have stuff like that anywhere in India.

Though I must add that we have our fair share of eunuchs floating about the place, threatening to display themselves in public unless you pay them whatever you have in your wallet. Its rather scary to have them walk up to you in saris and speak in hoarse manly voices demanding large sums of money. Anyway, I digress.. this was NOT a eunuch. She was just a woman trapped in a man’s body. And boy, what a body! I couldn’t believe I was thinking at one point of time – wow! what a flat stomach! Thwack!! Yes well, I wanted to slap myself, but I WAS in public.

Kumar.. err Cooh-maahr! (yes he said it with much excitement, hence the exclamation mark) was also a stand up comic. Wow! What a treat I say. This means that apart from lip-syncing the now-famous drag theme “We are family”, he-she also has a sense of humour. Joy! However, the humour was not side-splitting, tears-in-your-eyes, cant-bear-to-have-him-her-say-another-word-because-you-cant-open-your-mouth-any-wider-to-let-the-laughter-out funny.. but it generated the occasional guffaw.

The male portion of the audience, however, did find the show quite hilarious. A little more than the female portion of the audience. I think the women were just sour with the whole man-who-looked-better-than-them deal. Ah well, Cooh-maahr! of Singapore (mind you, he knew Tamil as he was of Indian origin, it seems… they are omnipresent those Tams I tell you) sang and danced and made the high-society of Bangalore (err yeah, it was really high-society – at the interval, people lost no time in whipping out their cigars and diving to the bar for some wine-la-di-dah) laugh.

Infinitea

2004-06-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

No I did not spell that wrong. Thats the name of this place we went for lunch to. Very sweet place with more than half the menu dedicated to teas from around the world- flavoured teas, hot and cold teas, aged teas, exotic teas... hence the name Infinitea. The main course portion of the menu is almost an afterthought. As if the place is saying to you "eat, if you absolutely MUST". So eat, we did and we also pigged out on a pot of masala chai. Now instead of having such things off the streets, you can get mala chai in nice places as well. Su-weet-ah!! Though I am wondering if it really makes sense to pay Rs. 50 for something that can be found on the streets for Rs. 2 only. Hmm... sounds like the kanjoos is me is trying hard to make a comeback.

The reason for that I think is the recent receipt of bank balance papers from my bank. Turns out that in the last year, apart from spending on rent and food I have spent enough on phone bills (thanks to long distance relationships), travel fares, partying etc, I have also invested in a really bad choice of mutual fund type thingie - which leaves me with a mere number in the form of savings that shall not be disclosed on this blog (for fear that the mother will read it and prepare to throw me out the window of any high-rise building she finds). Its possible that statisticians upon seeing such a bank balance may have to categorise me as "severely poor" (though not yet under the poverty line). However, until then, we shall pretend we are rich. So there! Readers of my blog, please learn that supply of money is not infinite(a). Try not to buy tea for 30 bucks when you are sure to get the same thing for 2 bucks elsewhere... Meanwhile, I shall continue to ignore my own advice.

Cool Thang

2004-06-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

Oooh ooh.. I am going to have a VPN connection soon. This means I will be able to access all my network drives from home. My computer is doing all these exciting things and I have this cool THANG they sent me all the way from across the seas in the US which keeps changing the numbers in its display, which will be my ever changing password. I feel like I am in one of those hi-tech movies where they try to break the password:

Login: Nidhi
Password: ******

*Blink* *Blink* Access Denied

In hushed conspiratorial tones... "lets try this again"

Login: Nidhi
Password: ******

*Blink* *Blink* Access Denied

Bad Guys: Oh no... we can never access her account because the password keeps changing. Aaaargh! *Painful death from screaming and acting in bad movies like this one*

Meanwhile I just realised that now I never have any excuse for not doing any work. I can now take my laptop home and if any files have been forgotten at work, I can access them from home. Dammit! The upside? I can work from home... I can wake up at 11am and consider maybe doing some work.. hee haa haa *evil laugh*!! Boss is away on some work this whole week. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to check out how this new THANG works. What say?

So much to say

2004-06-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

I have so much to say and so little time. Ever since I have returned to Bangalore, work has taken up every waking moment (except for the weekend when the boyfriend was here- that time all attention was slightly diverted towards him - 600,000 brownie points). Waiting for more than 2 days to blog does the following things:

1) Give you too many ideas to write about stuff
2) Make you forget about all the things you wanted to write about (if you are as absent-mined as me)

As a result I wanted to write about the last movie I saw - Lakshya with Hottie Hrithik but I forgot what the damn movie was about. It obviously did not leave a lasting impression. I wanted to write about the Pakistani gentleman (with gray hair) who kept referring to "our generation" indicating that his and my generation were somehow similar. Most offensive I say. It could also mean he was referring to our generationS only I didnt hear the "s" at the end. I seriously doubt it though. I cant remember much else about that amusing event either. And then I want to write about my boss and unfortunately (extremely fortunately for my dear readers in fact) he is away in Bangkok therefore leaving me with nothing to complain about.

But wait, before we give up, there is something I can complain about and that is Bangalore weather. Its absolutely lovely. And I HATE it. The cool breeze and some people's (those that author this blog) preference to string tops as opposed to sweatshirts has led to a most severe cold and sore throat. The condition refuses to better itself despite repeated steam inhalation (yuck!) and gargles (joy... NOT) simply because its raining and chilly in this city.

Once again, I would like to take this space and thank Sarah for reminding me to blog (almost scolding me in fact) and Neil for demanding a post, and yes Fido - you are being thanked as well for calling me up and demanding a post. It brings a tear to my eye (a solitary tear to my left eye, because due to a congenital condition the tear glands are blocked in my right eye - of course, I kid you, but you knew that already right?) to see that people are demanding to read the things I write about. Whatever...

Su-weeet!

2004-06-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

Aphrodite/Eros

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

"Suck"ara and Set Airlines

2004-06-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

So given my experience traveling with various airlines to satiate my hunger for better butter chicken every now and then, I have decided to write a scathing (yes you read it right) post about "Suck"ara Airlines. The names of the airlines have been changed for obvious reasons (besides, I really do like these names better).

So on reaching the airport, heres the difference between "Suck"ara and Set airlines. You will glide through baggage screening and check in with even a person to help you out with your baggage in case you struggle with it openly (as is usually the case with me). "Suck"ara believes in harrowing its passengers from the moment they enter the airport. As a result, post baggage screening, all the baggage is tossed to one side and you must run around with your trolley and hand baggage to find your bags and then get into serpentine queues. If you dont have enough luggage already, they will hand you a large packet of candies. This will also help you put on weight for the flight so you can fit into the seats more snugly. Rather nice of them, no?

Oh well, so you ignore that and get on to the flight with "Suck"ara and realise that if you fall asleep even by mistake they will wake you up to feed you juice, or just for the fun of it by saying "excuse me, would you like anything?" Nice work. Set airlines is different in this aspect. Their airhostesses only wake you up to feed you. Bleddy damn I say, we need service even when we are asleep dammit and I am glad "Suck"ara is there to see it.

However, the most glorious bit about "Suck"ara is the way its pilots land. Its almost a different religion. They make you believe in God, in fact. As soon as the pilot announces descent into the city, he also decides (though he does not anounce it) that its time everyone woke up from their dreams and came right back into the harsh reality that they are in fact thousands of miles above earth in a tin instrument with wings. So he bounces all way down for some 15 mimnutes. Yes, my dear readers, he BOUNCES all the way to his landing. Fortunately though when the wheels touch the runway the plane itself does not bounce off it. Its really a work of art! Set airlines is rather boring on the other hand. The pilot announces the descent into a city and allows you to sleep. He obviously has no interest in your religious beliefs. He obviously has no interest in waking you up either because you wake up only when the flight lands then... good lord. How boring I say.

Delhi Times

2004-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

I am back! Its been ages and I think I may have forgotten how to blog altogether. My half-dozen adoring fans may have stuck around faithfully and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them from the bottom of my heart (as well as God, my parents and our dog.. err.. or the dog I wish we had). Thank you Neil, Fido and Sarah for demanding a post. Its very flattering to see that perhaps my writing does, in fact, entertain a few people (that too in far away places like Dubai and Germany.. Bombay is IN India Fido.. stop expecting a mention ALL the time)
Meanwhile, I am back from Delhi and have been meaning to write about a whole bunch of things. Expect a bonanza with multiple posts in a single day! Woohoo! Err yeah… As the title of the post suggests, this one is going to be about Delhi. My last weekend in Delhi was absolutely lovely because I met up with a whole bunch of friends and even managed to go out a bit. Now that chicken pox had been safely eradicated and everyone was safe around me, I was suddenly popular again. Joy!
Went to a pub on Friday night and realised how much I miss hindi music. Suddenly, I was surrounded by a pub full of drunken, sexy (we dress impeccably well in Delhi) people who were singing hindi songs from movies on the top of their voices. Lack of a dance floor made no difference because everyone was standing around their tables and bouncing. Gosh I miss that… I miss people getting excited at the first sense of a punjabi song (instead of being abused on the mic for requesting any bhangra/hindi number) and the dj stopping the music suddenly just so she can hear the entire pub scream the song (really badly, might I add). Suddenly I missed speaking hindi.. I missed listening to people speak hindi (who cares if most them are swearing in hindi.. Delhi-ites arent known for their politeness you know).
So anyway, after partying one night I spent the next day shopping for shoes and generally chilling out in Delhi. I love iced tea and oddly, nobody in Bangalore seems to be able to get it right. I mean, how tough can it be? Pour the tea, lemon essence and sugar syrup… but its just too tough for our dear Bangaloreans. Therefore I devoured the foods that I miss here in Bangalore and spent some money to generally revive the economy of our capital city b y buying 3 pairs of shoes- 1 of which is impossible to wear if one plans to do any walking in them. Such in Delhi though – we buy stuff that looks good, comfort be damned, fashion is the mantra of the hour. You geddit?
Enough for one post now… thanks for sticking around. Mwah mwah (motions to send flying kisses in the general direction of her half-dozen or less adoring fans)..

Check me out!!

2004-06-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am cool I think... maybe I should take the test again just to be sure but aaargh! Who has the patience? So here goes- my results from MBTI etc..:

ESTP - "Promotor". Action! When present, things begin to happen. Fiercely competitive. Entrepreneur. Often uses shock effect to get attention. Negotiator par excellence. 4.3% of total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Enneagram Test Results

Type 1	Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Type 2	Helpfulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Type 3	Image Awareness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Type 4	Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Type 5	Detachment	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	33%
Type 6	Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Type 7	Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Type 8	Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Type 9	Calmness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	53%

Your Conscious-Surface type is 3w2
Your Unconscious-Overall type is 9w1

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Beautiful People

2004-06-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

I feel like a woman again. If you are really interested in gory details (and even if you are not, I am going to share them with you here), I finally went to a beaty salon (we dont call them "parlours" in south delhi, unlike the rest of the country) to beautify myself - as if that is required. No no, dont bother responding to that one please. But as I walked in, I realised that people in Delhi, well "South Delhi" actually, are just a lot more beautiful than people elsewhere in the country. Bangalore does not compare to us.. them.. err Delhiites.

So I walk into the beauty salon and already I feel ugly because the damn receptionist there looks like she stepped out of Femina magazine (the Indian Cosmo). And she leads me into the place I used to visit quite often while I lived here only to realise that unlike Bangalore, where walking into a beauty salon an a weekday evening would not mean horrendous crowds, Delhi has tons of people who want to look extra beautiful on a Monday night. Go figure! The lady then exclaims that I look like a mess (thus doing wonders for my already ruined ego) and proceeds to make me look prettier and charge an unproportionately pretty packet for the same in what seemed like 12 nanoseconds. Painful but quick is how I like my beauty treatments. I would have added cheap to that list of adjectives, but lets not be unrealistic here.

More on peculiarities of South Delhi, which in my mind is whole different world in itself (separated from the rest of Delhi) and its its people in future posts. Watch this space, I say!

Joy!

2004-06-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Chicken pox is gone. Wiped out from my body in fact (the sores still remain but I am not "contagious" anymore)! And to celebrate I was quite the popular child yesterday with visits for almost a half-dozen friends yesterday evening. I am now down with another infection caused by the very medication used to banish the chicken pox virus from my frail (right) body. This time I am puking everything that is fed to me (and also things that have not been fed to me). The sight of food, for those of you who really want to know about my life, makes me sick. Good news though is that I ate kheer today and even some dinner. Joy!

I have now decided that I truly LOVE Sarah for asking me to post since it has been a week since I posted last. Has it really been that long? I cant imagine it... being unwell obviously does not agree with me. Thank you Sarah for following my life (or lack of it, as the case may be) and just for that I am sending you a slobbery e-kiss. Ah yes, and you wonder why I never had a relationship that lasted more than a year - until I met Fido of course, where I restrained the slobbery kisses for a year before drowning him in those as we completed a year.

In other news, I cant begin to tell you how much it depresses me that I have to return to work in a week. The very idea of seeing those people who have been torturing me on the phone as I tried not to itch, is killing me softly. I think the tension of it may also have something to do with the lack of ability to eat food. But given that I am feeling better now, I may even step out of the house tomorrow. Imagine that! Life just could not get better I think. Given that my interactions with Delhi are expected to be on the rise now, you may expect more frequent posts you lucky readers you...

But Seriously

2004-06-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post something sad and melancholy today to match my mood but it seems I am incapable of writing stuff like that. Many attempts later I decided instead to write about the absolutely gorgeous weather in Delhi right now. There is no joy in Delhi like that of impending rain. It gets so hot that even the idea that it might possibly rain brings smiles of joy on people's faces. They would be walking along on the road and the slightest hint of a breeze would make them want to call their best friend and scream for joy - "its the best weather possible here, wish you could be with me to enjoy it..." cackle... phone dies. This is also the time that nothing works. Phone lines die (for the sheer joy of it I think) and cable tv stops transmitting

I remember the time we would step out in the rain and get drenched (right up till the time it became "indecent" to do so - growing up time is measured by what you are allowed to do) and play football (soccer for the uninitiates). For those who know that I pride myself on being the most unathletic person ever, this was a joy of athletics even I couldnt resist. Splattering wed mud in the hopes of kicking someone while doing so (the ball was inconsequential) was immense.

Given this bit of nostalgia, I have now depressed myself enough to last the night. Thanks for listening...

World in a spin

2004-05-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2004-05-31T03:53:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-26T02:24:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

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.

-----------------

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

2004-05-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2004-05-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

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..

2004-05-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-07T04:43:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

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...?

2004-05-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

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!!

2004-05-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

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!!

There's practical jokes

2004-04-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

And then there's practical jokes that go wrong. I am at work still and its 11pm. This due to the fact that precious hours were lost in trying to figure out who Murali from Bombay was who had a gift for me from a dear friend in London (who, by the way, had no clue who Murali was or that she had sent a gift through him for me). No surprises for guessing it was Firdaus. I am not pleased and someone's brownie points have been revoked (twice over) for this.

Firdaus lands tomorrow for a weekend of what he hopes might be blissful moments together. Guess who has a surprise in store for himself when he finds that his girlfriend is in fact, out with "Murali" for a drink to collect the gifts he has brought her from London. Its the battle of who gets me better gifts now I think... (hint hint.. no less than 42 separate gifts would do)

Panic Attack

2004-04-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

The following events today have led me to believe that the world, as I know it, is coming to an end. Doomsday is upon us people.. run, hide.. only the slimy shall survive (ref: cockroaches can survive nuclear bombs). Okay okay, for the more impatient among us let me tell you what has happened today:

1. Neil did not blog today
2. Firdaus did. My boyfriend is unhappy and I have no clue what to do
3. Silver Tassles cant have sex for a week (?)
4. Pramila's blog has disappeared (??)
5. Sarah feels like her life is ordinary and is coming to terms with the idea that she may not be president one day (as am I)
6. Nina's written in a language other than English (or Hindi, which to be honest I didnt really expect her to be fluent in anyway despite Sarah's efforts to educate the world on words like gori and others that will not be mentioned on this blog for their unparliamentary nature)
7. A very good friend (also one of the most attractive women I have ever met) - whose blog link I cannot put here for she wishes to remain secret - thinks she is "invisible" around men
8. I am at work still... its 10pm and I dont see myself leaving before 1.30am AGAIN.

Only 8 reasons you say? Rather significant reasons I would say. No nuclear bombs you might add.. no sign of violence.. and yet, I would argue, a sense of nothing being right today. Maybe its just today... and maybe we should all seriously consider hiding in underground bunkers NOW.

Its been a while...

2004-04-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine sings this song by Staind beautifully. Why am I mentioning this, you wonder only to see the title of my blog - "whatever things". If you didnt know you could expect randomness by now, my sympathies are with you.

Its 11:34 at night and I am at work. Sad really, isnt it? No no.. dont cry for me just yet. The heart-rending tale of a girl working alone till the wee hours of the morning is yet to begin.

I miss the endless cups of coffee at business school with flat-mates who were insomniacs (or became insomniacs once they reached there). Crazy days of listening to stories of exam-tension, heart-ache and general drama... and now I am back to my insomniac days. I am sleepy as ever during the day and can just about stay awake while my boss dribbles on about processes and blah blah for 2 whole hours (this is a real story.. any resemblance to chracters real or fictional is completely intentional).

Notice how lately my posts have been about staying late at work and today, to my utter horror, my boss sends a mail to everyone defining the "development activities" (read dribble about crap for hours on end) that need to be undertaken given that this is a "relatively slow period". If he was around when I read this, I would have manually lifted my desktop and flung it at him. Nice show that would have made. Of course, laws of physics dictate that the desktop would not have landed too far from me and the laws of dilbert dictate that the broken computer would have had to be paid for through my salary. Luckily for all concerned (which is basically me), the boss was not around.

Which (the fact that the boss was not around and is not around right now either - surprise surprise) basically brings me back to the original message I wanted to convey. Its been a while since:

1. I slept a good 8 hours at night
2. You read a new post from me
3. I spoke to my boyfriend (12 minutes actually)
4. I vegetated in front of the tv (48 hours of that completed just today)
5. I read a funny book (please suggest- suggestions like wodehouse will be immediately disqualified, and I plan to go looking for Mil's work this weekend)

You think I can make a song out of this like Staind? Do I have volunteers to sing the song? Come on.. dont be shy..

1am

2004-04-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

And I am just leaving for home... ah sweet bed.. I am having visions of climbing into bed and sleeping like a baby (right after a watch a bit of the telly.. hee).

Very little energy left in me now. Been a 15.5 hour day. Just have enough energy to thank... my... fans.. for... all... their.. love.. and.. support... must.. mail... boss.. before.. i.. pop.. it... *incoherence due to sheer exhaustion*

"Are you from Delhi?

2004-04-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

I encounter this question all the time from individuals in this village town (pretending to be a city) called Bangalore. Initially I would respond proudly and say yes. Is it not amazing that you can tell that I am from the capital of the country - the city everyone loves to hate? Slowly, much Delhi bashing later I realised it may not be such a good thing to be recognised without provocation as a Delhi-ite. Very often described as brash, rude and loud, us Delhiites are really a fun lot you know.

This post was instigated by my most recent asker of if I am from Delhi - and this one was from a phone conversation about my laptop!! I mean.. do people just guess generally that if you dont have a south Indian accent you MUST be from Delhi? Do Bombay people encounter this too? I dont think so.. Bombay people cannot really be defined I think. I dont hear people saying - oh yeah! you look like you are from bombay... or "something about you tells me you are from bombay". Usually, such comments are meant to insult since Bangaloreans pride themselves at being gentle creatures with benign characteristics like ummm.. err.. yeah the south indian accent.

Is it not puzzling that what you may think is your individual personality is, in fact, the personality of a whole city? That everyone from that city behaves in such a similar fashion that people look at you and see a flash like its written on your head - Delhi-ite. When I speak hindi they say to me "ah.. its just the way you speak hindi.. so delhi like". When I speak English they say to me "ah.. its just the way you speak English.. your accent is so Delhi". And then there was the guy who guess I was from Delhi because I had nice hair, was carrying a smart leather bag and smelled nice (didnt say much for the women of his own city though I thought) like that was a BAD thing. I almost felt bad for a moment until I realised he was saying nice things in his own twisted yet gentle (NOT) Bangalorean way..

How Cool Am I??

2004-04-22T04:49:00.000-07:00

Next time anyone ridicules me for NOT being god, this is what they will be directoed to - I AM GOD!

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
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Baby Got "Back"

2004-04-22T00:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote about how I lost the "back" of my earring. In fact, I was so traumatised that I posted that one twice and then had no clue how to delete it. I think once comments are written the post cannot be deleted. But lets not technical here. This is supposed to be a blog about the story of my life.

So, yesterday I bounced about the office a bit- even went to our new office location and checked that out. Had 3 cups of coffee and went out for an extravagant chinese dinner with a friend, where they charged us obscene amounts of money for ice cream and fruit juice!! We didnt even have beer man!! Anyhoo, after all this I reach home to change into something more comfortable for the night and what do I see? The "back" suddenly "flounced" (its didnt quite bounce and is not flimsy enough to flap... hence the word for lack of anything better) out of my clothes. It had faithfully clung to me through all the activity during the day and "flounced" out due to sheer exhaustion when I reached home. Glory be me!!

In all this excitement I have decided to sign up for the Gmail beta testing version on the blogger home page. I am finally a beta tester. I feel like a geek now. For all my technologically challenged self, and for all my tech solutions ranging from "Reboot-now" to "switch-it-off-and-read-a-book", I have finally arrived. I LOVE google and google mail seems like an enormous amount of coolness. As someone I know would say (I am referring to myself in case you were wondering if I had wise friends) the cool quotient is very high on this one.