Inkspill

Please collect your belongings from Belt Number 13

2012-02-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

The big black bag
has my husband’s name
on a blue tag

The small blue case
has his parents’ address
on its face

The brown one unlocks
with the address
where I grew up in frocks

Every now then we do this little dance
Going home to home, and back home
For the benefit of KLM and Air France

The carousel goes round and round
Till my luggage, and I, are found

Alvida 2011

2011-12-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

2011, you’ve been very mean to a whole lot of people, but you’ve been a darling to me, and I’m sending you off with a smile! You took me to Paris and Rome, London and Prague, and dozens of other new and wonderful places, you swept me into an amazing new life in the cutest little house by the river, you put a bicycle under my bum and wore out my shoes with all the walking you let me do!

More than anything, you sat me down and taught me all the things I am not, and forced me to confront the facts and deal with them. You gave me hours and hours to come to terms with myself, and though I used many of them to watch TV series and movies and read books, I think we made some major progress!

Oy yaar 2011! You made the husband start eating eggs, and have got me living off the poor guy’s salary while he feels a wee bit sad about the discomfort I feel in doing so! Tu pehle kyun nahin aaya 2011? Anyway, now please do proper knowledge transfer to 2012 about how to treat me. Thanks. Have fun wherever past years go to rest, and don't believe anything 2004 says about me.

Take Two

2011-12-17T14:35:00.000-08:00

Here’s a thought experiment:
If you could be ANY TWO of three things: healthy, wealthy and wise, which would you choose and why? The one you choose not to have will not become available to you via the presence of the other two: for instance, as a wise, healthy person you will not find a smart way to make money. Also, the one you don’t choose cannot take away the ones you HAVE. If you choose to be a rich but unhealthy person, your medical bills won’t ruin you financially.
So think about it and choose two and tell me why you chose them.
My choices would be to be healthy and wealthy. My simple reason: If I ignore health, as a wise and wealthy person, I’ll wish I had the ability to do something with my assets, and I’d always have a nagging sadness at the back of my mind. As a healthy and wise person, the sorrow would be a little less, but whenever I’d see a financial roadblock on my path to further wisdom and health, I’d be irritated. As a rich and healthy fool, I wouldn’t have the wisdom to miss wisdom, and if I saw a wise person who was either sick or poor, I’d toss my fabulous hair, pull my Burberry coat a little closer and say: “Poor geek!”
P.S: You’d think there would be a great deal of stigma attached to NOT choosing wisdom. You’d be right. However, I won’t judge you, I promise. I already traded my sound judgment for hotness and an apartment in London.

Out Of The Blue(s)

2011-12-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

I’ve been missing from the blog for a very long time, and with good reason too. Since this is a navel-gazing forum for the most part, I shall now explain why. You are free to escape at any time. Just look for the fluorescent strips along the floor and they will guide you to the nearest exit (which may be behind you.)

So the reason I’ve been away is that I’ve had a considerably tough time adapting to my new life. It’s not homesickness, it’s mostly the horrifying Dutch job market, and the realization that there is very likely no place for a person of my ethnicity and professional background here in the current economic scenario. It has been very difficult to accept that I shall not be conventionally employed for the foreseeable future, that I will have to choose between travelling on a whim and taking expensive Dutch lessons, and that even if I learn Dutch, it will be time to leave before I can reach a level of proficiency that enables me to put it to use gainfully. All this left me quite sad, my self-confidence shattered to bits (and not only because my neighbors used to ask me in the lift if I was a cleaning lady when we first moved in,) and it did not help that my only friend was a cat who liked to rub her face on my leather shoes.

I did not know I was such a people person. My mother thinks I permanently have a cold, because I clear my throat each time I start speaking to her on chat. That’s because my voice kind of goes away because of not having been used for the last six hours, and I have to cough it back into existence! Those who know me will vouch for my constant jabbering and I kind of miss my nightly jaw pain from spewing nonstop nonsense. This silence is a huge change, and has taken some getting used to.

However, as fog envelops my new home, the internal fog has lifted. I have made peace with my new life, and now I have a routine that fills my day with purpose and fun. And on this difficult journey, I have had loads of help from people who I must thank for being there. So here goes:

1. The husband: Poor guy, for months he has come home battered from the pressures of a new job to a high-strung, agitated woman who is all set to unleash her frustration and verbal diarrhea on him. His patience has ensured that we shall be celebrating another wedding anniversary soon.
2. My office: I was surprised that the boyfriend/fiancé/husband had been at the same job for six-seven years when we met, and since then have been constantly messing with his head to make him keep changing jobs and evolving. At the same time, this September I complete 5 years of association with MY workplace, which continues to indulge me and my insanity. A big thanks to my boss and colleagues who fill my days with work and fun and gossip, and bank account with pocket money even though I am thousands of kilometres away.
3. My family: They all have lifestyles that make me exhausted at their very thought, but they still take time out to sit before my stupid face for an hour on Google video chat to make me feel that they are right there (and also glad that they are not actually right there. Evil smirk.)
4. The Internet: I have a noisy office environment all day in my soundproof house. Marathon sitcom streaming allows me to work among some of the wittiest fake people in the world. It feels like “I Am Legend” when I reach the end of a series, but then I just get reassigned to another team.
5. Ramkali: My tiny foldable second-hand cycle with one handbrake has gone from being a pain the arse (literally) to my almost-daily companion on long and pretty rides around the suburbs. She makes me feel I have wings, she gives me the exercise that really does improve one’s mood as the experts claim, and she does not care where I’m from and what language I speak. For all that, I love her, and thank her.

P.S.: I am not alone in my misery. Wise Ishani has more info here.

Home is where the dhaniya patta is

2011-09-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Train of thought green-flagged by this:

Can’t blame Fate, really. It’s almost always been my bright idea to hop off the straight path and move bag and baggage to new places and new experiences. I remember how, on my first stint away from home (which was already the fifth bricks-and-mortar-thing I called home), I used to lie in bed, close my eyes, and try to recall each and every minor detail of the house. Once it took me a minute to remember our car’s registration number, and that shocked me! This oh-so-long adventure was just for three months, but created in my mind a (very possibly misguided) Home-Life dichotomy, and when the time came to make decisions, I regularly started choosing Life over Home. Many comic attempts were made to move to other cities, and a few of them actually succeeded. This meant a new home every few months, with not much motivation (and frankly never too many resources) to convert bare flats and rooms into tastefully decorated residences. With marriage came further confusion, and the hometown itself has now split into two, and perhaps it is my eternal pessimism that my spirit grates and perishes on the long road between my two homes instead of finding solace and belonging in the two sets of loving arms at each end…
I would be homesick if I knew which home to be sick about. I wistfully remember the entire floor I had to myself for a while in my childhood home, the (scandalous!) unisex hostel in Ahmedabad, the balcony in Pune that opened onto an endless stretch of treetops, the riverside hostel in London, and the sunsets through the palm fronds in my Bangalore home, but leaving each one of them has enriched my life, so I don’t really wish myself back there. (People-sickness is another matter altogether! I can’t do without my gang but I don’t really feel I have to do without them thanks to my superfast Internet connection!)
If I really look deep into my obviously-not-red-enough heart, I now carry my home with me. Right now, home is a little flat by the fake river in the tiny town that loves dope, and as long as the Turkish dry fruit seller brings me coriander leaves every Wednesday, and the darling husband flashes his million dollar smile over the sorry can-of-beans rajma chawal I garnish with the coriander, I am home, and not sick at all.

/Hiatus

2011-09-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

After dragging my lard across 9 kilometres on a tiny bicycle, I had reached breaking point by the time we got home this evening. As I parked the cycle, I realized the tyres were low on air: no wonder the ride had felt twice as long. With heads swimming, knees threatening to give way and shirts sticking to our backs, we decided to fetch groceries before we went home, because there was no way we’d ever make it back out of the house tonight. The road swayed a bit in front of my eyes as I walked, and when the husband decided to stop and take a picture of the sunset, I told him I’d continue “dragging my corpse” further down the road slowly, and he could catch up easily when he was done.

“Excuse me?” a voice rang out cheerfully behind me about a minute later. I turned to see a boy of about 20 in a manual wheelchair. “Can you please help me over the bridge?” he asked. The bridge is our a tiny but steep connection to mainland Amsterdam, and I often play the “cross the bridge in under 50 steps” game, making big leaps to meet my target. “Sure,” I said, and began pushing his chair. We discussed India, Morocco and our lovely neighborhood, and within moments this cheerful boy had dragged my corpse halfway across the bridge, and all my tiredness and self-pity out of my system. He thanked me and carried on alone, and I caught the rest of the sunset from the top of the bridge, waiting for my sweetheart photographer to catch up…

Stereotypically Yours

2011-08-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

When we tell people in the Netherlands what brings us to their country, the standard reaction is a smirk, and the statement (sometimes preceded with an apology for the generalization) that they should have guessed! Indians in the West means IT and computer programming!

This used to rile me up but I had nowhere to take my impotent rage. Just as I imagine Dutch babies being born on bicycles, they probably imagine bespectacled Indian babies being born tapping away furiously on keyboards. While I hope both images are making you smile like they’re making me, it’s all wrong, wrong, wrong!

I’ve been thinking about it, and from a purely sociological perspective, one can imagine why the average Indian the West encounters is an IT person. Remember our lives 15-20 years ago? Between our family backgrounds, our religions and communities, our role model relatives, peer pressure, our still limited options, and the absence of an international perspective in our daily lives, life for us was going pretty much in directions determined by external forces. Then the computer (even without the Internet) came in and changed the rules of the game. Costing more than they do today, they probably never made it to most homes, but at reasonable prices, they became accessible to most urban teenagers in “training centres”. Here was a new thing that parents who wanted kids to be 100% studious could not say no to. No caste or community could lay claim to or criticize this machine. Rudimentary English skills could get you into this hobby/profession. “Accomplished” Uncles and Aunties could not say whether this was better or worse than being the doctors, engineers and architects that they were.

One machine came and lifted an entire generation out of a spider’s web of tradition and expectation, and did not discriminate based on Daddy’s salary, Mummy’s hopes, your academic grades (based on irrelevant-to-life syllabi) or your geographical location. For anyone who wanted to be an individual, West-style, the computer was a passport. And many used it. And aren’t we glad they did?

It’s these escapees you see programming computers and creating apps in your country, O cycle junkies. The funny thing, though, is that the spider’s web has now comfortably woven itself around the computer. All the relatives now want you to be a “computer engineer” and “status families” are willing to pay huge dowries for geeks. However, it’s still something anyone can work towards, and that’s why the next Indian you will meet at Schiphol, coming in with his suitcase full of Indian spices and a pressure cooker (C’mon! THAT isn’t about to change anytime soon!), is going to be a computer programmer.

P.S.: I am not a computer programmer, and you won’t give me a job. That is another reason why you don’t see more people like me, and I have a feeling you’re happy about that. Now sell me your bike at half price a.u.b. Dank u wel.

11 Benefits of Unemployment

2011-08-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

After going on a not-so-joyous joyride up and down the sinusoidal curve of dealing with unemployment (rejection, reapplication, stern rejection, depression, ah chuck it!), I am pleased to report that I have figured out a bunch of advantages that my situation allows me, and am making the most of it. If you are huffing and puffing on the job hunt treadmill, this post will give you reassurance. If you are approaching a coronary in your hamster-wheel of a job, this post will make you insanely jealous. So, without further ado, the bright side of joblessness:

1. Look at your sofa. Look how the sun’s rays caress it gently. Now lie down upon it. See how you can stretch you entire Indian height on it easily. Now hug the cushion and take a nap. When you wake up 20 minutes or 2 hours later, life will still be the same, except it will look nicer!

2. Remember your workday morning routine. Do you ever remember the back of your knees ever being dry? Whether it is the hasty dressing after a morning shower or the running about, or just the sitting in a chair all day, this crucial part of your body suffers! Now each time you bathe, pat dry the underside of the knees and sun-dry completely before puling on sweatpants!

3. Take your cycle out of the garage. At 2:30pm, your only enemy on the road is UPS trucks. Get fake confidence in your cycling abilities. Fake confidence begets real confidence. You could never get that in rush hour!

4. Watch 10 episodes of a sitcom in a row. Ok, that just makes you a loser. But you know it’s fun, and it’s the one item on this list that you might end up doing, so I’ll leave it in…

5. Earn some good karma. Go to the railway station, where hapless tourists from across the world are seconds away from missing trains, or are walking confidently in the wrong direction. Startle them by offering them help. You’ll get more smiles in a day than your colleagues give you in a month!

6. Throw the clothes iron away. Pack away your stupid shirts and their collars that are limp enough to not be presentable, but not too limp to bend into grotesque shapes! Buy some nice wash and wear clothes, and wash and wear them all the time.

7. Experiment in the kitchen. Do not have goat cheese with sundried tomato bread, or put red cabbage on nachos to make them healthy. There’s creative and there’s stupid. Remember the difference.

8. Did I mention naps already? Oh yes, the ones on the sofa. Smile to yourself as you make your bed in the morning. Soon enough, you’ll be back for a nap, or to watch sitcoms and eat cabbage nachos propped up by pillows. Try doing that at work, you employed smugmugs!

9. Go for walks! We all know that every branch of every chain store has the same stuff at the same price, but the thrill of discovering it for yourself is something else.

10. Plan holidays! Did you know that well-planned trips thought out thoroughly in advance are about 3-4 bucks cheaper than impromptu ones? And the stress of planning them makes them all the more welcome!

11. And finally, get your lazy ass to send out job applications daily, and do all the freelance work you get! This blasted honeymoon is not going to last forever! Do something! How come everyone else can find a job but not you! Shove that fancy degree where the sun don’t shine! Why did you not become a computer programmer? What’s this wishywashy thing you call a resume? Maybe showing up at some office with a WILL WORK FOR TRAIN TICKET placard will get you somewhere?? Ok breathe…breathe…

Wheee!

2011-08-01T01:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone learns cycling as a little kid. If you grow to be a chronological adult before you can ride, you still transform into a wide-eyed kiddo the moment you can balance and pedal at the same time, for the very first time! This past month, I've stood on the pavement of the lane near our house and bent from side to side in automatic imitation of my wobbly darling on his first ever bike as he tumbled down the slope going this way and that. After about a dozen such sessions, something clicked yesterday, and as he turned back to beam at me after his first successful 10-metre stretch, he looked like a 7-year-old boy.

Here's his account of the adventure.

Wednesday Night Stream of Semi-Consciousness

2011-07-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

Uh oh where am I? Whose house is this? Well it is the landlord’s of course but now it is quite ours in the small and bare way that houses seem to become ours. And out the window is more water than a girl from the DDA flats has ever seen before. Remember when the tank was on the third floor and mom had to climb up a bamboo ladder to see that monkeys had not made off with the lid?

Sofas are nice. Never really had one ever before this. The coffee table continues to be ugly but it’s one of the few things made of real wood, unlike the Ikea activity that’s just collapsing like a punctured balloon if struck hard! The oven is big and is tempting me to start baking, but if I make a cake or a batch of cookies, then we’ll just have to eat it all ourselves won’t we? That girl in the student residence in London gave us such nice brownies… but I can’t imagine sharing a kitchen with anyone ever again! Except with the husband, who’s gone from not eating eggs to serving them sunny side up with a flourish that would impress Gordon Ramsay, even though that dude is usually just being an ass on TV on the rare days when we watch the TV because when you’re on the sofa in front of the TV, it’s much nicer to turn your head just a little bit and see all the water outside the window…the water I wish I had for long baths when I was a kid. It’s nice, this house. The first time that a house is OURS, even though funny mail comes into the letterbox, and someone else’s name shows up when you punch the number in the keypad at the entrance.

Yes. I think I will bake something nice in this nice house.

Three Evenings in Paris!

2011-07-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

Just back from a three-day trip to Paris, and it’s quite pointless to say “Paris is lovely” or “Paris is beautiful,” because Paris is Paris, and that is that. It is quite pointless for me to try and write a post about it.

Somewhere between climbing up the steps of the Eiffel Tower, blowing kisses to Mona Lisa at the Louvre and Sarkozy Dada at the Bastille Day Parade, the city and its friendly (yes!) people made me vow to myself to visit as often as I can.

If you’re a virtual tourist reading this post, I’ll put you in the best hands I know. If you want to fall in love with Paris, just click here.

Trainwrecked!

2011-07-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we went on 6 train rides and spent the day in Brugge, sleeping on some lovely grass, eating some pointless nougat, clicking some beautiful buildings, and lamenting the presence of the bazillion or so tourists (oh the hypocrisy!)

But this post is about train ride number 6, between Antwerp and Amsterdam, between 9 and 11 at night. At one of the stops on the way, two girls got on, took their seats, switched on music on their phone loudspeakers, pulled out packs of food, popped open cans of aerated beverages, and started talking, singing and burping(!) quite loudly. Everyone on the train seemed exhausted, at their wits’ end, and just wanting to go home and crash. Some people tried to politely remind the girls that there were other people on the train, but the girls yelled “Sorry? Sorry” loudly with one hand cockily placed behind the ear, pleading deafness. The protestors sat back in their seats murmuring and shooting stern glances in impotent rage. The girls laughed it off and went back to singing and burping.

The husband, who had aged about 10 years since the morning, what with chattering banking interns from Mumbai discussing inter-caste marriages, British schoolgirls playing tippy-tippy-tap and other such high-pitched noises that had shaken his inner peace, was at breaking point with these girls, who were sitting right next to him (God, I like your sense of humor dude!). I am almost always completely psyched about being on a train here, so I was having a ball observing them, and the discomfort they were causing. Sure they were a nuisance and someone should have thrown them out of the (moving) train, but they were two young girls, travelling alone at night on a train, having the time of their (probably sad) lives, and they were pulling it off in style! Could this have happened in a country like India? No chance! What’s the probability two dudes could be and would be pulling this off on a train ride on Saturday night? Very high!

As they got off the train, the girls smiled at all the people who had stared and complained. From the platform, they knocked loudly at a window, and waved goodbye with idiotic grins on their faces. The guy next to the window angrily flipped the bird, but that just made them (and me) laugh even more! Sure their food packets, abandoned on the seat, gave off whiffs from hell for a good hour after they were gone, but as I left the train, I found myself humming the corny song that played on their phones.

Psyche ill

2011-07-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

Everybody has a cycle in Amsterdam. Some people even have a tiny cycle that carries their big cycle. Many people who have not yet learnt how to walk or talk have a cycle. I am almost certain most babies emerge from their mothers’ wombs pedaling away on a bicycle. “Push Mevrow Push!” “Head! 2 arms! 2 legs! 2 wheels! It’s a perfect baby!”

There are dedicated lanes, bike shops, bike rentals, bike repair, bike everything except bike classes everywhere you look. So how long can you resist getting onto a bike? Just because you never got beyond balancing yourself on two wheels is not a good enough excuse to walk about everywhere or use public transport, is it?

And that’s why I went bike hunting last week. Almost fell off about 10 bikes in various shops in various cities, and realized that there were probably 2 or 3 bikes in this whole country that I could successfully ride: low seat (at five feet four, I can barely see the top of the heads of Dutch bicycle-riding toddlers), hand brakes (with biking, like with speaking, I cannot stop once I start), and pedals that freely move backwards so that I can take the Vastu-approved stance (right leg up) for propelling my bulk into forward motion without STEC (Skull-To-Earth-Contact).

One of these 2 or 3 bikes awaited me at a second-hand bike store this Saturday! It stood alone alone in a corner, and the token cobweb to denote age and neglect, the hasty and clumsy coat of silver paint to denote its potential stolen status, and the smile on its face as soon as it saw me (or so I’d like to think) sealed the deal. All that was left was to take it for a test ride, and as soon as I dragged it to a quiet lane, sat down and started pedaling, the seat began to sink down (just like office chairs do, when you’re yelling angrily in a meeting). How many of you cousins of Lance Armstrong can claim to have ridden a bicycle with a rapidly sinking seat? I did not fall, and if a cycle can be evil and still safe, that cycle was made for me! Or more likely, it was stolen from someone, painted crudely, and decorated with a cobweb for me.

I paid an unreasonably high amount to the shopkeeper and went cycling in a park. Then on a semi-busy road. And since then, I’ve been practicing in an open space near my house. I’m getting so good at it that today I accidentally rode it with the front wheel turned 180 degrees and the brakes facing me! And I still did not fall! Is this cycle great or what?

It would be childish and immature to name the cycle, so I thought a lot about it, and I cannot decide between Masakkali (mah-cycle-y) and Dogmatix (because the tiny cycle and I look like Dogmatix and Obelix going for a walk).

Wish us luck! And remind me to buy liability insurance. Using the brakes is not on my list of things to learn till next week!

The Silence Is Rest

2011-06-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Then:
We lived in a busy lane just a few months ago. Cars, motorcycles, and even buses and trucks used to pass right under our home in a honking hurry to reach their destination. The half-dozen children in the building, whose parents had bought peaceful homes and not anticipated the traffic diversions that Bangalore would collapse without, would scream their lungs out in the stairwell, forced to exhaust their bountiful supply of childhood energy without stepping out the building. In this cacophonous neighborhood pressure cookers would whistle, music wafted in through the window, and the neighborhood alcoholic and his wife would have a screaming match with dogs barking to egg them on.

And now:
The calluses on my feet beat a hollow rhythm as I walk barefoot on the floors of my home. Their sound is deafening. Through the double-glazed, weather-proof windows, not a whisper can pass. When the windows are opened to let it fresh air, one only catches the polite whoosh of cars going swiftly and silently by. Even the construction of the large complex across the road is progressing without much smash-clatter-bang.

They who can be calm in a storm are admirable. I cannot claim membership to their club. For me, my new-found silence is precious. Long days that go by without uttering a word, long naps that end only because I want to wake up, long periods of quiet that let you reflect without having to resist the constant assault of new stimuli…I am addicted to them all.

Some would say the din I’ve left behind is life-affirming: a heady cocktail of sound gushing through the labyrinth of existence. For me, there is too much life in that noise, and too much noise in that life.

Train Fan

2011-06-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

What I love most about Europe is the trains. Clean, spacious, fast and comfortable. With huge windows that show you some of the best sights you’re likely to come across in life. Just settle in, put your coffee cup on the little table, and, if you’re feeling cheeky, lay a newspaper on the seat opposite you and put your feet up, and as the train pulls out of your pretty station, get set for a ride like none other.
Don’t look at anything that’s too close to you, or your head will spin! Focus on the distant horizon instead. It’s the best policy for life and for train rides. Take breaks from the view, else you’ll be possessed by a demonic urge to crash through the panes and go walking in that green field or the patch of woods you just passed by. Look at your fellow passengers intermittently: smile at the old ladies and get smiled back at (the sister recommends this highly), assure the two Italian hooligans that they did NOT need to punch their tickets at the station, smile pleadingly at the British girl to dissuade her from spending the next two hours talking on the phone about a party she’s planning.
If you have a long day ahead of or behind you, try a nap. Be prepared for the finger of authority poking your sleepy shoulder and demanding to see your ticket, though. Scores of fake sleepyheads have obviously tried to snooze their way out of buying a ticket, and your snores are falling on deaf and cutely suspicious ears.
The train is also a great place to catch up with work, because your real life partner, the Internet, is not there to distract you. Read a book, complete an assignment, or dream up the emails you need to send out. The next stop is: Workstation!
I just love the trains. Grumpy office-goers complain that the trains always run late (which they actually do, in the mornings), but what do grumpy office-goers know about trains running late? Yaatrigan kripaya dhyaan dein: Hyderabad ko jaaney waali AP Express samay se 12 ghantey deri se ravaana hogi….
I’ve been looking for an adventure, a sanctuary, a bedazzling, shifting panorama, and a long journey. For me, the trains of Europe are running right on time. Goede Reis!

Dutch Gotilla :(

2011-06-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

Being in a writing profession and moving temporarily to a non-English-speaking country (at least as far as the job market is concerned) brings with it a dilemma: should I learn a new language and maybe not stay long enough to use it? Even if I study it for two years, there's no way I can be "writing" in it with any level of confidence. If I join day classes and get one of the two jobs in the country that I am qualified for?

So I've just been learning Dutch off the signboards, and having fun with it. Apologies if someone is hurt, but I just have to mix up everything I see!

Today's multilingual atyachar: "I am a flower-arranger lady" in Dutch + Hindi/Urdu + Japanese + Gujarati = "Ik ben ik ikebana ben"

Misc

2011-06-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the last long weekend before Christmas came to an end (for the husband of course; my life is the longest weekend in the universe as of now). We spent the cloudy afternoon enjoying the curtailed train services, browsing through a sports goods store for cheap shoes, and finally buying an extra set of bed linen from Ikea.

As we walked back from Ikea with our precious cargo (the store started out as Wonderland for me, and now sucks happiness out of every pore of my large surface area body for some reason), we saw a sea… no… an ocean of humanity spill out towards the ArenA station. ~~Old~~ ~~elderly~~ white-haired couples hand in hand….roughly 34,000 of them, Wikipedia tells me, were exiting the ArenA after a concert. Many of them were aiming for the same train as we were, and after fortifying ourselves with a sandwich and lemonade (how quaint!) we got to the platform.

People “crowded” the platform in three lines parallel to the train tracks, they barely whispered as the train rumbled in, “jostled” in neat queues to get in first, 60-year-olds gallantly gave up their seats to 80-year-olds, and by the time the doors closed, hardly anyone was standing! We tried to entertain the venerable music lovers with a pole dance, of course, but nobody seemed interested.

I hope never to lose the feeling of joyful wonder at how well-behaved people can be. And how lovely Dutch trains are!

P.S. Stopped by at Pathe to pick up tickets for Kung Fu Panda 2 in IMAX 3D for next weekend! My first IMAX! Der aaye, durust aaye!

Superlike!

2011-06-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

De Heer Gulati's camera lies on the coffee table at all times, to be put to use at a moment's notice when interesting action is spotted outside the window. He's finally put it all together in a post on his blog, thereby saving me tonnes of trouble. Take a look!

P.S. If he's De Heer, you'd guess I'm De Ranjha? Nope, I'm Mevrow (meefrow) and am called that by burly security guards in pleading voices as I walk into exit doors, carry big shoplifter bags into stores etc....

Talkin' Trash

2011-06-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

Our neighbourhood has lovely garbage disposal points within 50 metres of any gate, and ever so often there’s something that’s too big for the bin, like a sofa, that someone just HAS to get rid of and there’s nothing to be done except to leave the sofa next to the bin! Till the garbage crew comes along, passers by are welcome to sit on the sofa and enjoy the view of the bin, or to even carry it home with them if they need it! (Sofa, not bin. You Guys!!!)

When our landlord gallantly came over with a cart to take away all the unwanted stuff from the apartment’s storeroom, he left quite a few nice things, like a beautiful mirror, next to the garbage area. On our post-landlord-inspection victory walk that evening, we saw a rather nice lady pick up the mirror, examine it, and walk away with it. It was heartening to see that the mirror was not going to lie around waiting for the trash lorry, shatter due to the crazy river breeze in the meantime, and hurt someone.

It also made me bold enough to prod about in collections of stuff people leave there. Once someone left a darling green ceramic pot that was crying out to be taken home and have a plant installed in, but the husband looked at me with a look that I don’t fancy being looked at with, and I put the pot back. And did what any sensible woman would do. I went alone the next time. But the pot was gone. Never mind.

Meanwhile, my oh-so-white and proper kitchen had been looking like a mess because of all the oil and spice bottles I want at hand while cooking, and with no way to keep them neatly, I’ve been arranging them the way I have arranged my whole life… in a mess mostly. But a visit to the garbage bin has changed everything! Some kind soul cleared his or her storeroom and threw away a drawer-separator that had obviously been purchased but never used. After a minute’s hesitation, I picked it up and triumphantly brought it home. The husband initially suffered a combined attack of shock and disgust, but was so amazed at what I did with it, that this post is being made on his special request!

P.S.: I think I'll paint it white

P.P.S.: I was warned I’d become a junkie in Amsterdam, and seems like it’s happening.

P.P.P.S.: Of course I cleaned it. You Guys!!!

Bag Bag Decay Boss!

2011-06-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

After a day of housework (it DOES consume every single second of your waking life if you let it) I went for a walk last evening. It was like any other one-hour excursion into the city, with one difference. I carried no handbag. Nothing on my shoulder, nothing in my hands. Just the keys, wallet and cellphone in my pockets, and NO BAG. You know how unusual that is for a woman? VERY. How can I be so sure? I came across a good 4-5000 women in that hour…tourists, officegoers, general chill-outers and unemployed women who had had enough of housework for one day, and NOT A SINGLE ONE of them was without a bag of some sort. Some were carrying their houses on their shoulders, which is normal for people landing at Amsterdam Centraal Station, and a couple of them were carrying just a tiny sling bag, but unlike roughly half the men I encountered, no woman was bag-free.

It was a lovely feeling to be able to walk without something pressing down upon your shoulder, threatening to slip off at any moment, or bumping against you with each step you took. Why can’t we do this more often. Unless there’s a porta-loo in that bag, why do women think they need to carry that bag and men don’t? Is the need to carry a water bottle, an umbrella, or a book exclusively feminine? When was the last time you stepped out of the house without a bag, ladies?

It might be a fun experiment. No bag for a week, no matter what. Must try! Water can be bought at a grocery store. Rain can be hidden from under an awning. Faces can be read instead of books. (Baazigar has ruined the poetry of that statement forever, hasn’t it?)

Rewrite From Hell

2011-05-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

The darling husband is sentimental about everything he sees or hears these days, which I think is a comical side effect of his brain finally being able to function without the noise and pollution of our erstwhile environs. Me? I just play loud music at home and walk past weed stores an awful lot to maintain my inner balance.

So anyway, here's an extract from a recent poetic post by the husband:

Imagine a cold, overcast day. Now imagine a quaint pub at the corner of a street by a canal. Entering it on a day like this is like entering a new world. You are sitting, chatting with colleagues with a glass of iced tea in your hand. Music plays in the background but faintly – for it doesn’t want to intrude on your conversation. In fact it is so faint that it sounds like a whisper from a world beyond ours. The music changes and your ears catch a vaguely familiar strain. But they can’t quite place it. Besides this is a pub – most of whatever little reached your ears is drowned in conversations around you. That nagging sense of familiarity persists – and the inability to clearly hear the music strengthens it. Then suddenly, by some stroke of good fortune, the conversations at your table and at the table beyond and at the bar stools pause for a fraction of a second – as if everyone was reading from the same page and encountered a full stop. And you hear with unmistakable clarity a voice that you know can only be Paul McCartney softly crooning:

Michelle, my belle.
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble,
Très bien ensemble.

I challenged him that I could better this, and here's my version:

Miserable cold day! Thank God for the cosy pub. English music drowned by chatter and tinkling glasses, as usual. Wait! Don’t I recognize that song? Maybe if I could HEAR it you know! Ah! Paul of the Mc Cartney variety of course! I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU with increasing urgency, as if waiting in a long bathroom queue. But why is it so quiet all of a sudden? Oh nerve gas! Ouch! Bye! Logging out!

Look at the economy of words! The depth of feeling! The stream of consciousness! I'm wasting my talent I say! :)

And now look at Maamu McCartney putting the song to real good use!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrRLH-ZGZEs&feature=related

Notes from the first month in Amsterdam

2011-05-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

Language:
I slept during My Name is Khan, so I don’t know what the plot is
But thanks to that blasted movie I know all about the epiglottis
Grammar, even English, has been tantalizingly out of my reach
But in the Netherlands I know the epiglottis is THE part of speech

Transport:
My facebook status message has a cute little heart
That says Inky is in a relationship with her OV Chipkaart
It’s the choice that’s so amazing, but it’s the choice that I loathe
Debating between tram and metro, I often miss them both

Food:
I have zout popcorn in one hand, zoet popcorn in the other
It’s all good roughage, I tell my concerned mother
And the only problem with Oude and Jong kaas
Is that they are bleddy going directly to my arse

Paradigm Shift

2011-05-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

So I'm all shiny and clean at 4pm, dressed in slimming all-black (note to self, you need black MAGIC to look slim) and walking down the road along the canal humming a Bollywood song to myself. A bike slows down beside me, and the raggedy rider says "Excuse me? single? single? EXCUSE ME? SINGLE?"

My first Dilliwali impulse is to abuse him and shove my shoe into one or more places in his anatomy, but then I remember I am in Amsterdam. I smile and say:

"This is Prinsengracht. Go a bit further up and take a left. You'll be on Singel"

P.S. Dilli or Amsterdam, you will be rammed into by two-wheelers even when you're crossing the road correctly. Some paradigms never shift.

Moving and Stuff

2011-05-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

On the night of April 8, we were standing at Indira Gandhi Airport with two-and-a-half bags, and over the preceding three weeks, we had ensured that those bags contained practically all our worldly possessions (56kg in all, to be precise).

Making a fresh start involved not just the mandatory letting go of a rented house, phone number etc. but a practical erasure of our Bangalore footprint! All our furniture. gadgetry and electronics were given/sold away, practically all the books we had collected over the past many years were sold to Blossom or given to friends, the husband's painstakingly collected music CDs, all 500 of them, found new homes, and when we handed the keys of the apartment back to the landlord, it was as empty as the day the husband had moved in.

We’d always taken pride in how little stuff we owned, and how we had been able to emotionally detach ourselves from our possessions. While turning the house inside out, we discovered that we were not quite as virtuous as we thought.

One month later, here we are: in a bigger house(!) with very little stuff and very limited storage space. Here’s hoping we’ll be able to live out our philosophy this time.

Amsterdamned Fools

2011-05-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

The early thirties are a defining period in many couples’ lives in India. It’s time to start a family, to buy a home, to get onto the managerial track at work (for one or both partners), and suchlike. It’s too late for the rash decisions of youth, and too early for the follies of a midlife crisis. Although it is the time to enjoy the thrill of definitively coming into adulthood, it is also the time of the birth of fear. The need to hold down that job to pay that EMI, the need to hold on to your senses to be able to be there for your parents on the one hand, and the kids on the other.

And, very rarely, it is the time of sticking your middle finger at the slings, arrows, bouquets and brickbats of outrageous fortune, chucking your secure jobs, hugging your forever-to-be-grandchildless parents, selling/giving away/throwing out all your worldly posessions, packing your life into 23-kilo suitcases, and moving to a new country where only one of you has a job (with the same designation with which he started 11 years ago!)

In four days, we celebrate one month of moving to Amsterdam, for better or for worse (for good? there's no way to know.)

I’ve learnt some disturbing things about myself along the way, and the silence of the last few months has not been due to the absence of things to say, but because I’ve had too much to process.

The husband has been posting in his Zen way on his blog, so you can check out how we’ve been passing our days if you’d like. For the uncensored craziness, watch this space.

Phbbbt!

2011-01-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

I recently traveled to Amsterdam, where much fun was had, although not the kind you’re imagining. However, this post is not about Amsterdam. No Siree, this is about the amazing, amazing place called the Charles De Gaulle Airport (Pronounced Sharlesdegaul, or Chardegol or Chago depending on how much of a hurry you are in, or how French you are, or both) I am neither in a hurry nor French, so I’m gonna call it CDG (Pronounced Seedy Ji).

I’m not in a hurry now, but at Seedy Ji, I had 2 hours to catch my connection to Schiphol (pronounced Skhiple and as Achmed the dead terrorist informs me, is spelt Ess Phlegm Eye ….). So anway, according to the map on the plane, Seedy ji is in France. Ten seconds out of the plane (no aerobridge was provided, since the weather outside was so brrrrrrrrrruddy beautiful how could anyone miss it) you know that either France is a tiny cold India or you have been tricked and taken round and round in the plane for ten hours. Not to sound unpatriotic, but we do seem to mop the floors of our arrivals halls with a random mix of phenyl and pee. If we mop them at all, that is.

Then we climbed up a rickety spiral ladder-staircase and collided with passengers trying to use an aerobridge to get to their Emirates flight. For a couple of minutes, we got all mixed up with folks whose boarding cards were not going to be checked again before their plane took off! How cool is that? Eventually we were shooed back down the stairs in French, and we waited for our turn to use the corridor. Which led us to a hall where hundreds of people waited to board shuttles that would take them to their terminals. “Eff Eff Eff “ (not the swear word, the letter) we shouted and probably broke a few necks and legs as we made our way through the crowd into the shuttle. Thankfully it was so cold that the people we injured did not feel a thing till we were safely out of their reach.

We made it to our gate ten minutes before boarding, and this time was used in trying to find the rest room, and let’s just say we are not sure whether Madame and Monsieur went to the correct sections. Thankfully everyone else was even more lost than us, so we did not encounter anyone in the process of conducting our business.

I’d heard the Amreeka-flyer husband complain about Seedy ji and assumed he was too fancy, but looks like the poor dude was just asking for a clean and organized place as he got off one long flight and on to another, longer one. Seedy ji had their lavatory exhaust next to the cafes when we were taking off for India, so I’m hoping not to have to go there again. I do love their language though. And that pathetic view of the Eiffel tower from the plane is not crossing that goal off my bucket list. What to do? What to do?

Recipe Of The Day

2011-01-03T22:58:00.000-08:00

The right and proper way to fry and consume an egg if you are me:

Stick a slice of bread into a toaster. It’s nice if it’s the mini-oven kind, because it dries up and browns the toast very evenly.
Take a very, very clean non-stick pan and heat it for a couple of minutes on a low flame. Add 2-3 drops of oil.
Break an egg into the pan, taking care not to pierce the yolk with the jagged edge of the eggshell. (This accident has a higher chance of happening when you’re cooking the egg for yourself or for someone you want to impress. See Murphy 179:2)
Now take a clean spatula and resist the temptation to mess with the egg for a minute.
Ok now stop playing with the spatula, switch off that toaster already, and gingerly test the edges of the egg to see if it’s ready to come off. If it isn’t, your gas flame has switched off and your house is about to catch fire, or your pan was dirty and your maid is about to be fired.
Once the egg is happy to let go of the pan, lift it onto the spatula. If you’re like me, your yolk is obviously not right in the centre of the arrangement, so lift the egg such that the yolk rests on the spatula. Now take the naam of Jai Sri Ram and flip the egg.
Not so hard! You’ve broken the yolk! Yellow goo is flowing out from under the pretty egg. Find someone who will appreciate a cooked snack and feed this to them, and make yourself another. This time, turn the egg over gently.
In a minute, begin the spatula prodding again, and convince the egg that the toast is a nice and comfy bed to lie down upon.
Turn egg upside down and sunnier side up onto the toast, this time saving the yolk from your spatula’s incision, and sprinkle salt and pepper.
Now, like a 2-year-old, break the yolk with the spoon and smear the golden awesomeness of it all over the egg.
Enzoi!

Side Effects: This recipe is known to generate a strong craving for Darjeeling tea afterwards. And rusk to dip in it.

Wakey Wakey

2011-01-03T02:12:00.000-08:00

Remember the summer holidays, when the excursion to the mountains was done, the homework more or less completed, and the cousins had come and gone, and it was up to you to entertain yourself? Out came paper taken from dad’s office, with the letterhead portion torn off not-so-neatly using a footruler, and out came the box of poster paints, and the brushes. My brushes were always bent like a dog’s tail, and stuck stiff with the memories of ghastly artwork from many months ago. They were made with sable hair, apparently:

The sable (Martes zibellina) is a species of marten which inhabits forest environments, primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan…. It has historically been harvested for its highly valued fur, which remains a luxury good to this day. (Wickedpedia)

Yeah! And Camel/Camlin was making 2-rupee sable hair paintbrushes for my grubby generation of schoolgoers. Rrrrrrrrrrrright!

Anyway, the paints were all dry and cracked, of course. Asking the parents for a new box was risky. Before PowerPoint and Excel, it was difficult to make a business case for the procurement of new resources for a project that was not expected to even recover costs, so the old paints had to be revived. A bit of water, vigorous shaking (with the lid PROPERLY closed) and waiting a few hours yielded acceptable results. And when the brushes were dipped in water, they un-clumped and resigned themselves to the torture that awaited them.

And so it is with the blog. I’m putting water in all the cracked paints: the ochre of comedy, the Prussian blue of insanity, the crimson of angry rants, the black and white of memories, the green of uninformed opinion, and the brown of bullshit. The dog-tailed brushes are probably made out of dog tails, but I’m getting them ready again nonetheless!

Janworry

2011-01-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

Happy new year neglected blog and all-gone readers. Facebook has swallowed me whole, I guess.

I'm the one who whiningly asked for a bit of stability in life four years ago, and have been awarded with it: same job, same house, same husband for four years! Which is all nice, except I have nothing to blog about. And the itch to shake things up is getting stronger. Let's see what mischief I can manage...

Fraud Pulao

2010-09-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Ever since I started digging my spoon into Malayali and Kannadiga lunchboxes at work four years ago, I have been envious of their pulaos (Yes, I’m calling them that, and let’s see who can stop me!). It does not help that I am too lazy to buy basmati rice, shell peas, or even buy coconuts. However, with help and advice and some innovation, I seem to have hit upon a successful recipe, and am sharing it with the world at large. The name is Fraud Pulao, because a lazy North Indian can con other lazy North Indians into believing this is an authentic South India pulao.

1. Take the wet grinder jar of your mixie, and throw in 5 cloves of garlic, half an onion, half a tomato, a fistful of coriander leaves, a half inch piece of cinnamon and three cloves. Grind it into a paste.

2. In a pressure cooker, put two spoons of oil, and let some jira sputter in it. Add the paste, and yell abuses at me while the steam burns your hand. Wash the mixie jar with water immediately afterwards, else the Husband will never be able to clean it later.

3. Now let the paste cook till it gives off a nice cooked smell. Add a pinch of turmeric if you are going to eat under a yellow light, because it makes the pulao look cooler. Under white light, you will need to add a little more turmeric if you don't want a sickly look. If you want an eco-friendly green look, leave as is. (If you think this is a vain, pretentious step, remember, I am half-Punjabi, and they are - allegedly - the women who put on make-up in the hospital after delivering babies, in case anyone drops by to say congrats.)

4. Now add the other of the onion (sliced into fine arcs) some carrot (1-inch strips) some beans (cut into 1-inch bits and split lengthwise, much to your thumb’s peril) and the other half of the tomato (finely chopped). Add a spoon of salt if you don’t want a burnt cooker (else the Husband will never be able to clean it later)

5. Now just add a cup of rice (for 2), 2.5 cups of water, and shut the cooker. Wait for one whistle, then leave on low flame for 5 minutes. Open when the cooker lets you. Eat with dahi.

6. Go back in the past and switch on the exhaust fan. Else this smell/aroma ain’t going nowhere honey!

So that’s what? 6 steps? Not bad, eh? No ghee, no basmati, and nothing that doesn’t exist in a North Indian kitchen (except maybe a darling husband who uncomplainingly cleans up after your culinary gymnastics.)

Ab Samjhe!

2010-08-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

Everybody and their Amma blames the Indian education system for not teaching people how to think, just making them learn by rote. Am guessing Pakistan's education system is not much different in this regard. Look how nicely the Pakistani bookie remembers each and every upcoming no-ball while the sting journalist, who has obviously had a "thinking" kind of useless education, has to write everything down! And look where their education has gotten them! This is probably the only day in his life that the journalist will have seen so much money, whereas bookie dude is dealing with it so casually!

Please rethink your attitude to your education, fellow Indians/Subcontinentals... Your divorce rates are lower because you can remember birthdays! Heck, even your promotions are guaranteed because you can remember which metacarpal on which hand your boss' mother has broken!

Careening Into Insanity

2010-08-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

Where does one belong? And to whom? And with whom? Apart from one 32-year-old 6-foot certainty, everything seems to be mad whirlwind. Whose pathetic idea was it to grow up?

Each new revealed expectation is like a three or four or six of spades added to a teetering, fragile house of cards. Spades ought to be for graves, not houses!

So much time in such a little space! I’m tackling life as a filigree piece, not as a checklist. Dear world, please just let me be that way!

Back?

2010-06-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Can’t recall where the last couple of months have gone. Anyway, here I am and this morning I sent a little paper boat sailing into a storm. Praying fervently that it reaches the other shore safely!

Travelled to Ladakh, this time for the snow and the apricot blossoms, neither of which disappointed. Came back with a killer cold that had to be nuked with a swine-flu-blaster medicine, but that will not stop me from going back to Ladakh the first chance I get!

Speaking of blossoms, I've been reading 2 Davids who are poles apart: Mitchell and Lodge, one a confirmed dopehead and the other a literary critic whose work I was force-fed at college and whose funny, wise and un-put-downable novels I discovered entirely by chance (I can never resist the temptation of buying a 150-rupee trilogy at Blossom). Loving them both equally, and while Mitchell has vanished from the shelves at Blossom, Lodge is hidden behind other books on a shelf that only I seem to know of! (We pay extra rent to stay within walking distance of Blossom)

Speaking of Blossom, it was awesome (sorry) to see Mayim Bialik make a reappearance on TV as the possible love interest of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. Being married to a Sheldon Cooper-esque ~~specimen~~ ~~character~~ dude myself, I'm eager to see if these guys can write a future for the two!

Blogger is tempting me to explore the template design feature. Off I go! Whee!

Free Lunch

2010-03-25T04:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, I don't know if this is a shameful thing or not, but I realized the meaning of the phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch" only yesterday. I used to think it means that "you have to pay for whatever you get, it might look free, but the price will be extracted from you by other means." Frankly, that's the context I have seen it being used in all around me forever.

But no. It means: "If you're having a free lunch, you can be sure that someone, somewhere is paying for it!"

Which makes so much more sense, doesn't it?

And now, raise your hands if you have been similarly mistaken! C'mon! Give me company!

Update: ok, ok ok! It means much more than the narrow "You get nothing free." It means that someone (and that someone could be you) is paying for your lunch somewhere, somehow, sometime. But that's still a different (if only much larger) definition than most of us are used to. Thanks Papunda, for the wikipedia link!

BRC vs RR

2010-03-19T05:23:00.001-07:00

How excited can you be about twenty twenty?
Is the question and the answer is: plenty

And that's why we hopped, skipped and jumped to the Chinnaswamy stadium yesterday, for the husband's first (and my second) live match ever! What seats! What weather! What light! What crowds!

And then Rajasthan was challenged royally!
C'mon! Even I could have made 93!

The fireworks were good. The hat-trick was go-ood. The lab rats who yell each time the weird siren blows were terrifyingly Pavlovian!

We screamed, we yelled, we made Mexican Waves
Coz that's how a Roman in Rome behaves!

Of course I knew precious little (ok nothing) about the technicalities of the game, and my expert comments made the husband hold his head in dismay whenever he was not jumping up and down aping the umpire's gestures.

The voice you heard yelling "I AM NOT WITH HER"
Belongs to the son-in-law of my mother

Luckily for us hungry and be-car types, the lopsided match ended before three-wheeler-drivers turned extortionist and pizza delivery shut down for the night.

Hoarse-voiced we woke Dominos from their slumber
They thought Big B was calling from our number!

Alibhai

2010-03-17T00:39:00.001-07:00

I had a very busy fortnight: travelling east, then north, attending Bengali engagements and weddings, restoring a temporarily re-bachelorised home to normalcy, and whatnot. So please forgive the absence!

A couple of days ago, we were in an electronics shop, and an IT dude with a backpack walked in and asked the salesperson a very crisp and very pertinent question: "How big a flat LCD TV can you give me for under a lakh?" He was probably just shy of 30, was obviously coming in straight from work, and you could SEE a thought bubble over his head: "What the EFF am I earning all this money for if I can't even watch the IPL on a big fat TV when I come home after a hard day's work? My parents will marry me off soon enough, and forget TVs, I won't even get to see the remote ever again after that!"

Feb 28, at last!

2010-02-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

This was not too difficult!

(famous last words before collapsing onto the keyboard.)

Feb 27, Almost missed it!

2010-02-27T10:05:00.000-08:00

There was a nice prayer in school

O Master grant that I may never seek

So much to be consoled as to console

To be understood, as to understand

To be loved, as to love with all my soul...

I think this blog is an exercise in just the opposite. :o|

Do spare a thought for those killed in Afghanistan, and Chile, and let's hope the tsunami fizzles out before it hits land.

Feb 26, and the laundry needs to be hung out to dry

2010-02-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

In the olden days, all the planets needed to be in optimum positions for any auspicious tasks to be performed. These days, the simultaneous presence of electricity and water supply is the shubhest muhuratam possible. That is why 10:12pm is laundry time tonight.

Nobody, myself included, can figure out how I manage to work up 6 machine loads a week. Apparently the house is empty for such a long time that some naughty clothes jump off the shelves and dive into the laundry basket just for kicks! That has to be it.

And since you can do nothing but listen or close this page, why don't I blabber on about how I am too lazy to wash pretty Fabindia clothes by hand, and just dump them all in the machine, throw in some Genteel/Ezee and let the machine do the rest? My "trousseau" clothes, having been worn once a month on an average (yes, it was that kind of trousseau) have been into the washing machine about 40 times, which is more than any Fabindia garment can stand. No wonder they often go krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr without notice, which is not a nice thing to happen when you're in office. I can understand why I have the same job since my wedding, the same house, and maybe even why the same husband. But why can't I give up these clothes before they desert me during a meeting???

If my ruthless washing was not enough, they go for a brutal ironing regime to the local Iron Man, whose name is, I kid you not, Jesus. He has a mobile, and when I am stuck in office and the husband is at home, I call Jesus and ask him to drop the clothes at home, and then call my husband to alert him. "Hello! Jesus is coming. Wake up!" People around me never fail to fall off their chairs when this happens.

Ok, so this is what happens when you try to blog for one month straight. All your dirty linen gets washed in public. Am off now to hang the clothes out, and if you too run up 6 loads a week, you need to lock your cupboards before you go to work.

Feb 25, and I'm Exhausted

2010-02-25T08:12:00.001-08:00

So you can see some nice pics from my old phone's camera.

If anyone ever offers you lemonade, now you know what you have to say...

This tricycle usually takes on people its own size, but the temptation of the safely locked gate was too much!

One of them was allowed to wear it on Mondays and Wednesdays, the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nobody said anything about Friday...

Iske papa kehtey hain bada naam karega....

While I was uploading the pictures, a mosquito bit me and then perched on the keyboard. I must go now, and let her use twitter to tell her friends all about it!

Feb 24, and you won't believe this!

2010-02-24T02:17:00.000-08:00

Loads of people say that your name determines your profession, but this is incredible! I just googled this name to see if anyone was naive enough to name their kid this (sorry!), but what I found is beyond my wildest expectations!

Feb 24, patience ka “test” and inspiration ka “run out”

2010-02-24T01:02:00.001-08:00

"Nothing new is happening in this movie. Let's watch the match instead."

These would have been the final words of Mr Husband Man had there not been other people in the room that day. Three minutes into a film, he was bored beyond endurance , and itching to get back to the edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting, handkerchief-strangling, abuse-yelling and chair-smashing action of…… a test match.

With every ounce of self control in my voluminous body, I channelized my murderous age into an animated performance of "WHAT THE BEJEESUS DO YOU THINK IS NEW IN A TEST MATCH???? ONE GUY IS THROWING A BALL, ONE GUY IS HITTING IT WITH A BLEDDY STICK AND EVERYONE IS RUNNING AROUND OVER AND OVER AND OVER, OVER AFTER OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" All this was enacted with violent yelling, arm flailing, and crazy hair flying. That was better than the movie and the match, performance-wise.

Many people who are not cricket buffs share homes with those who love the game. Even TV series wrap up before the IPL and new ones tempt you in the ad breaks to become addicts when your evenings become meaningless after the league matches. The folks in office follow every ODI on cricket websites and yell each time something happens, causing you to spill coffee on your keyboard. All that is fine. But a test match? Even Sachin's wife does not have to watch a test match instead of a George Clooney film! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! (Ok, the last test was kinda fun when we whooped SA and retained the ICC ranking, but that's RARE)

Meanwhile, if you want to know the latest score of a Lahore Zoo vs. Amritsar Zoo match, ask my husband. If you want to know who's the 21^st man for the Kolkata Knight Riders, ask my husband. If you want to know who's playing Hong Kong and Holland in their March 2052 triseries, ask my husband. If you want to know any of this, however, you are probably a test-match watcher, and WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??

Feb 23, Mi Casa, Tu Kaisa?

2010-02-23T03:19:00.001-08:00

Please leave your housekeeping standards at the doorstep if you enter the Inkspill household, dear people. You will be made to sit uncomfortably on a pile of mattresses while your hosts type away silently at their computer keyboards. You will be fed basic food served directly from pressure cookers and kadhais, and neither the plates, nor the bowls, nor yet the spoons will match, even if there are just 3 people at the table. The rotis will be all shapes and sizes, and each roti will demonstrate varying thickness in its various "corners". If you stay long enough, I will have no option but to hang laundry about the house, and you will have to walk through a moist and fragrant curtain of kurtas and shirts as you pass from one room to another. You will get a mismatched set of pillowcase and sheets at night, and your morning tea will be made with ours, no matter when you actually wake up. We will love you, but we will be unable to express our love too much, just like Mr Khan in his movie, and just like him, we will probably not look at you when we talk to you (because we're reading our twitter feed), but we promise not to repeat words twice, or bring 500 people to restore your village of 200 while a hurricane is still on, instead of just carrying you out of there for the time being.

Now I guess the "matching towels in the guest bathroom" ideal is quite impossible to maintain for most, at least I hope nobody has the time for that anymore. But there's surely a decent standard that you can maintain as a host? Does it come naturally or is it a cultivated art? Would subscribing to Good Housekeeping help? Or can we just expect to bumble our way through life with our disgusting attitude?

Meanwhile, please oblige me by answering three questions in the comments box if you have a moment.

1. How many people in your household?

2. How many people can you host overnight (with a single or half a double mattress under them)?

3. How many people can you have over for a meal (space-wise/plates-wise, if that number is more than seating-wise)?

Don't worry, we're not going to come over. We're too busy making polygonal rotis and tweeting about them.

Feb 22, and I have the answer to life's biggest question

2010-02-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

What is worse? A botched up root canal job, or My Name Is Khan?

Not that I'm telling you, though. Each man and woman must seek out life's answers for him/herself! Not that you should need to go to my dentist, ever. God forbid. I do not wish that upon anyone, except maybe SRK?

Feb 21, and some days are

2010-02-21T06:20:00.000-08:00

... blank.

Feb 20, and the power of Rajma...

2010-02-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

...must never be underestimated by the Punjabi woman. You might not have beauty, you might not have brains, your Daddy might not be a millionaire, but if you can cook Rajma, you can get whatever you want in India.

1. When I was up-setting (the opposite of setting up) my house in Pune, I offered to sell my TV to a guy who wanted one. He thought the offer price was steep, so I invited him home to lunch and to check out the TV for himself. After a hearty meal of Rajma Chawal, gujjubhai took the TV at offer price and carried it home the same day. RP, if you're reading this, I hope the TV is still working. It was practically brand new!

2.I was sick with jaundice when the then-friend-now-husband came to see me for the first time. Despite being restricted to a lauki diet, I was fit enough to cook. One Rajma lunch, and we were unofficially betrothed.

3. I had the whole Banneghatta Butterfly Park in my stomach as my parents and I went to be introduced to my in-laws-to-be. One spoonful of mom-in-law's 10/10 rajma, and my parents were sure I was going into the right family.

4.Whenever any guests are coming and I am even a little nervous, I turn to rajma for assistance. Except for my extremely hard-to-please-in-the-rajma-department sister, most everyone likes it, and things go smoothly.

Yes, someone is visiting today. Yes, there pressure cooker is singing "don't worry, be happy" as I type this.

The best thing is that you don't even have to try hard to get it right, since the rajma itself does all the work of being tasty. All the guys who eat it are just grateful for a hot and fresh meal, and the women like to say it tastes just like the rajma they make, which is a compliment in women-world.

So now you know. The Punjabi weapon of mass destruction. The next time it's unleashed upon you, be careful and look out for hidden agendas. And if I invite you over with a Rajma offer, submit without resistance. I know other ways of getting my job done, but you might miss a treat if you refuse.

Feb 19, and what do YOU do when:

2010-02-19T01:39:00.001-08:00

Aamir Khan says that lyrics are not important to a song? It's officially over now, dude. Your Name is Khan, and you are an Idiot.
The IT department sends you a mail asking for your phone number when you leave a message on their site saying your email is not working?
The saleswoman says that the emergency light you are buying needs to be charged for 24 straight hours before it can be used? If I had 24 hours of power…

Feb 18, And the Tooth will prevail

2010-02-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I have achieved the impossible. Got kind of drunk on local dental anesthesia, of which I was given an industrial grade helping (it was spilling over into my eyes and nose from the syringe). All the doctor's cries of "relax, relax" were in vain and I clenched my fists as he administered the shot, but afterwards I felt a little too relaxed, and blabbered a little too drawlingly, and my head swam around beautifully, and don't blame me if I become a local anesthesia junkie, ok?

Anyway, the shot did nothing to numb the troublesome nerve, and I jumped three feet into the air when the doc drilled it.
Let's skip over the gory bits and totter home, where the main tooth kept giving me 140-character pain as it tweeted its woes to its friends and neighbors. I was ok, till the neighbors started retweeting. Ow Ow Ow!

As you can see, the spiritual effects of the anesthetic have not yet worn off, and I should stop blogging for the day, because when I wake up all hung over tomorrow morning, I will regret this.

Bye!

Keep smiling! It might improve your face value. (The poster in the dentist's office has this very tentative message)

Feb 17

2010-02-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

There is no electricity and no water. They are both missing since this morning. This is like a doomsday movie minus the billion dollar special effects. Blogging from the phone to keep the promise.

Feb 16, Ow, ow ow!

2010-02-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

The eyes, they hurt from reading Little Women on the computer screen all day.
The head, it aches dully for the same reason.
The teeth, they chatter in fear at what the dentist said today. It's time for some road repair work in there.

Must go to sleep. Have nothing cheerful to say today. Apologies.

Feb15, Angrrrrrry Monday

2010-02-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

- At myself for forgetting to switch off the geyser and having to walk back a kilometre in the heat to switch it off.
- At myself again for having switched on the geyser when it's so hot outside.
- At the autowallahs whose meters are tampered. I feel like yanking the cord off while they are driving.
- At Windows XP and HP nx6115 for being a lazy old couple that takes five hours to answer my doorbell!
- At the weather. Stupid Stupid heat wave.
- At people who hit me on the head for no reason. Ok I'm irritating, but you're grown up, control your emotions. Do you see me yanking your aorta out, even though I want to? So, so badly?
- At the shady gas agency which is so reluctant to repay half the deposit they took from me. May everyone see Ishqiya and your fly-by-night business go bust!
-At the residents of my 3 flats in my building which have 20 kids between them, and who are causing a major water shortage without helping pay for a new motor. May you get tampered-meter autos for the rest of your life!
-At myself again, for letting all this get to me, but hey! it's Monday as it is!!!!

Feb 14, Sunday, and Queue-pid strikes everywhere!

2010-02-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

So despite the best efforts of some people, Feb 14 is here and love is (or at least heart-shaped gas-filled escapee balloons are) in the air. It's on air too in Bengaluru, where romantic ditties from the Waheeda-Guru Dutt days are playing alternately with the Karan Johar mushies on radio. I am glad I am not in Pune, where there was devotional music on the radio on V-Day when I was there last, not to mention the fact that yesterday there was some horrible, horrible non-vegetarian action at my beloved German Bakery by people who have an agenda against peace.

There was a lovely lady at my second office who had left a newspaper job to work at an E-learning company as an editor. She'd been married for 20 years, and said that she spent delightful hours at home with her husband, each of them just reading their own books in silence. That's what my Valentine's evening was like. Coffee, sandwich, apple pie, E.M. Forster's the Longest Journey and my best friend and darling boy by my side. Blissful!

Two "foreigner" girls took the table to my left and immediately yelled "OH MY GOD BARNES AND NOBLE!!!!" when they saw our canvas bag. Is there a Barnes and Noble here???? It broke my heart to tell them that there wasn't any, but I directed them to Blossom, which can kick any bookshop's dog-eared ass from halfway across the globe. We discussed Forster, and out respective teachers' love for him, and they told me that after losing their English teaching jobs in the US in the recession, they were taking a year off to find Jesus and live as he had lived. I have my doubts that Jesus visited swank coffee shops in Bangalore, but hey, at least they were on Church Street!

And oh! I wore my new Valentine's Day shoes and he wore his new Valentine's day Kurta, which was such amazing progress from last year's probiotic capsules and unisex deodorant!

Dedicating this song from Silk Route's Boondein to my precioussssss on Valentine's Day:

Hum jo chaley, to tum bhi chalo saath
Phir kya khabar, ke din hai ya raat

Here's to miles and miles of walking together on the pavements of the world, as one pair of Bata shoes after another collapses under the torture. Dearest, I'm not crazy about you; I'm (lock-up-ably) crazy without you!

Feb 13, Help!

2010-02-13T09:35:00.001-08:00

In a sincere attempt to reduce our carbon footprint, we're looking for CFL bulbs for the house, and are unable to find any in yellow. Does anyone know where these can be purchased in Bangalore? Pray tell me!

The parents walked out of My Name is Khan in the intermission. Whoa! This is the same mom who was so mesmerized by Shahrukh Khan in Darr that she made an omelet with sugar instead of salt, right after she came back from seeing the movie a second time. The same mom who saw Kuchh Kuchh Hota hai five times before she realized it was a stupid film. The same mom who watches K3G four times a month and cries into a hankie! And yes, I am not going non-anonymous so that I can poke fun at my family! J

Feb 12, and the long weekend begins!

2010-02-12T08:36:00.001-08:00

It's a rare day when my office is shut and the husband's is not, which means the day is reserved for the (many) activities he's not interested in. Started the day bright and early with a morning show of Ishqiya, for which I'd booked the middle seat in the first row, well aware that only the last 3-4 rows would fill up on a Friday morning, since everyone who had time was watching "My Name is Kaan," as they call it in Namma Bengaluru.

So while Mr Ambani is still building his palatial home, I already have a personal theatre, where I cannot see or hear another soul, and can lean back and enjoy a film on a huuuuuuge screen by myself! For 120 rupees! Happy Valentine's Day advance party to me! The film was quite nice, by the way, and Vidyaji can still act, which is a big relief. I'm a huge fan of Naseer and Arshad, and, the way they are, they'd have to work hard to disappoint anyone! Also heard my 4 favorite songs of the season on the huge speakers, and that itself was worth the ticket money!! As they say, Ab mujhe koi intezaar kahan!

Also got the first facial of my life, and now I know why people like these things. It's easy to get used to something like this! Mine was a quickie by the standards of their "menu", but the only one whose price I could justify to my conscience! I still look like a cow, but a clean cow, and that's something. And oh! The gal who gave me the facial? Her name was Facie! When I read the name tag, I thought that must be a quirky code name, and Pedi, Cutty, Waxy, and Chocolate Body Wrappy must be busy with their respective clients. But no! The receptionist's name was not Up-Sellie! It was Vasundhara!

Feb 11, Already?

2010-02-11T03:59:00.000-08:00

Waking up every morning is an arduous task. Even if the alarm is set for 8am (Karisma Kapoor sings very poignantly in the magnum opus Hum Saath Saath Hain: Aath baje tak jo hain sotey, badey kahan log aise hotey? This is utter bullpoo, because I am growing in size everyday). By the time I am de-paralysed (anyone else out there goes into semi-rigor mortis while sleeping?), the darling husband has usually inaugurated the kitchen with his world-class tea. It's the only tea that can charge me up for the day, and it has to be had with 2 Parle G biscuits, 5 badams, and gmail. Ever since we bought Red Label Natural Care tea by mistake once, we're addicted to it. This was the only thing that could make me give up my lifelong love for Darjeeling tea, which I have grown up drinking, and whose fans are impossible to please easily, as this blogger/columnist says so wonderfully:

A cup of tea is unacceptable to me unless the water has been just shy of boiled,a pinch of long-leafed Darjeeling tea added, and the infusion steeped for exactly three minutes (timed with a proper kitchen timer) before being strained into a large cup in which I want to be able to see both each molecule of the liquid and the bottom of the cup, after which one may add two teaspoons of milk and one spoon of sugar. That is the Perfect Cup of Tea, and the only one I will drink.

We have 2 red and 2 yellow cups in our austere kitchen. During IPL days, I always drink in a red cup and the dude in a yellow one, to show our loyalty to the Delhi Daredevils and the Chennai Super Kings respectively. I'm not naming names, but some of us (ok, I) are not above hexing the other's cup in case the two teams are clashing on the field.

This morning tea serves many wonderful purposes, not the least of which is transforming me from a ghost into a person (or as close to it as possible). There's even a song about the kind of thing I am when I get out of bed:

Pre-tea woman, walking down the street:

Feb 10

2010-02-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

Almost Feb 11!

So what shall we talk about today?

The MNS and the Sri Ram Sene are buzzing again, because Valentine's Day is around the corner, and I think they used up their supply of pink chaddis from last year. Please send them briefs this time people, you have caused an unwarranted inflation in the price of feminine innerwear with your incessant demand, not to mention an acute shortage of the above-mentioned item! In fact, any woman who's wearing a pink chaddi is probably a Sena-patni, coz they're the only ones who have 'em anymore!

Now I am NOT going to see My Name Is Khan just to prove that I am not a Shiv Sainik, and I am not going to walk hand in hand with my Valentine on the road just to thumb my nose at the Senas. The former is because the tickets are 350 bucks in Bangalore, and according to a rediff comment that explained the "life cycle of money," this money will fall into my assassin's hands, and what kind of rubbish gun will you get for 350 bucks? I'll just be semi-shot and stuck between life and death, bedridden, and since all my friends on Farmville will have moved far far ahead, I will have no interest in the only activity I'll be capable of performing!

The PDA embargo is mostly because there is hardly place in Bangalore to walk single file, let alone side by side, along the edge of the road where the pavement-two-wheeler-lane meets the various-civic-authorities-digging lane. I want to celebrate the next many many Valentine's Days with my current model, since George Clooney is unable to see my inner beauty, and so I am unwilling to risk the life of my patty permeshwar!

So all you preservers of moral values, don't think you actually won or something! And psst, your pink chaddi is showing...

Feb 09

2010-02-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, twitter and facebook lay first claim to all my PJs these days, so there's rarely anything left to say. Thinking of going non-anonymous. Most readers know me already and the rest ought not to care either way, right? :)

What do you say?

Feb 08, and the weekend's gone before you can say

2010-02-08T05:49:00.000-08:00

Paa...

Ok, I managed to catch it this weekend. Paresh Rawal has progressed from being Amitabh's father-in-law to Amitabh's grandfather. At this rate, Balki's next will be a Hindi adaptation of Night At The Museum, and Pareshji will play a Neanderthal to AB's Ben Stiller.

Also, I'm a little confused by the message of the film: is it now legal to wed by holding hands around Amitabh only, or around any heavily-made up person, any sick person, or only your kid? Anyway, I aged rapidly in viewing the film, and Vidya Balan scared me by telling me the horrible things that will happen to me if I do not have a child. Had she shown one example of sound judgement elsewhere in the film, I'd probably have believed her.

But enough of Paa-bashing. I need to save some breath for MNIK-bashing also. Shahrukh Uncle says that the film is comical, romantical, social, political, psychological, paranormal, and 100% recyclable. I think he just hopes the audience is very gullible.

And oh, anyone else waiting for the Google Parisian Love Story ad spoof where the dork searches for STD cures or a divorce lawyer? To drop me a line when you spot any! Thanks!

Update: Found one! Here!

Feb, 07 Weekly Off

2010-02-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

Not writing on Sunday! Too busy! Here's a sample of my sketching genius to keep my promise of blogging daily!

Feb 06, the weekend!

2010-02-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

Ooh! Almost forgot to post today! Made palak paneer for lunch. There’s none left for you to taste, but you can make some! Here’s how:

Ingredients:
2 bunches of spinach. Depending on the season and your geographical location, the size of these bunches will vary, but a good recipe writer never worries about such trivialities
2 medium sized onions. 2 and a half if anyone on the table is a Punjabi. Oh did I say? This recipe serves four.
1 tissue paper
2 large tomatoes
1 tsp Desi ghee. Oil will also do, but don’t blame me if the dish is not tasty.
1 banana, ripe
2 oranges, medium sized
Jeera
Salt
1 green chili with character, or 2 characterless ones
half an inch of ginger
4 cloves of garlic
50ml milk
A cellphone with a functional SIM, on which you can call your sister and ask her to bring 350 grams paneer if she wants to be fed. If you don’t have a sister in town, make aloo palak. Just use 3 boiled potatoes instead of the paneer.

Method:
1. Wash and boil the palak in minimal water for 5 mins. Set aside to cool.
2. Chop the onions finely
3. Wipe your eyes and nose with the tissue paper and discard it.
4. Heat the ghee in a kadhai
5. Drop half a tablespoon of jeera into it
6. When the jeera is brown, add the onions.
7. Stir the onions with one hand as they transition to transluscent and then to brown, and with the other hand, puree the tomatoes in the mixie.
8. Add the tomatoes to the kadhai, add a bit of salt (palak adds to the saltiness of the food, so keep the salt lower than usual). Cover and simmer.
9. Your palak is probably still not cooled down, and the onions and tomatoes will simmer for some time. Use this break to get 3 of your 5-a-day. Eat the banana and the oranges.
10. Pick out the palak and transfer to mixie. Let the water be, we’ll use it later.
11. Grind the palak, add to the well-cooked tomato and onion, and stir.
12. Grate the ginger and garlic and put it into the kadhai.
13. Stir it all, and add the palak water. Add the chopped green chili.
14. Call your sister and bug her in the supermarket. Or chop the potatoes into 8 pieces each and dunk into the palak.
15. Chop and dunk paneer into the palak, and add 50 ml of milk. Because you’ve already used ghee, you should not use cream; since your health insurance cover per annum is 4 lakhs only, and will not cover open heart surgery.
16. Heat it all up and eat with chapatis.

The husband must have liked the palak paneer, because he bought me my Valentine’s day gift in advance! A nice pair of Bata shoes!

Feb 05, and the quality is dipping!

2010-02-05T03:46:00.001-08:00

I am now a freelance writer, which means I have lots of time on hand, and being of the undisciplined variety, most of it is spent thinking idle thoughts (and idli thoughts, which, by the way are the healthiest thoughts I've had in a long time).

So one way or another, I ended up listening to some Bhojpuri devotional music set to the tune of Bollywood hits, and not only is Bhakti remix insanely cool, it is apparently a very profitable industry as well! Since I have time + access to songs + the illusion that I can write, you have to suffer this:

Ram Bhakti meets Beedi Jalayile

Dhanuswa chalayike…… Chhuda li Siyaa!!!!

Lanka maan lagi aag hai!!!

Jai SiyaRam Jai SiyaRaam Jai Siyaaam

In other news Satan ke rishteydaar Airtel have tempted my bhola bhala pati into upgrading the home Internet connection. Soon I will be able to see Youtube videos even before they are uploaded!

Feb 04

2010-02-04T01:23:00.001-08:00

The other day Lakdi ki kaathi (that cute little song from the 80's that duped many people to take their kids to the theatre to see Masoom and regret their decision bitterly) was playing on radio, and as I was dancing along in my kitchen, one line made me remember a ludicrous thing.

Charta hai Mehrauli mein, par ghoda apna Arbi hai!

Now as a kid, this song was fun to sing, but definitely not easy to understand! Arbi had nothing to do with Arabia in my little head, but everything to do with the slimy veggie colocasia, which I've never had any fondness for. A horse made of colocasia? What kind of bizarre slippery ride would that be? Grown ups were crazy!

Which brings me to another children's song I sang enthusiastically but never understood: Nanhe munne bachchey teri mutthi mein kya hai…especially the line: Humne kismat ko bas mein kiya hai! The "control" version of bas was 100% alien to me, but the DTC version was part of my daily life! For the longest time, I thought a bunch of kids had accompanied someone called Kismat to the bus stop and successfully ensured he/she had boarded the correct bus on time! When you're five years old, that seems like an achievement you would be singing about on TV and radio!

Now I happily phodo raat ki matkis, but I would not be surprised if there are kids out there who are holding beedis to their jigars to see if they light up!

P.S.: And oh! It's Zeenat Aman and not Zeena Tamaan… can never forget the day I lost that illusion!

Feb 03, Enjoy some funny dose of laughter

2010-02-03T00:31:00.000-08:00

Today's heading is from an email I received at work today.

Three people have asked me in the last two days why I do not have kids. It takes too much time to explain again and again, so I'm just putting it down here. Made in Visio, right after the funny doses of laughter assignment.

Feb 2, 2010 (Your father is mafia don)

2010-02-02T04:10:00.001-08:00

The headline is from the last rediff comment I read before I remembered I am supposed to write a post. It has nothing to do with you personally, unless of course, your dad is a mafia don, in which case please leave your email ID in the comments section, so that I can send you the list of people I want bumped off.

So the other day I was in Coorg (again) and on a solitary walk, taking normal-human sized steps. That is a rarity. The thing with having a tall dark and handsome husband is that your shoes break every 6 months trying to keep pace with him. Being 8 inches taller, he takes steps many inches longer than me, thanks to the cruel workings of trigonometry. Even with as many steps per minute, I fall wayyyy behind. A small step for man(si), a giant leap for husbandkind. Couple this with his passion for brisk walking, and you have a huffing and puffing bundle of flesh running for dear life in broken shoes on the pavements of Bangalore!

Back to Coorg and my solitary walk. There was a family (complete with a little kid) standing a little way ahead of me when I decided to turn about and go back to the homestay. As I turned, a little kid started shouting: left right left! Left right left! I did not turn back to see if he was marching, or if he was yelling for my benefit. Either way, I perversely tried to avoid falling in step with his orders, but guess what? My feet refused to listen to me, and followed his leftrighting as if hypnotized! What fun he must have had seeing my dutiful obedience! Grrr! Looks like I am destined to march to the tune of others!!!

Feb 01, 2010

2010-02-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

If you have to choose a month in which you intend to post everyday, you've gotta choose February if you're as lazy as I am!

So Happy February people, and you who send my paycheck, hello! It's the first! Please prod the bank into making my phone ring-a-ding with the SMS of Good Hope!

In other news, there is now an official main road under my house, and my laundry officially smells of exhaust fumes half an hour after it is lovingly spread out in the sunny balcony. Something must be done! Considering plastic clothing. I have heard there are industrial bin liners that might fit me.

In yet another news, I've had to delete Shahrukh Khan from my Twitter feed, because his verbal diarrhea prolific musing on life eclipsed all other updates by everyone else, and I need my fix of PJs from people who have a real sense of humor.

Also, I've given up Farmville after a recent perspective-correction week in January. I was at level 49, and if that means anything to you, you should seriously consider giving up too!

So that's the writer's block (writers' block? Is it common property?) out of the way. Hopefully something sensible will get posted tomorrow.

Aman Ki Asha Lyrics/Words

2010-01-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

What better way to begin the new blog year than with Gulzar's words!

Here's the Aman Ki Asha anthem!

Dikhayi dete hain duur tak ab bhi saaye koi

Magar bulaane se waqt lautey na aaye koi

Chalo na phir se bichhayein dariyaan bajayein dholak

Lagake mehendi sureeley tappe sunayein koi

Patang udayein chhatton pe chadh ke muhalley waaley

Falak to saanjha hai us mein penche ladayein koi

Utho kabaddi kabbadi khelenge sahardon par

Jo aye abke to laut kar phir na jaye koi

Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey

Yeh sur milaatey hain jab tum idhar nahin aatey

Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey

Yeh sur bulaatey hain jab tum idhar nahin aatey

Misc

2009-12-30T07:19:00.001-08:00

Worked from home due to the passing away of a Kannada star, and the ensuing burning of buses and stoning of streets with which such news is regularly greeted. Doorbell rang and a hyperenthusiastic salesman greeted me, shook my hand and wished me a Happy New Year, and then asked me if I was studying or working. Of course I said studying (to be fair I had been reading a book after having finished my work assignments when he appeared). "Engineering or Software?" he asked, since everyone in Bangalore obviously studies one of the two hallowed subjects when they are not torching buses. Software, I replied. I guessed software only, since you are speaking so decently, he said (and yes, decent is a compliment where we live, ok?)

Of course I did not buy the crazy eyebrow trimmer he was so keen on demonstrating to me, but hey, I can still convince a guy who wants to sell me a 300-rupee Chinese malfunctioning gadget that I am a student! Of Software. Which is the part of the computer that you can curse but not smash. See. I know!

And the line that made my day comes from the Venerable Fount Of All Knowledge we call rediff.com comments, where a guy has written about a suicide story:

"Did he really commit suicide or is it just news?"

Way to go India. If you can see the difference between news and truth, there is still hope for you! Now leave that bus alone.

Anniversary!

2009-12-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

Completed 3 years of fights, hugs, midnight Maggi, amazing vacations, side-by-side computers, unlimited idlis, abysmal PJs, shared jeans, kurtas, jackets, dreams, and hatred of political correctness! Yay us!

Saw 3 Idiots today. Particularly liked the time travel device that transports people from Vasant Vihar in Delhi to IIM Bangalore in half a second. I know a coupla eternal teenagers who would pay good money to use it every other day!

Don't wanna reveal anything more: just go ready to laugh a lot and cry in equal measure.

Koschun

2009-11-24T09:38:00.000-08:00

If a guy called Venkatesh had a twin brother, what would his name be?

Dendukhesh!

(Sorry)

Suffer Chaloo Aahe

2009-11-12T06:03:00.001-08:00

Just back from a trip to Mumbai-Pune. Phyan ji chose the same time to visit as us, so that was a dampener, but that's ok. As the idiots say, "All eez well".

Pune is no longer the city I used to live in. There are malls everywhere, and wherever roads are not wider, they are one-ways. All that is very nice, except that the things one would hope to see changing alongside the development are not doing so at all. The public transport, for instance. I remember the difficult time three-wheeler wallahs used to give me whenever I would go to the airport to pick up or drop someone. Not only would they charge exorbitantly even though it was a 2-way ride, they would refuse to help with the bags, even if it was my mother who was travelling.

This time, we were able to brave the rains only because of taxis, and we accepted the fact that they would charge full fare for the day even though we needed them for a couple of hours. But when after that, the driver coolly sat in the cab while we got out in the pouring rain at the airport and were forced to pull our bags out ourselves (while he chanted "ohho! Kitni baarish hai" and sat pretty) I really lost it. This same gentle-my-foot-man demanded to know our plans in advance so that he could break for lunch, even though he knew that in any case he would be relieved by 1pm. I don't believe the vahanchalaks (vahan chaalaak rather) of Pune have heard of customer service or dignity of labour. It is very rarely that I feel like slamming the door of the trunk of a car down on someone's bare neck, and this was one of those days.

Compare this with the smartypants cabbie in Mumbai who refused to accept exact change that I popped under his nose one nanosecond after he stopped, since he gathered from our conversation that we were visitors and our friends were hosting us. Grrrr at him, but a big grin at his tribe!

Mann Ka Radio...

2009-11-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

Nope, this is not about Himesbhai's latest pesh-kash, although his immortal line "Band jo bajey tera, khul te tu bhi saath gaa" has given me a whole new perspective on life.

This is about the cutesy little Sony mono radio I made my sister give me on my birthday this year. While the husband's pointy (really!) ears can detect about 10,000 different kinds of sound quality, I (deafly enough) do not find my life enhanced significantly by superior quality sound. Gimme a crackling little thingummy on the detergent ledge of my kitchen as I chop and stir and burn my fingers, and I am supremely happy.

Don't tell me that the only Hindi channel in Bengaluru has only a 100 songs a month, and all those are also on our iTunes, and shuffle is as good as radio, even better because nobody's trying to sell you jewellery and apartments in between songs. On radio, I always have the hope that some song I had completely forgotten about, will play again, and my neighbours, who entertain us with drunken parties on Saturday nights, will witness the spectacle of my kitchen choreography and rue the day they were born.

On another note: Either Mohit Chauhan has become too popular suddenly, or he's really upset that aaj ki padhi likhi kaam kaaji bharatiya naari works in the kitchen morning and night, but he serenades me daily while I cook. Which works wonderfully well for me! :)

Just so that October does not pass silently

2009-10-29T07:06:00.001-07:00

The blog has become kind of redundant because I can let off steam on Facebook and Twitter.
There is no Farmville on my blog.
I'm too busy with Farmville and life to even think of things to say.
The anonymity thing is kind of pointless since most readers know who I am, including the parents, in-laws, and work people. Fat chance of noting down what I REALLY think, under the circumstances, wouldn't you say?
This month the blog turned 5 or something. No longer a baby. Do you know any good schools?
Did I mention Farmville? Am so addicted to it that it's a wonder I manage to do anything else.
So many people have so much to say. And some of it is even worth reading. Might as well just read that.
Damn, has something switched off inside of me?

Horror In Real Life

2009-09-17T11:50:00.001-07:00

My hands were icky from the auto ride when I reached The Forum to catch up with friends this evening. I went into the ground floor ladies' room of the mall, and it being just shy of 7pm on a weekday, the mall was not crowded, and the ladies room was empty except for a determined cleaning lady who was mopping.

I pushed the soap dispenser's button to get some soap, but no luck. I tried all the other basins, but the soap seemed to have run out. I asked the cleaning lady: "Soap illa?"

I should have known that a paragraph of Kannada would be unleashed upon me. Shame-facedly mumbling "Sorry gotilla", I wondered how much my hands had become ickier because of all the dispensers!

Suddenly the lady said: "She has the soap."

I looked at her, and then looked at who she was looking at. She was staring at the place right next to the first basin, where NOBODY was standing.

"Who?"

"She has it" the lady said again, half-irritated.

There was nobody in the whole area except for us. The only reason I did not crap my pants was because I KNEW there was no soap to clean up with later.

I prepared to leave, and true to the horror tradition, the lady came after me……

….and jabbed the first basin's soap dispenser button hard about a dozen times. Till a few drops of soap began to trickle out.

So ladies, gentlemen and babies, remember that in Bangalore, all accessories in a Ladies' loo are feminine. I wiped my hand on Mademoiselle Paper Tissue delivered into my hands by her mommy Madame Kimberly Clark, and fled.

Idling

2009-09-14T23:58:00.001-07:00

Five mornings of sleeping in till one of four parents loses patience and calls

Two of catching crimson sunrises through eyes crimson with a cold

Seventeen afternoons of making mental grocery lists while looking busy at work

And three of obscenely long siestas after overeating one's own cooking

Fourteen evenings spent reading in coffee shops

Waiting for friends, calls, and that darned cappuccino I ordered 15 minutes ago

Umpteen nights of racing cars and growing tomatoes on the computer

While the washing machine spins and spins and spins

And each day a pointless pin driven into the velvet pincushion of eternity

Overheard

2009-09-03T11:56:00.001-07:00

In a restaurant called The Tibetan Kitchen, Leh. Guy with 5 girls at a table

Guy: Can we have some fresh apple juice

Waiter: No sir, only bottled juice

Guy (suddenly getting firang accent): Is it Snapple?

Waiter: What?

Guy (maintaining accent): Snapple. The juice you're going to give us. Is the brand Snapple?

Waiter: No sir. Gulbadan.

At the Big B-School of B'lore, Staff Canteen, where Sis (Thinky) took me for coffee

Professor: Hey Thinky, what does the number on your T-Shirt signify?

Thinky: Oh that's my birthdate!

Professor: A guy once told me a joke. Give me any number and I'll represent it as "A to the power B plus B to the power A"

Professor: Like 24 is 23 to the power 1 plus 1 to the power 23

Professor, Thinky and I: Hahahahahahahaha

Later, I: Puke Puke Puke

In office today:

Dude: There is no comedy in my life!

Leh Gayi Leh Gayi

2009-09-03T00:29:00.001-07:00

Despite the fervent wishes of many ex-readers, I am still hale and hearty (neither of the two words mean anything, I suspect) and the blog has been neglected because I've been busy travelling to Ladakh for about 9 days, and then I've been fishing out Ravalgaon candy wrappers from 9 days' worth of laundry all of last week. Ah, the sweet and sour joys of altitude and motion sickness (on our return, they've reverted to being attitude and notion sickness).

I could ooh and aah about the Ladakh scenery - the gigantic bare mountains with little veins of snow and ice on their wrinkled foreheads, the blue blue sky with little puffs of clouds, the riot of flowers where vegetation gets a fighting chance – but I'll leave that for the husband and his fotus. Instead, let's talk about the tons and tons of exquisite turquoise, coral and lapis jewellery in Leh bazaar? Or Jasmine tea and veg momos? Ok. I'm packing up and going back there right now!

Time for some evidence:

From the hotel, which I heartily recommend to anyone planning a trip.

Nine nights of waking up gasping for breath, bleeding noses and a hopeless inability to climb more than two flights of steps… matlab Lung Se Jung!

"Yak"een nahin hota that such beautiful places exist on Earth!

The breathtaking Pangong lake. I believe the film 3 Idiots was shot here recently…

We did manage to catch the shooting of the Ladakhi version!

...and this is one of the 274 reasons, my camera tells me, that I will go back!

30 Plus

2009-08-09T11:07:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up and realized that it's true. You really change in your thirties. My hair was weird, my face had wrinkles and lines I had never noticed before, my walk was slower, my back was stiffer, and every task took more time to accomplish. Then I had some tea and time magically turned around and I was back to my twenties! Bah! Kaiko itna hype I dunno!

Must Do Things Before I Turn 30

2009-08-08T09:52:00.001-07:00

Hang the laundry out to dry
Fold yesterday's laundry
Brush my teeth
Heat water in anticipation of tomorrow's powercut
Comb what's left of my hair
You get the point

It's the big one, and I'm NOT going to mope (or mop) tomorrow. That's all I can promise.

Superpowerty

2009-07-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times. Oh to be needy in the First World!

O Mere Maajhi Abki Baar Le Chal Paar

2009-07-21T02:45:00.001-07:00

There comes that point in life where the whole world seems to be against you, their demands are unjustified, and you're too weak to fight them alone. You pin all your hopes on that one guy who has promised to stand by you no matter what, and asks for practically nothing in return for helping you through troubled times. I am talking, of course, about my chartered accountant, who might or might not get me my IT receipt this week. Sigh.

Leaving this stuff to parents/the husband seems the lazy way out, so I'll bumble along and learn a few things on the way. I think of it as the downside of being able to do what I want with my earnings. Like donate them all to the government, if some people are to be believed. The thought of doing this thrice a year is scaryyyy. Long live jobs! All hail Form 16!

Taxing Times

2009-07-14T01:43:00.001-07:00

It's the week of filing tax returns, and the week when I always remember my first brush with Income Tax.

There was this precocious little girl who came to live in our colony (Punjabi: cloney) when I was about 8. She was a brat of the first order, and her major claim to fame was her ability to turn her eyelids inside out. It was one of the most horrendous things I had ever seen, and my eyes used to water and clamp shut at the sight. All of us used to beg her to not do it, but she threatened to reverse the natural ocular order at the slightest provocation. If opposed persistently, she would unleash her standard dialogue: "Mere Papa Income Tax Officer hain! Tere ghar pe chhapa padwa doongi."

That used to be the line that shut me up promptly. I knew that there was no way my parents would appreciate an income tax chhapa on our house just because I could not stand inside-out eyelids. I never even told my parents about the income tax chhapa possibilities. Not because I come from a family of underworld dons, but because income tax was not even a fuzzy concept in my brain. "Chhapa" on the other hand, was a very vivid word, a kind of bold splashy print. And my parents had just gotten the whole house whitewashed….

Learning, Unlearning

2009-07-09T04:32:00.001-07:00

Age 5: After a blood test, you get lots of chocolates.

Age 29: After lots of chocolates, you get a blood test.

Age 19: Attendance does not matter. Knowledge is all.

Age 28: Knowledge does not matter. Attendance is all.

Ages 5, 10, 15, 20, 25: Mummy knows everything.

Ages 7.5, 12.5, 17.5, 22.5, 27.5: Mummy knows nothing.

Age 6: Boys are evil

Age 25: Evil boys are the only company worth keeping

Age 12: The human body converts carbohydrates into energy

Age 18: Some human bodies convert oxygen into fat

30 days to go before the big three oh! Expect pithy wisdom all month!

Free-conomics*

2009-06-25T09:52:00.001-07:00

*This lesson comes to you free of charge.

Spar, the "hypermarket" on Bannerghatta Road, just redid their entire store layout. The claim to have created "Worlds" in the store: one for home, one for groceries and whatnot. They've mainly shooed out all the underperforming brand stores from their premises, and spread out their wares so that there is no 3-hour trolley traffic jam in the aisles. For which I am very grateful, especially since I was always an innocent victim of the trolley jam.

The supermarket trolley is the most devious marketing ploy ever dreamt up by retailers. It's chugging along on wheels with minimal effort from your side, if you have an infant you can plonk the bugger little darling into the baby holder and let it rip colourful packets off the shelves or dupattas off the shoppers as it passes them by, and if you like those breadcrumbs that might be useful for making those cutlets that you haven't made in four and a half years, you can just throw the packet into the trolley and carry on. You could end up collecting raw materials (incomplete, of course) for half a dozen cookery and hobby projects to counter your premature midlife crisis, all in one hour's shopping, and never realize it, because the trolley is doing the damned lifting! The trolleys will make sure you use EVERY ONE OF THOSE SODEXO COUPONS in your booklet, even the 50 paisa ones that you count fifteen times when you're ahead of me in the queue (may your cutlets fall to pieces in the kadhai). Between the trolley and the Sodexo, you can be sure that Spar is going to expand into the apartment complex next to it before the year is out!

The husband has devised a wonderful strategy to beat the retailers at their own game. We always pick up a basket. When the basket becomes too heavy, it means it is time to stop shopping. If it becomes too heavy before you've picked up the essential stuff you came to buy, well, you just put those 2 litre bottles of mild detergent back into the shelves! If that doesn't work, you just hand the damned basket to the husband and get another one (basket, not husband).

Today I saw how Spar has deviously shifted the billing counter to the ground floor, and lined the space where the queues form on weekends with chocolate, chips and other junk food that we all eat but scold kids for demanding. Mummies will not even be able to see what junior is adding to the pile on the trolley because she's busy playing "The Price Is Right" in her head and counting off Sodexo coupons. Devious, devious store. To take revenge, I did not even pick up a basket today. I must have looked like a crazy fat woman with flying hair clutching groceries in my arms, but that's how I walked to the billing counter. Bwahahahaha! You cannot make me buy more than I need!

And yes, I DID need that mango, ok???

In other news, The Times Of India has made an amazing breakthrough in the study of the human body.

"Low birth weight due to toxic chemical in toys"

Apparently, the 100% conscience free retail chains are now targetting gullible foetuses. Expecting Ladies who just saw an ultrasound that nearly killed them: It's not a three headed baby! The kid has a playpen in there!

Blendin’

2009-06-09T11:48:00.001-07:00

Remember the scene from The Father Of The Bride where the girlie comes home in tears and threatens to call off the wedding when the guy gets her a blender as a gift, because he thought someday she might want to blend something? Well, I came quite close to threatening to call off my already-happened wedding when the guy just refused to get me a blender, even though I so clearly needed to blend something every now and then! But he's a darling cutie pie and I have been working damned hard in my can't-put-on-the-resume animal husbandry role, and we're now the proud owners of a mixer-grinder.

Of course I have gone bonkers with the new gadget, and given the husband's inexplicable need to watch every single T-20 World Cup match down to its end despite not having a TV, we're having two dinners daily. One at about 9 and another at 11:30. (Mothers, please turn your attention to your other kids at this time. Thanks for having those cute little girlies.)

Here's what we've managed to make so far:

Pesarattu: For the first time in my life I measured the ingredients. It's not my style.

Mango Milkshake: Sad that the mangoes are all but gone from 'looru

Aamras: See above

Mattar Paneer with actual gravy instead of floating onion cubes and tomato skins

So just writing in to say hooray, and if you're looking at buying a mixie in the near future: Jo biwi se karey pyaar, woh Mophy Richards Icon DLX se kaise karey inkaar??

Singing off with a lovely ad I found online. Can't be abusive on a "family" blog (Hi Papa!) so I'll just say the guy is wearing the last set of clothes that the mixie hasn't washed for him….

Yellow Dal

2009-06-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

At the supermarket yesterday, a newly married chooda-dhaari girlie and her friend were trying to buy dal for what was clearly the first time in their lives. "This one? This is the yellow dal? The one for sambhar? The one for dal chawal? Are they the same?" Since they were standing facing the right one, I did not offer to help, and just walked past with a smile. They were speaking in Hindi, and if their accent had been dyed Punjabi, I'd have had to push them a fair bit to the left.

Yellow Dal. That mysterious, all-encompassing name of the food of those who do not enter the kitchen! My favorite question, and one which I regularly ask random people is: "How man kinds of yellow dal are there and what are their names?" Most people stop at two, which are the two their Mummy makes. Anyone who goes beyond three is generally a cook (for better or worse).

Now you're surely thinking how many kinds there are. My answer is five. Maybe there's one or two I missed. Mind you: not all of these look yellow in the shop! Give them 10 minutes of introspection in a pressure cooker and they'll rang themselves basanti for sure!

Aside: The Husband has left a strange song playing on the comp: "hey hey hey lady! don't treat me like a baby! hey hey hey mister, don't treat me like a sister..." iTunes tells me it's from Ussele Ussele...Abey kiss-se kya lena hai?

Grandpa's Century!

2009-06-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

That's me cutting my first birthday cake in Daddy's lap. Today is his hundredth birthday, so it's only fitting that we cut a cake together again. Happy Birthday Daddy!

"Ek dafaa..." is how all his stories used to begin, and I still remember many of them.

My favorite is a drama in real life from his own childhood:

When Daddy was a little boy, he once got into a fight with a classmate, who, incidentally, had a dislocated elbow tied up in a plaster. When they came to blows, Daddy hit the boy's broken arm rather forcefully with his slate. The boy cried all the way home. Soon enough, he arrived back in school with his father. Daddy knew he was in big trouble and hid immediately. "Kahan hai (daddy's name)?" the father yelled. Eventually, Daddy had to emerge and face the fire. But hey! the father had brought along a box of sweets for the naughty kid who had hit his son!!!

Turns out that the doslocated arm, which the doctor had been trying for many days to slip back into place, got perfectly aligned with one master stroke of Daddy's slate. With 7 doctors in his extended family, it would be tempting to say that his kids inherited his gift for healing.... but no..... nobody else practises his unique hit-and-trial style!

A dedication from my younger sister, his youngest grandchild and, according to him, a reincarnation of his mother (she bossed him around like that for sure):

My memories of my relationship with Daddy are in part those which I remember from my childhood and those that have been told and retold by my family. His room was a territory it seems I had free access to and many of the elders feared to tread in (specially when he was sleeping). The office, the black ledgers, the book in urdu with the stamps, the glue, the letterheads, the walking stick, his white hair: they all fascinated me and I can still see them when I shut my eyes. Posting letters in the red letterbox with him. The fights to make sure he didn't get more kharbuja than I did. Stories of how I was completely indulged by him, how rules were changed for me, and how I let out secrets I was told to keep by my parents. He was my grandmother and my grandfather. I called him "angootha-chaap" because he couldn't write his name in hindi! But being the youngest, you get away with a lot. Daddy, this comes in late but Happy Birthday and thank you for all your love.

And now for a guest post from my father. "Ek dafaa...

a boy was born in an agricultural family on the 1st of June 1909 in a small village in Laiyah (now in Pakistan)… he lost his mother at a very young age… worked in farms for a few turnips for lunch and his school expense. He was the first in the family to try his hand at education. Through his inclination, dedication and above all the blessings of his teachers, he passed matric and went to Lahore for his graduation. He got married and had a loving wife and five daughters He worked very hard to make ends meet .When the youngest daughter was 13 days old India got independence and the Partition happened. He went deep into Pakistan and after few months came to India with the help of his Muslim friends in Pakistan. By the grace of God he, his wife and five daughters, their sewing machine and a few valuable reached India safely. The Partition had the sorrows for him too: he lost his sister and her husband.

His office re-established in Delhi and he was instrumental in getting it reorganized. He lived in a shared accommodation in Mehrauli above the Arya Samaj Mandir, and used to commute by buses everyday all the way to Delhi University North Campus. In 1951, when he was 42, he had a son. This is where I come into the picture. I am the son and the person I am talking about is my father, who would have completed his century on 1st Jun 2009 if he had not got out at 83 on 18th Jan 1992.

I was the full stop of my parents' children. The earliest remembrance I have of him was when I was five or six years old. I remember him as a hard-working, disciplined and a strict but affectionate father. He had his priorities: clean clothes, health food, good education, simplicity and punctuality. Six children, a wife and a moderate salary: still he made sure that none of us feel deprived of the basic essentials of life. On top of it all, he helped his brother-in-law, and a few nephews to study and make their lives. Before he retired, all my five sisters had completed their education and four of them had been married.

When I went to college, he had retired and was fully involved in a career of Life Insurance business. On his insistence, after my graduation I joined him .Throughout his life I held it against him that he made me do something that I did not want to do. If I had my way, I would have become a nature photographer or travel guide living somewhere in the Himalayas, where he himself had taken me many times, as he loved nature and traveling.

In 1983, three events happened: First I lost my mother, second India won the Cricket World cup and the third was arrival of my younger daughter. All the three happened in quick succession. Instead of losing himself in grief over the death of my mother, who had been with him through thick and thin of life, he enjoyed the Indian victory of World Cup and played the role of grandmother and grandfather for the new arrival.

On Jan 17, 1992 he went to the office. I was working late, so he met every body he knew in the office. That Friday night he had set his bag for Monday as the next day there was a one day match between India and Australia, and he loved cricket passionately. The next day when we opened the door of his room, he was lying on the floor. We picked him up and called a doctor but it was too late. He was no more.

Auto Rakshas Checklist

2009-05-25T23:12:00.001-07:00

If you're in Bangalore, please memorize this checklist and evaluate the autorickshaw before you board it:

LICENSE: If it's not displayed, minus two points. If it's a tattered old photocopy, minus one point.
METER: Old meter, minus one point. Old unbranded meter, minus two points.
RELIGIOUS ICONOGRAPHY: Minus one point if God is easily accessible for doling out forgiveness for having fleeced passengers
PROACTIVITY: Minus one for having spotted you from afar and stopped. Remember, in the auto jungle, only the predator hunts.

If all the above problems are present, move on to checklist 2

AGE OF AUTO DRIVER: Minus two for being below 30
LOCATION: Minus two for having been found outside a place of worship. With due respect, God would need a superb lawyer to disprove his connection with the auto mafia.

It's not a foolproof system, of course, but so far it's rarely been proven wrong.

e-lections

2009-05-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Yet another sequel, this time from the netas instead of the abhinetas... hope this one betters the original!
(thanks Deepak for doing all the artwork!)

Stumped!

2009-05-13T03:15:00.001-07:00

IPL is very closely connected to both my salary and my husband's, so don't blame me for being interested. I don't understand the game, I don't have a TV, and I have barely-there team loyalty, so it's mostly a number-fest out there as far as I'm concerned.

Here are some statistics I culled out (manually) for the last few matches. (Note that the washed-out matches were number 7 and 13!)

Toss Winners:

23 won the match, 17 lost the match
27 chose to bat first, 13 to field first
Of those who fielded first, 8 won the match, 5 lost the match
Of those who batted first, 15 won the match, 12 lost the match

Now this looks fairly straightforward, assuming those who make a decision after the toss have some sense and it really means something to be able to choose. But that second stat, it's very numerically skewed. Possible reasons:

The pitches are good for batting first. This is probably the actual reason.
Viewership is higher and more focused in the second innings of an exciting match, and sponsors urge the team to fill the field with their logos at that point. This is the theory that makes me fear I will go mad or write saas-bahu scripts in the near future.

Maike Se Aike Post

2009-05-09T03:37:00.001-07:00

Mom: (something horrible about me, in the way only mothers can do it)

Inky: Did I come across the seven seas to hear this????

Mom: What seven seas does one cross between Bangalore and Delhi???

Inky: Why? Krishna Sagar, Shanthi Sagar, Sandhya Sagar, Upahar Sagar….

Pyar Tera Dilli Ki Garmi

2009-05-05T00:48:00.001-07:00

The sound and the fragrance of the desert cooler reminds me of the hot hot afternoons when we used to come back from school all squished up and practically busted the poor doorbell in our hurry to get home to mommy, amazing lunch, mangoes, cool cooler air and an afternoon nap. Oh the insufferable five minutes when you had to leave the pump switched on for the grass to get wet before you switch on the fan! The crazy creative plumbing around the house to ensure you did not have to run about with a hose pipe to refill the coolers! The war with the permanently sick little sister over the room temperature! The icky colourful salt deposits that the electrician scraped out of the cooler at the beginning of the season! And the fragrance! The smell of mitti, paani, relief, shelter, childhood and love!

It's taking all I have to not go stand in front of the cooler right now and go "aaaaaaaaaa" and let the fan blades slice my jungle cry!

Making The First Move

2009-05-01T03:39:00.001-07:00

Off to Delhi for a long-overdue holiday with the parents. Also off to vote, after a lot of thinking on the matter.

I don't think my drop-in-the-ocean vote will change anything. I don't think any of the candidates are any better than the others. I don't think I need that ink on my finger as some kind of social respectability symbol. I set the Aamir Khan "vote karo" ringbacktone on my phone just because HOW COOL IS IT TO HAVE AAMIR KHAN AS YOUR VIRTUAL PHONE-ANSWERING SECRETARY?

Despite all this skepticism, I am going to vote. Because I want to send a message out that educated, young(?), middle class people like me do care enough to vote. They will get to a polling booth (2000 kms away if needed) if you're worth it. So if you're someone who has it in you to fix the shit out there, please go and contest the elections. Don't say the dirty system will be rigged against you. I'll be there to vote for you. I cannot change the country, but I sure can put an end to this vicious circle.

If visionaries keep waiting for us voters, and we keep waiting for them, well you know what happens na? So if you're in a constituency where the elections are yet to happen, go get a blue finger!

Nothing, really

2009-04-29T05:08:00.001-07:00

Haven't updated in days because I wanted to write about something that is close to my heart.

But I wonder who'd be interested in reading a post about my rib cage?

Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya He!

2009-04-15T04:19:00.001-07:00

Addressed a question to everyone in hearing range:

"What is TB called in Hindi?"

Pat came the reply from a Bengali boy:

"Doordaarshan"

Another Beautiful Song Ruined…

2009-04-13T04:15:00.001-07:00

…this time from the film Sikandar.

Mohit Chauhan's magical voice sings:

Gulon mein, rang bharey

Baadalon bahaar chaley

Chaley bhi aao ke

Gulshan ka karobaar chaley….

Rubbish

2009-04-04T08:16:00.001-07:00

Absurd Hindi Song:

Humein tumse pyaar kitna

Yeh hum nahin jaantey

Magar ji nahin saktey, tumhaarey binaaaaaaa

In English:

How much I love you

I do not know

Crocodiles cannot live without you…

If you have to hit me, please throw only Bata chappals, without heels, size 7.

April 2

2009-04-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Pangey!

2009-03-26T04:00:00.001-07:00

(good for a hoarding right outside a liposuction and plastic surgery clinic)

Patli kamar…

Tirchhi nazar…

Baanki umar…

I know what you did last summer!

You-Rekha!

2009-03-15T05:48:00.001-07:00

Have accidentally hit upon an amazing diet plan, which involves only one visit to a dentist! Just go and get a wisdom tooth pulled out!

Before:

See something tasty and fattening
Eat it
Become fatter

After:

See something tasty and fattening
Eat it
It will taste nice for a few seconds
A bit of it will lodge itself in the gap at the back of your mouth
Your tongue will get sprained trying to maneuver it out
You will spend ten minutes rinsing
You will spend five minutes brushing
At night, the tiny food bit will start hurting your gum
Bleary eyed, sleep deprived and half-day-pay-lossed from office, you'll visit the dentist the next morning
You will have to watch a Tamil movie on a mute TV screen in the dentist's waiting room for 45 minutes
The dentist will spray foul chemicals in your mouth
Your tastebuds will take two hours to recover from the spray
You will go back in time and NOT eat the tasty and fattening thing
You will not grow fatter (unless you have a metabolism like mine)

The bone apparently does not grow back for three months after tooth removal, so you can lose a LOT of weight. Repeat cycle for every wisdom tooth, and you never have to exercise again.

Zabardast(i) Song: Tummy Bug Takes Bengaluru

2009-03-09T09:22:00.001-07:00

Pretty French girl

attached to beep beep machines

in the Emergency Room

at a fancy hospital.

MRI shows nothing

except a tummy infection.

She's in pain

and tears.

Came to India to get

a taste of

Indian culture.

Now getting

Blood culture,

Urine culture,

Stool culture.