Sexy sexy made up of plexi disaster

Mid week saw two utterly depressing days. I was brushing my teeth and mechanically ran my finger to my neck, hoping to find the one thing that's customarily there, My diamond tear drop and was horrified to find bare skin. Do you know what rooted to the spot means? it does not mean you can't move, ofcourse you can move, it means you don't want to move and face reality, in my case, that I'd probably lost my 16th birthday gift.

I don't like jewellery, and more so gold jewellery and mum was very firm that as a 16 year old girl, i ought have some jewellery because thats what tradition dictates and Tradition will be suitably unkind to a girl who does not like gold. Gold is gawdy for me, it has no subtlety, it announces itself loudly to the eyes and will go on to illtreat them with its boorish glitter. Diamonds are different, its sparkle is tender and impish, they seem to smile at you with a mirth of a million years. its like the beginning of a torrid love affair. Thats what i offered tradition, a compromise, a diamond tear drop on a gold chain, take it or leave it.

I knew what i wanted, no chunky gold bullion on my neck. but since i was walking with tradition, we had to go to Krishnaiah Chetty's and something something on commercial street. thats where mum buys all her jewellery, thats where she bought her wedding jewellery, thats where she thinks I'll buy my wedding jewellery. have you noticed these south indian brides? all that gold bullion on the neck could anchor a frigate. there are some walks with tradition, i just will not take. I choose a white sun dress and a beach.

KC's is this typical South Indian Jewellery store. On entering you're hit with a blast sandal wood, incense, Karnatic music, red plush carpetting and chunky women in silk sarees franctically buying gold. its not the place you wear torn jeans to, but i decided to flirt a lil bit with tradition. Since i remotely resembled a cutomer, no one paid attention to me. thats great because you're saved the spin and can concentrate on the designs. they weren't impressed when i told them that all i wanted was a tear drop. just that, no flowers, hearts, stars, mangoes yada yada. After a good hour, after i refused to budge from my notion of a tear drop, i found it. An Angel's tear drop, perfectly sized, perfectly tender and perfectly shy. I imagined it sitting on the hollow at the base of my neck, peering at the world from its niche, scandalized perhaps at the things i do, A witness nonetheless to all my adventures.

I thought I'd lost it for good that morning. I didn't want to move. I didn't find it. It wasn't there to fondle when i was thinking. All my fondest memories, my magical date, my first kiss, my first job , everything was hidden in it, for a million years perhaps, and I'd never see it again. Then, yesterday, when i replacing the linen of my bed, it fell out, as if it was found only because it wanted to be found.

she sits in her niche again, like a lil primadonna surveying the world and eagerly collecting secrets she won't ever tell.

All the trappings of a grinning shark

If hyderabad was all about new beginnings, Bangalore feels like returning back to the crime scene and exposing oneself to the risk of incrimination. There are people around me who'll hold me accountable for the things I did long ago, things that they I expect I'll do. There are people I went to school with. Relatives who'll recall how I recited poetry as a child. Parents who still think I'm not capable of eating spinach ever. and all the Photographs and remnants to remind me of who I was. That I once hung Bon jovi posters on the wall and was the laddu who stood between two gorgeous friends with the shadows on our faces. I'm not that person anymore and its sucks that I'm the only one who knows that.

My new work place is great. really hectic though. I stayed but till 10 last night finishing up with work and then joined the others at firangi paani, which was fun. Even did shots with my boss. but curious why are guys so heavily into sexual innuendos? like a weird group psychological phenomenon when guys get together. sometimes i miss him soo much. anyhow came back really late last night. I don't know if it was the buzz in my head, but i loved the ride through deserted streets, the neon glow on the trees and the serenade of wind in my ears. I came alive in those streets with insidious intent and for a brief moment there was passion in that darkness

Blogger, spammer, scammer and just a lil bit tamer

Thursday: I spent the night watching the HI-tec city landscape in reverie from my apartment's kitchen balcony. buildings, for me, symbolize a finger pointing to the sky , a finger to the forces of the universe. I couldn't see my office building because a huge apartment complex blocked the view but i imagined it nonetheless, a funnel-shaped green facade. very quirky, almost as quirky as the people on the 4th floor. i was also listening to Nitin Sawhney, and the music only made the night more fluid and every aspect seemed to have a life of its own and my hands only got colder. oddly enough i got nitin sawhney,the gypsy kings and nina simone from my manager's playlist. she was cool enough to let me acess to her playlist. and then she said, "you're leaving on Friday aren't you?"

Friday: the day i quit my first job after less than 6 weeks. first up i had a meeting with my team manager. hes prolly the hottest gujju i've ever seen and every time he speaks, it feels like a banjo twanging rather impishly. he was very sweet. he told me that as my manager it was his duty to encourage to take a better job. and then sups, darshini and a lot of my friends threw me a farewell party during lunch time. they bought a chocolate cake with "All the best" on it, and made me cut it and then i got cake smeared on my face. very sweet. (pun intended :)). I'm gonna miss them soo much. Ruthu my TA gave me a funky braceletand she looked like she was going to miss me. it was rather unsettling, everybody did look as if they were going to miss me and all i could wonder was why??. gosh and all this after just 6 weeks. thanks to everybody who signed on my shirt and for the many wonderful memories. after handing over my big G badge , it was time to leave for the offsite, which was at pragathi resorts. it was brilliant fun. i played TT and never did i wish i was TT prodigy than when my manager (yea the same hot gujju) beat us 12-21. sigh. fortunately i was on the same team as him when we played volleyball. then we all watched meet the fockers. which was hilarious. the woman next to me was laughing so animatedly, it was even more hilarious. after dinner we all played a guessing game, a limerick describing a person was read out and we all had to guess who the person was. this was my limerick. (nandu swears sups gave her all the info)

She has a weakness for male engineers, (Slander!, Slander!)

And a passion for pulp fiction it appears

This one's a quizzer; with a secret lover for black saber ( sups, please tell me what the hell a black saber is????)

I hope she is happy when this she hears. (happy is rather overstating the case!)

and then we all danced.

Saturday: My last day in hydie. my roomies were preparing breakfast, aloo paranthas and i was lounging lazily watching them make it. at bout noon time priya decided it was time i started packing and she helped me optimize my packing. that girl is a genius at packing, she conjured up space when there was none. while we were packing, my potential replacements came by to inspect the apartment and were grilled by priya. one looked like a snob, the nose in the air prissy types and the other was a self proclaimed fraidy cat. some replacements huh? then charms dropped by to say goodbye. and soon it was time to leave for the station. priya and neha came to the station with me, to express roomate solidarity. god they are the best roomates anybody could ever have and we got on splendidly.

My train journey was awful to say the least, i developed acute motion sickness and a blinding headache, it felt that vulcan's army was working over time inside my head and i ended up barfing 14 times. trains from andhra always have police escorts because of the naxal problem and this policeman who was sitting on the side lower berth, showed his sympathies by offering me Amurtanjan. the smell set off another wave of barfing and by this time i was delirious. i thought i developed gastroenteritis, and i half thought i'd faint in the train. everytime i tried to sleep, the urge to barf came over and so i decided to sit next to the policeman and take in the fresh air, and resolved to stay awake the entire night. the policeman then told me that i prolly had a bad bout of motion sickness. that reminded about this book called the "kite runner" where the protagonist Amir, says that you don't have to under 18 to succumb to motion sickness. i couldn't agree more. then the ever so kind policeman told me that if i pull my ear till it pops, i'd feel a little better, but then i couldn't pull it and so this guy pulled my ear till it popped. and it did pop!. and then he massaged my nape, i was so delirious, i didn't care. the last time someone massaged my nape was in a more intimate circumstance. the weird things that remind me of him! but after that i felt immensely better and i didn't barf again and actually managed to sleep a lil bit.

thoroughly exhausted i came home and slept till late afternoon till i was awakened by mom.

Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, Remember me!

No i'm not retiring from blogging. this blog is verry much my bitch. but there have been major changes but more on that a lil later. I'm slightly alarmed by the growing pile of books on my table here. i came with 4 books and the stack has matured to 20 now and i've only read about 3 of those, I'm reading jitterbug perfume, which i got from a barter with him. I'm open to book bartering, but i never lend books. ummm oh yeah, last week another addition to what i call my book scraper. gurcharan das's india unbound. actually that surprised me. it wasn't good 'ol fiction, i actually bought something that dealt with socio-economics. these are things that tell you that you're moving on to a new phase and basically some things won't remain the same. like when the Doors no longer seemed that godlike, or wodehouse didn't sound that funny. i hated it when bertie's antics trickled down to a chuckle. anyhow, I greatly admire Gurcharan das's writings, i faithfully read his column in TOI online, and he makes me wish i had someone older like that with whom i could bounce ideas off. the book spoils from hydie have been good. I got margaret atwood's Edible woman, for 60 bucks, in this classickly dingy secod hand book store. the pleasures of getting a treasured book is greater in a small gloomy bookstore than a brightly lit funky bookstore, have you noticed? after yelping for joy that i finally had maggie's first book i got another gem, synopsis of all the great operas. good now i'll finally know what rodolfo's been telling his mimi.and then my roomie priya who's prolly the world's sweetest person ever bought me kunzro's Transmission, i can't wait to sink with it.

sigh, now to the life changing, upheaval news, not much actually but i'm quitting from the big G and coming back tto bangalore to work for NI. yes, i'm leaving hydie, free food, my gals and my roomies. i hate it when you have to make sensible decisions, when the maths adds up in every way, but thats how things go. I'm returning to bangalore to a highly challenging job, but somehow i can't get myself to say good 'ol bangalore. hydie is not just a city, its unparalled freedom for me. i'm gonna miss the odd smattering of antique furniture stores on banjara hills, i'm gonna miss odyssey restuarant, and hyd central where i spent my first salary,chinese pavilion where i learnt to eat with chopsticks, Nandu and eli's cooking, charm's crrazy ways, sup's amazing retort skills and darshini's mock tamil accent and Priya's immense goodness of heart (even if she does work for MS, bah!)and most of all the Big G.

goodbye hyderabad, you were good to me.

My fav building (as of today)

this is the The Auditorio de Tenerife by the spanish architect Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. I love it simply because its awesomely beautiful. I'm partial to buildings with curves, but here, the magnificent arch of the wave is nothing short of aesthetic brilliance.This building as the name suggests, serves as a concert hall and stages numerous operas each year. somehow, looking at it, you get the feeling you're bound to get washed away by euphoric waves of sound.

beautiful.

Me.

This is not a post where i'm vain, nor is this a post where i'm self deprecating, but this is about things about me i just can't change.

* I'm a clutz. and the degree of clutzness increases when there's food around. I always drop the spoon. and one time this ginormous faux pas ocurred. I have this tendency to wave the sweetner packet before tearing it, so one time while i was waving it, I accidentally let go and it went flying over to the other table.

*I like Bananas. (did i hear a snigger there now?). yes but things get infinitely better when there's banana in the food.

*I love dogs more than i do babies. infact i don't like the latter at all. babies freak me out. when i see one, i'm thinking, i hope i don't poke its eyes or something

*oooh more clutz stories, i always drop books in a book store. Everytime. its rather uncanny, like its my way of "marking" a bookstore. all the books in the shelf have to tumbledown and i have to have a sheepish smile on my face.

* i don't like cell phones, especially for that vile thing called SMSes. dn't u jst ha8 dat?

*i can't eat alone, i have to have company. even T.V will suffice.

*i dish out a lot of shrink BS when i'm talking to people and most surprisingly they take THAT seriously

*I'll never go out with a man who does not read. thats unfathomable.

* i lurrve shopping for shoes. especially sandals. and when i'm depressed i inevitably shop for shoes and then inevitably regret spending so much. but shoes are good. they don't BS with you

* i have a secret affection for cheesy pop which sometimes might lead to some shoulder shaking. like the milkshake song, or superstar or toxic. oh i'll have you know, pink floyd is way over rated :P

*my perfect man, and here i'd like to clarify that for me perfection is fluid but it exists, is an intelligent lumberjack with a wry sense of humour.

* i love a well designed building. i love buildings. if i wasn't an engineer i'd have been an architect, but i can't draw to save my life so i don't think that would have worked out, but i love a good design and i *heart* calatrava buildings

ok that was wayyy too much information.

Independant woman update #2

She's strong, she's independant, and oh oh oh she loses her phone twice in one day.loooong story, that ends in a microsoft dude and the hotel staff giving me back my phone in both instances of loss. this is the third time i'm almost losing my phone, and you know why its not err getting lost, because its a nokia 3310, nobody would want to steal it right? no market. infact a few of friends rejoiced when i had almost lost my phone, finally i'd be on par phone wise with the rest of the blu tooth enabled janta, but not to be, julio dearest came back to mama

i had a lovely weekend, on friday a couple of us from office wanted to go boating on hussain sagar lake but were late angd instead ended up cuing up to watch Mangal Pandey at Prasad's which is the Imax theatre. the guys in our group wanted to watch a dinosaur movie, T-rex, but dude why would you pay 175 bucks to watch barney, even if its 3D??. I'll never understand men. on saturday SD and i went shopping- books and other things that satiate our materialistic soul and then we had lunch in prolly the only place in hydie where occurs not continental food massacres. i swear you should see the stuff they pass off as continental food here. i loved the lunch simply because it brought back memories of sun drenched saturdays and iced Tea lunches with friends discussing everything. don't you love it when the conversation flits and jumps like a lark between various things like books, people, attitudes, our hometowns , Men etc?. I remember how back in college we all used to meet for lunch and talk on endlessly, insouciantly about who we were going to be and what we wanted from life and how we'd never sell out.

I wonder if we'll ever go back to such care free existence, where time stood still and good conversation flowed like an exotic wine and the sunshine seemed eternal.

Maydumb.

I never should have gone back to college, but I did this weekend, to get my PDC and at the end of it all, i was not only ready to start smoking, but was ready to finish an entire pack twice over. yes thats how much nicotene i would have needed to calm me down, to prevent me from doing some serious property damage. if you happen to be a fighter pilot reading this, and they give you a coupleof bombs to blow up, please bestow those on my college's administrative building. Nothing would make happier than seeing that building blown to smithereens.this is what happened.

frankly i felt quite nostalgic on seeing college again, after all, this place enabled me to make loads of moolah via quizzes. i went to the admin building to apply for my PDC and thats were i should have retraced my steps and gone back home. First up, gentleman at the Examinations counter,
Me : "Sir i need an application for the PDC"

him: "What Maydumb, you've come very early for it", (mark the dripping sarcasm)

after procuring the form, go to the cashier for his exalted signature.

Me:"Sir, what is the exact amount i have to pay in the bank"

Him:"What Maydumb, you don't know what amount to pay?"

now if i did, we wouldn't have any need for him now, would we?

Me (still persisting):" Sir, i know its 125, but is there any additional fees to pay?"

Him: "Maydumb, you first pay and come"

bitch.
after you pay the fees, you then have to go on a grand trip of places you've never ever visited whilst in college, like the library,sports building and the HOD's office, so that they can ascertain for sure, you don't owe them anything. Nice.

HOD's office
the man sitting in front of the HOD while he's signing my form with marked in difference : "What Maydumb, you people earn your degrees without actually learning anything"

I'm glad, you've finally caught on boyou.

Library

Librarian: "What Maydumb, your ID card doesn't exist, theres something wrong with it"

yea, it expired when i finished my degree, smarty, the comp knows it, when will you?

Sports building: "What Maydumb, you said you'll join the athletics team, you never came back afterwards"

why don't you try, after an accident, huh?

back to the exalted cashier

him: "What maydumb, you haven't paid the alumni association fees?"

the bank had closed when i went bank to pay the effing AA fees, so i stood outside and begged and pleaded to let me pay the fees.
bank teller:"what maydumb, when will you people learn to be responsible?"

back to his exalted royal highness, the cashier, who had gone to lunch when i came back. when he deigned to come back after his sumptuous repast of (i presume) curd rice, the man signs and frees me. i waltz back to the admission section only to find that i have to visit the biggest kahuna of them all, the principal, who as my luck would have it was in a meeting.
the office told me that principal had better things to do than sign my form, bbecause he was busy making fallacious MOU's with obscure foreign universities, that i had to get it signed by the vice-principal, who as it turned out was also in the same meeting, making fallicious MOU's with obscure foreign universities. when the meeting ended an hour later, i mistook the wrong guy for the vice principal, and thrust my form to his face.
Mr. Mistaken Identity : "What maydumb, don't you know who the vice principal is?, what kind of students have you all become?"

rhetorical questions needn't be answered, i knew that so i proceeded to the right dude, who signed my form, also with marked indifference. I'd come to love that marked indifference.

Finally, i handed my form back to the examination section, and the man took it with soo much smugness and i knew what'd ensue in that nasal tone of his, i left before he could open his mouth, i left college for what i'm hoping will be longer than eternity and then i got stuck in a 2 hour bangalore traffic jam.

You know I didn't smoke a single ciggy that day, you know why?, because i knew that i'd be leaving soon for a more tolerable place and thats Hyderabad.