Not quite according to script

Why is it that weekends that you look forward to always pass by rapidly? I mean before you know it, it’s gone. You wait for it. Wait the agonizing wait. You plan every detail in the back of your mind, till it’s practically a full length picture and then before you can say “Cut”. Its over. O-V-E-R

See I had planned this weekend trip over a month back, to be back in the city of my being, to be with my love, to be there on my folks’ birthday, to watch aerosmith and now, here I am on Wednesday in poona, thinking, now what do I do with my life??

Here’s how it panned out.

The Surprise (or so she thought)

I didn’t tell my parents that I was coming down for the weekend. I wanted to surprise them. To see the thrill in their eyes or so the movie went in my head. God, I was so chuffed that I was doing this. So I called them at 12 in the night, right outside the gate and Dad picks up the phone

Me: HI DAD (Excited and Giggly)

Dad: Huh who? (Obviously sleepy and not happy about being woken up)

Me: It’s me dad, Guess where I am? (still excited tho not quite giggly)

Dad: Why what happened? Why are you calling at this hour? What’s wrong? What? What? (Obviously not happy at all)

Me: Nothing dad. I’m right outside the Gate. Surprise!! (Doubts creeping upon on this whole surprise thing)

Dad: Surprise?? You call this surprise? You scared the hell out of me (Yes definitely not a good idea)

Yes, the surprise didn’t stick to the script and I entered the house quite meekly with my folks quite annoyed. Don't you wish sometimes that life imitated art and that you had background music for moments in your life.

The Haircut

They say choosing a hair dresser is as important as choosing a spouse. Actually I just made that up. But I truly believed that I had found my soul mate hair dresser. I’ve been going to that salon for about 4 years now and every cut I’ve had has made jump with I-can’t-believe-I-look-so good-joy. So with unshakeable faith in their abilities, I said simply, “Cut it short. Shoulder length. What ever looks good”. Lesson – Don’t EVER say What ever looks good. That phrase is haircut hara-kiri, because as any sensible person will tell you, beauty is subjective.

So she said ok, I’ll cut it in layers. The term “layers” has always turned out okay so I simply shrugged with my “you are the professional” confidence. That’s mistake number 2. Nobody is a professional. Long story short. Horrible hair cut with the one thing I detest the most and that’s a fringe. Who likes fringes? And why are they back in town? And she had the audacity to tell me that fringes look good on me.

The sad thing about haircuts is that there is no Consumer court type remedy. You’re stuck with it. DB my girl pal, said that it looked “Decent” and boy was more gracious and said that it looked “Nice” and this when I had gorgeous long tresses that I could toss haughtily. Pride comes before a bad haircut

The Concert

You know a concert is big when even your scientist mom asks “Who is this aerosmith? I want to see him”. My prev concert was the Roger waters concert and that was fun although we were way back and I couldn’t quite make him out from that distance. This time I was determined to get as close as possible, even if it meant climbing over people. We made it to the front row, although boy, who had smoked a doobie and was very happy with his stoned self, was reluctant to go there. I looked at him in disbelief, doobie or no doobie, we were going to go as close as it would take to see the motifs on Steven Tyler’s pants.

The concert rocked although, they didn’t quite sing the popular songs. Either that or I'm a non-fan. Seriously there were just 4-5 songs that I could sing too. I was disappointed that they didn’t sing “crazy” and it was hell crowded. But like I told bro later, atleast I gotta see Steven Tyler before he popped. Sigh I wish Pearl Jam would come to India now. Eddie, I turn my lonely eyes on you.

The Birthdays

My folks have their B’days on consecutive days which is very good thing because one can finish the gift shopping in one shot and also everyone is nice to one another for 2 consecutive days.

This time the celebration was rather low key. I guess it’s because all their peers were retiring and the whole mood was rather somber. My dad picked on the youth of this country and I was shown as a classic example of the decadence of this generation. Atleast I’m an example of something. Better to be an example of nothing than not being an example at all I say.

That’s my minutes of this weekend that has flown by. A weekend I rather enjoyed, despite the events. Now what do I do with my life?

I'm 23 years old, TV is my life.

(5 points if you can tell me where I filched that line from)

Okay last night the Heroes episode (Chapter 17: Company Man) was so gripping that I almost choked on my food. Which set me thinking...who will come to my rescue if do indeed choke on my food??

I think this thought came to my mind because of another TV show - 30 rock, which btw, is a really smart Tv Show. Alec Baldwin is really good as a my-employees-hate-me kinda VP of NBC. Did you know that "30 Rock" is short for "30 Rockefellar Plaza" and that the NBC studio is actually situated in 30 Rockefellar Plaza? I walked past this building when I was in New York last winter. I love that phrase, "When i was in New York", makes me sound nostalgic, boho, cool and utterly straight haired.

yeah so back to why TV is my saviour. I must tell you how I got the Tv in the first place. My nutty broker, who is also my land lord, brought this unknown mallu couple home, and asked if they could take the Kitchen rack (left by the previous tenent). I don't cook at all so I just shrugged and then she goes, "You know..they're looking to sell their TV too" and before I knew it, I was calling the local cable operator at 11pm and asking them to "Come fix the cable right now!!" and you know what? they did!!. God bless the cable guys of this world. ever willing and able, they really do understand the trappings of a true TV junkie. And thats how I got in synch with the world again. I found I could keep up with conversations again, which was a relief because, I nearly freaked out when even mom started to talk about Sanjaya Malakar's exit. Avril lavigne's "So whatever?" or shakira & beyonce's "Beautiful liar"- No problem, Now I too can have an opinion on that.

Another thing that’s totally giving me a kick is my remote. No that’s MY REMOTE. Mine. mine. only mine. All my life, I’ve been amidst remote snatchers – Anna and dad. Anna didn’t let me watch a Paul Newman (Oh, I also saw Paul Newman’s house “when I was in New York”) movie once and in that moment, I vowed to get my own TV when I made enough money. What is it about guys and remotes? Its like they’re marking territory or something. Me have remote, Me Man arrgh!. So now, I can watch Prison break (God that scofield dude is so hot!) or heroes or the apprentice or frazier or friends without anyone changing the channels midway.

Yeah, so life’s good. Hey wait a minute, isn’t that the tagline for a TV brand?

Cheerful day it isn't

Well my phone just fell from a 30ft drop. It survived but its not catching the network and the camera is kaput too. Don't ask me how it happened. Crazy, odd, freak, one-in-a-zillion incident, and it can only happen to me and then My laptop touch pad konked on me.

Bombs are exploding every minute at work , its world war 3

Yes, Karma is not in a good mood.

bling bang

So I was watching American Idol the other night (Subtle way of saying, I have TVeeeeeeee, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ) and it was "Idol gives back" night. The same old story - white dudes go to Africa, are appalled by the impoverished/hungry/sick people there, come back, make a nice montage of it, with keane music as background, show it to other white dudes, who for some reason are absolutely shocked by it all, like its all news to them, then they all sing (or sway to) "Heal the world, make it a better place", give money, shed some tears and will go back home to their f****ed up white ways.

No asks why Ayf-Freeka (you gotta say it like they do Man! and notice how its not country specific, like kenya, zambia etc, its Ayf-Freeka, one big bloody convenient bracket), a region that has abundant mineral wealth (and by minerals we are talking gold, diamonds, platinum, iron, all the things thats "Hot" right now) is so freaking poor. Someone obviously has been filching all of that, ain't it? Somebody has been taking all of that and in return, has been supplying weapons, backing military dictators, engineering civil wars and ignoring genocides

You want to do something for Ayf-Freeka? Oust people like Mugabe, get rid of the government in Sudan, do something about the Darfur situation, but no its "Heal the world" on a crappy singing contest.

Grow Up!

Arms raised in a V

Updates.

Have quit my old job. Yes the one that made stay till 2 am a while back. The best thing about quitting jobs is the interim break. Being “temporarily unemployed”, there’s nothing sweeter than that. It’s a beautiful lazy state of being with the comfort of knowing that soon you’ll be in a brand new office, meeting brand new people and getting f****d in brand new ways. Its Joy.

So what did I do you ask? Well slept for most part of it. Got up at noon on most days. Since I’m into Heroes these days, got the complete DVD set. You know everytime I start explaining what Heroes is all about, I sound like an idiot. “Er, a bunch of people start developing extraordinary powers due to genetic mutation”. But honestly its such a clever TV show.

As my new job is in pune , the “moving out” needed to be planned. Parents had to be comforted. The Closet had to emptied and clothes scrutinized. It’s a futile exercise if you ask me. The realization would always be that one does not have enough Clothes. Which ofcourse lead to SHOPPING. Not just clothes –shoes shopping but fancy adult stuff like Luggage, kitchen stuff, electronic yada yada.

I also got a nice back massage at spa.ce, this new spa place at cunningham road. Oh that felt heavenly. And when it was over I was sad. I was leaving Bangalore just when I had found a neat spa place.

Then there was the matter of the farewell party. Which I organized and planned. At opus. Because I have bastard male friends who turn up 1 hour late. Opus has “Kroak Knights” Karaoke and I wanted all of them kroak me a tearful farewell song, but as luck would have it, it was Booze-n-brains night instead. It couldn’t have been more appropriate. The legendary tonic team meets up for dinner and the restaurant conducts a quiz. I beginning to believe we are destined to quiz. Well the pitch was if we won the booze-n-brains quiz, all the booze at the table would be on the house. So obviously Nag, Gowday and Jalan were excited. And I just wanted to win. Alcohol doesn’t excite much since a certain fateful office party a year back, were I got pretty drunk and got f****d in office later. Ok coming back to the exciting prospect of free booze. Team tonic with Gowday in tow did fairly well in every round. We were coming in second for most parts because the team that was coming first was googling their way through. That was allowed btw. And the beer was flowing at our table in anticipation of a victory. We were still second when it was time for the last question. We trailed the first team by 3 points and the last question was worth 5 points if we got it right. It was do or die, and I really wanted to “do” rather then face a gargantuan Alcohol bill. And buggers we got that question right. We won!!! We got booze worth 2.5 K free. And I didn’t have any of it. After we won, I wanted to have some celebratory beer but the bar was conveniently closed by that time!

Shucks is right but pretty good times :)

Hilarious!

and that's all I have to say about that.

erm actually, as I'm not given to tacit inclinations, I'll elaborate. Very few times have I come across a movie where you instantly connect with all the characters in the movie. And its so freaking funny!

enough said. Go watch

Finally the New York Story Part 1 - Not quite soft landing.

See many of you didn't know there was a new york story to begin with, but this has to be put down for posterity, for memories of those 72 hours are beginning to fade.

See lil ol 23 yr old me visited the united states in october for work and I managed to sneak in some time at New York, thanks to two amazing people, Vaishnavi and Harish. They were awesome enough to have me in their comfy home for about 3 days. Thanks to them I left NY with some amazing memories. Big sloppy kiss to both you!. I love you guys!

Erm, ok now lets start at the very beginning, that's the moment I landed at JFK airport on a flight filled with restless hasidic jews. enough said I think. Then came immigration, where the officer says "You're 23? you look like you're 18". Little did I know that that was going to be the slogan of this trip.

Hokay after that, I learnt my first big lesson, in the US they charge you for your luggage trolley. I mean which Industrialized nation does that? I mentioned that only because, if they hadn't charged for luggage trolleys, I wouldn't have given the er luggage trolley dude 100 dollars instead of 10. That was going to be the theme of this trip - How a supposed 23 yr old who looks like an 18 year old waif loses money in USA.

Remember we are already 100 dollars down (I didn't know it at that time though). now comes the episode of the cab driver. Cab drivers anywhere are bastards. nothing less. oh but Indian Cab drivers, they make your average bastardy cab driver seem like god's little cherubs. So whilst I was at my supposed -23-but-decidely-18 -waify best, this desi dude walks up to me and says "do you need help?". Lesson to everybody out there. If you see a desi who's not family or friend in a foreign country airport, just run.

I said I needed a cab, and desi dude (DD) proceeded to help me out and pulled up in a large shiny SUV. I knew I was in trouble right there. I said no SUV, me want a big yellow taxi, the type that you see in the apprentice, but he conned me in to believing that yellow taxis do not ply into Manhattan. The bastard. And this after I have watched every episode of third watch! Anyway long story short, cab ride was very expensive. More like 130 dollars expensive.

Yes 2 hours in NY and I was already at -230 and this when the budget was 300. Gulp indeed!

What do you do when you find yourself at work at 2am?

well you develop this urge to blog after a gap of zillion years, apparently. My defence for that appalling sentence is that its 2 am and I'm still at work.

Hear! Hear!

I have this book by Nick Hornby, Its called 31 Songs. Its about about 31 songs that he loves and why he loves them. When I bought this book I was excited has hell because this book has generally got good reviews and I've read some excerpts of Hornby's other book, Long way down and it was rather funny. But I couldn't get past the 1st page of 31 songs. Not because it wasn't well written, but because I couldn't relate to it. I couldn't relate to all the songs he talks about because I haven't heard any and its difficult to trawl through all that enthusiasm when you have no clue as to what he's talking about. Ok may be its just me because lots of people seemed to have loved that book.

anyhoo 31 songs gave me an Idea, I shall write about my some of fav songs and why I love them and bore everyone. Well on the bright side I'm sure most people wouldn't have heard some of the songs mentioned and mebbe my exhortions will make you want to listen to them (which I suspect what hornby was aiming at too, albeit through a book deal). Without further ado, here goes:

Cello Song - Nick Drake
I got introduced to Nick Drake by someone whom I had a beeeeg crush on and women who'll empathise will agree that your crush's recommendations pretty much become gospel truth. Cello Song was the first song of Nick Drake's that I heard and I was BLOWN by it. and I mean absolutely, spine tingly, goose bumpy BLOWN. Cello Song begins with the strumming of the Cello and then slowly the entire songs builds up and in the middle of it all Nick Drake's voice steps in and at that moment you want to die and beamed straight to heaven, because you feel absolutely redeemed and live no more. All of Nick Drake's songs are laced with pathos, innocence and orchestral grandeur. Its a weird combination, but when you read the man's story and listen to his music, you know it is the way it is because his music was him. Nick Drake's music makes me cry, gives me hope, makes me childishly happy and I really miss that he's no more.

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
Everybody loves this song and I do too especially the amazing Violin Rif. Ok I'll come clean, I'm a sucker for String music, You will notice that most of my songs will feature strings instruments. I love the Violin and the Cello and No Intrument can convey emotions better than these two. Anyhoo back to bitter sweet...I love simply because it stirs soo much hope and defiance, and ofcourse Richard Ashcroft's brilliant voice makes the whole song soar. Bitter sweet is so special.. I remember way back in standard 12, One day when it was rather late in the evening, 8'o clock I think, I was riding back home and It started pouring. I stuck in a big traffic jam, I was drenched, I was in 12th standard doing science and I hated my life right then, absolutely hated it and I questioned the ineffable plan. Is this what's in store for me? and then right then bitter sweet wafted out of some car like a divine message and everything felt right again.

Ave Maria - Andrea Bocelli
This song is really special. the sort that highlights the real-best-friends-have-cosmic-connection thing. I first heard about Bocelli on Oprah and how she loved him yada yada and that very afternoon I go to my best bud, Alyesha's house to hang out and she goes, "there's this really great soprano... Andrea Bocelli.." . She gave me "Sacred Arias" for my birthday and till date its my favourite birthday gift. You have to,have to listen to Ave Maria, its in Italian and I really don't understand a thing but the music just tingles the skin, its divine.

Light my fire - The Doors.
The Doors were my initiation into college culture - Weird hairstyles, dope, che guevara affiliation and the whole "liberation" ding. Pink Floyd and the Doors represent college the best to me.Everybody either listened to Pink Floyd or the Doors or both and if you didn't listen to either, you were a loser. Having an older brother helped in this regard, and by the time I entered college, Floyd had put another brick in the wall a million times over. The Doors were a different story. My brother gave the best of doors CD as a B'day present in my first year and I fell right in love with Jim Morrison. I mean he had all the right mix, Sexy, Impulsive, brooding - resistance was futile. C'mon baby light my fire is an out an out mating call, no song I 've heard is as sexy as this. This one calls out to the primal self. It also reminds me of pecos and halcyon days of afternoon spent tucking in Tacos and listening to awesome music. aah that was life!

Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley
This one features in the OST of Vanilla Sky and this one I love because this one song on a relationship over, that you can actually turn up the volume to. The lyrics are sad but its got so much electric guitars and such a rock feel to it that far from weeping with a box of tissues you actually want to keep jumping on a springy couch. Sadly though Jeff Buckley died in 1997 in a drowning accident. Gosh why did all these guys who made such good music die so early?

I think the Vanilla Sky OST has one of the best compilation of indie songs. Cameron Crowe is a genius and I read somewhere that he personally picks all the songs for his movies, I'm not sure how true that is but get the Vanilla Sky OST right now!

hmmm I just realized I could go on with this, lotsa songs with lotsa memories attached to them. One of my fav ads right now is the world space ad where A R Rehman says "There's so much to hear".
Amen to that!

May the best (looking) team win

Anna called the other day. "Why are'nt you watching the world cup?" he asked.

Wait a minute, I'm no chronic world cup watcher, the scenario as it panned out in our growing years was that He controlled the sole TV in our house and well I was bullied into watching many world cup matches.

I remember my first world cup memory. It was the 1990 final, Italy Vs Germany and the germans won. I slept through most of it and got up only when the german captain was raising the world cup. That dude was cute and as with most cute guys you have to know his name. Knowing Lothar Matheus's name helped many years later in a quiz. It was a visual of him, our team had to identify him and all the other boys were openly salivating for the question to be passed on to them. Oh they were so shocked "the girls" knew his name. that was such a sweet moment.

That's the thing with women. Most women don't follow sport, but they do (with religious fervour) follow cute guys in sports.

So well, I remember the 1994 final as well. What happened was that just before the final our TV conked and we (actually my Dad and brother) shamelessly asked our neighbours if we could watch the final on their TV. I believe we asked to borrow but the neighbours only came as far as letting us into their home and watching it there. Poor things. They weren't football fans, I know because they were nodding off now and then. I bet they stayed awake only because they half thought we'd cart their TV off. The Final was boring. I slept off half way and asked my dad to wake me up when some one scored. Dad woke me up for the shoot-out. I was so mesmerized with Baggio's pony tail. The world was divided into men with ordinary hair and men with pony tail for the 10 year old me. He looked so sexy and with that pony tail looked capable of extraordinar powers. He botched it up and I've never quite recovered that faith I had off pony tailed men after that episode.

1998 was good. I saw a lot of league matches because I stayed up late solving Maths problems for the 10th boards, while also watching cute athletic guys push the ball around. I found it most therepeutic. I also did very well in the maths exam. You have no Idea how sexy Zizou was for me. I feel in love with this tiny patch of white hair on his mostly brown (?) hair and oooh he won and it was doubly sexy.

Italy always sports the sexiest side in every World Cup and as a girl you always want Italy to come to the final. What happened in 2002 was just plain cruel, a totally out and out ugly, wiry haired bozo called Ahn jung Hwan threw them out of the tourment and denied glorious eye candy to women the world over.

I never liked Brazil much. Too much hype and really ugly footballers. I mean when you look at Ronaldo and Ronaldinho with their bad teeth, you feel glad that they atleast have talent backing them up.

I haven't seen most of the teams but the Argentinians are really looking hot and they're playing some good football too, but honestly as long as there's good eye candy, I don't really care who wins the world cup.

May the best looking team win right? ;)
lol

Goo-Goos, Ga-Gas and Giggles

Every woman should have a lil something of Chanel or so Karl Lagerfeldt would have us believe. well dear Karl will be pleased with me, I have ze number one perfume of them all, (ironically) the No.5. Ok Brother gave it as birthday present, but still, I belong to that exclusive clique of women who have a lil something of Chanel, ok now Karl where is my discount??

Whenever I see a picture of Coco Chanel, I don't see a woman, I see an androgynous creature, with ambitions of power, a strong dash of selfishness, individuality and a mild veneer of sexuality. That's what I like about her, atleast what she represents, the toning down of gender and the steretypes associated with it. Like say Woman=Married= Mother = Babies. I see Coco and its like erm lets change that equation.

I have a special gift. I'm a magnet for bawling babies. When I sit for lunch, there's a bawling baby. When I'm seeing a movie there's a bawling baby. Infact my lowest moment came when I was on a train and guess what there was a Bawling baby and the mother was walking around the compartment with it. She sat down on my seat, trying to console it and the sleep deprived annoyed me, just absolutely glowered at her, to take "that thing" away fro me. I remember that Incident, I'm not proud of it, but given the chance my reaction will be the same all over again.

I don't like babies.
Some women Coo at babies, some women make funny annoying and utterly embarassing noises, Some women do a lil jig, I just stare right back. Wotcher looking at baby?. I often wonder why I feel so different. No gushes just ahems. and ofcourse faking the affection. I hate proud- baby- flashing mommies. They're the worst. they want the whole world to acknowledge how cute their baby is and if you stare back without gushing, she'll give you a look that says "Baby hater!, you'll end up an old crone".

I just want to know if women have babies because:
a) They really like babies
b) They don't want to grow old in loneliness. Babies are like old age policy, Someone who'll take care of the bills
c) They didn't use protection and things just happened.

Am I the only one who does not like babies. Who feels queasy that its probbably expected of me because I'm a woman blah blah. Who feels weird because she feels differently about it and also slightly guilty?

Hmmm. I don't know.

I guess its Chanel for sometime now. Seriously Karl, how about that discount?

....and tiny tim on the Double Bass

You need a muse. and you get one only if you're life has a slight tinge of misery in it. Its true. I couldn't think of anything to write in this blog of mine because I didn't feel like it. Now since my life has got that mild hue of angst, ok I admit angst is so 2nd-year- college, I shall proceed to soliloquise.

These days I lunch alone at Transit at Forum Mall. If any of you read this and are at transit at the same time I'm having lunch and know me....ok what're the chances of that happening? still do drop by and say Hi and I'll condescend to say Hi back if my mouth isn't full. But I kinda like having my lunch alone there, Watching the dizzying consumers, the yuppies with their Lap top bags, college kids bunking class, the occassional white guy.....ok I don't mean to sound all gooey... this motley crowd fascinates me and I don't think for the entire duration of lunch. which is good. One should never think while having lunch.

Another great thing about having lunch at a mall is the moosic. absolutely upbeat and by the time I'm done with lunch and heading back to office, I feel like a heroine in an Chic flick strutting with a I-will survive background theme running in the background. I always loved that chic flicks. The heroine moves on with her life and she even has sexy background music to boot. who chose her freaking music collection?

Ok I saw the entire sex and the city season 3 this weekend. and you know what, for a columnist Carrie wears pretty swell clothes and she even has a sexy apartment to boot. My favourite is the one where she gets to be a model and struts for this sexy 80's kinda music. I always wanted to do that. Strut for sexy music not modelling. Also the whole we 4 best friends ding is a turn off after a while. I don't have girlfriends, not here in Bangalore, and I miss that terribly.

Most women don't like me that much. yes they're intimated by me and worst of all I don't care. So well there goes my hopes of a female posse, of sunday brunches, of talks of boyfriends and Exes.

Exes - you'd think nothing's worse than your Ex coming back and telling you he's found someone. I'll tell you what's worse, your Ex coming back and telling you he's found someone and also "getting some" from that some one. Erm. You've moved on, very much and yet the vision of his "someone" and him, leaves a void in the stomach and the thought of his "getting some" makes me want to join the gym. I dunno, but its proving a great motivator for getting back on the tread mill again

The great Guy in my life taught me how to drive in his very own car. Its his first car. The first car. He bought it with his own money. Its expensive and its big. I don't know how to drive, and yet he let me take the wheel, didn't freak out (atleast he didn't show it) and taught me how to drive. That's romantic.

I love big brother (orwell be damned)

Its been ages, and well I thought it was time to resuscitate this blog, sad because at one point i thought this blog would be my ticket to a book deal. well one can always dream

Ok, Back from the most amazing vacation so far. Australia turned out to be an experience. Amazing people from different nationalities, some really sane driving ( these folks will not switch lanes even if their life depended on it!!) two near death experiences in two themeparks in two days, some really neat desserts, a crazy dane and some good ol fashioned desi debates.

All Thanks to bro who arranged (and paid for) travel with in australia, the itinery included Sydney, Brisbane, Goldcoast, Canberra and Melbourne. We back packed in sydney and melbourne and squated in a friend's place in brisbane.

Thanks to all the people who made this trip memorable, especially ammu (can't believe we fought when we were classmates!)

Oh yes i'm absolutely broke, but as someone said "if you ain't savin it for having fun, what're you savin it for?" hear hear.

Free fall is accelerating

Ok so just ask me where I am.. Go on... Well I'm in Australiaaaaaa. Yup this is blogging direct from Australia but no i'm not here for good, this is a 2 week vacation also known as blowing up your savings. Its been an amzing ride so far. Literally. I step of sydney airport and bro says well Navigate using the street directory because I don't know the way. Well Like I do!!!. Well Yup yours truly navigated around Sydney using something I never thought existed - 400 page book of maps of all the streets in sydney. And I'm also experiencing the looks-good-on-TV Ian wright style backpacking. Gosh I'm sure I can even talk like him now...

Ok well well excited me, got back from 2 amazing theme parks in brisbane...and now I'm even a theme park chic as well. Too many avatars in such a few days.

More on things later

'Tis

Hell hath no fury like a pervert scorned.

......and some proper background music please

So there I was watching Rome on HBO. I totally dig Perod Dramas. And minutes after Rome Ended I was walking around Like I was in one. Easily done considering it was something past midnight. For one I felt all angular faced. Have you noticed how all these period drama protagonists are so angular faced, or rather act like their face is so angular. I want to walk around like that, with the knowledge that in a close -up still, the angles of the face will catch the light dramatically and it will look all fiery and purposeful. I mean even the extras in period drama have that intense purposeful look.

and oh, I'd like to walk with a flourish too. with swirling taffeta gowns going swish swish. oh so dramatique. Imagine how work would be if we were all so dramatique. Instead of jeans and feeling like a minion in the workforce, I'd feel all important and angular faced . I can't stress enough the change that feeling angular faced brings on one. I feel like making weighty statements or making the mundane sound weighty. I mean the chic in the Rome serial got all alarmed and panicky when someone said "caesar is in Italy!!".Won't it be cool, I wonder to make statements that give sinking feelings. I want to ask for tea like its a do or die situation. I feel like looking fiercely at everything, with that erm angular faced look

Ok I don't think anybody out there gets it.

Oh for some drama in my life.

Its a universe of levitating snow flakes y'all

The number of times I've had the word position thrown at me this week - not funny

1. Why is that fat paki skipper batting at that Position?

2. Insert the Ad in this Position

3. Its a Position I don't Envy

4. I wouldn't Like to be in his position

5. Position is everything in Business

6. If you don't Position yourself in the market, the Competition will position you

7. This is a prime positiom madam

umm ok, I'll stop but you all get the point don't you?. Its like everybody's favourite word is Position

State of the affairs - Sleep deprived- awaiting a quarterly review at work which certainly does not help and ofcourse stressed.

I can't watch the 11:30 Pm friends reruns these days, guess why? Because every one wants to see us triumph over fat buncha blokes in green. and ofcourse there's the matter of the bunch blokes in dark blue who are waiting in the offing. I'd buy my own T.V but i really I don't much fancy the idea of TV shopping.

hmmm, ok then, I'm off I don't like my disposition one bit

muahahhahahhah

Pronounce Reykjavik

I'm feeling like Danish last names. How cool is Ljungdahl? it reminds me of a scandinavian spa. Bjork reminds me a viking helmet or Vanderspeigle which really sounds like a bland grainy porridge kinda dish or Schoonhoven which ummm brings an imagery of shiny copper pots & pans in a kitchen with wooden rafters on the ceiling.

All this talk is making me hungry.

Sad sad Situation

She said, "You know what'll make me sad? If I ever make you angry, because you're the kinda guy that doesn't get angry"

Well he got angry and she got angry too. And no one was Sad.

Pardhe ke Peeche..

I can't get enough of this song from Bluff Master, well thats a lot considering I came to know of this movie just about a week back and I even asked, "well who's in it?", and I honestly hadn't heard of "Right here, Right now" till about 2 days back. Forget lagging behind the scene, the scene doesn't exist anymore, well anyways forget that, I mean this song makes me want to drop everything and break into a jig, like those background peeps and go "Pardhe ke peeche" along with the chorus.

What I can't get over with working life is the total tuning off from "Normal" life, I mean the "Normal" me would have been very worried about the Middle east peace process post sharon's stroke, the "Now" me goes, enough already, he hasn't died yet??. I don't read the paper anymore, I don't care if sourav's back in the team, and btw all I want to say about him is that he is a complete out and out BITCH, right, its like I no longer care about the world at large. It feels weird. another sad thing is that I don't get the time to read anymore. The last book I read was Tamarind Mem by anita rau badami and that was a total dud, anything new and exciting on scene people? tell me... keep me informed, I'd really like that. ditto with movies, although on that scene I got a lot of good movies with even a pedro movie, i'm so waiting for a weekend where I don't have any work load.

This week was comme si comme sa for me, I met my best buds in the world, arthi whos in mysore and alyesha whos in pittsburgh, and we all met and compared notes about boyfriends and stuff, went to mango, where they were having a sale and only I spent a tonne of money and got myself a pretty black skirt. Its got such a massive swish quotient I luuuuve it and I got a major discount on it double yayy!!

Is it any surprise that I'm not mulling over the middle east anymore?

All your base are belong to us

I want to write heaps, but this one finally did it, "what are you doing for New years", yes its the season where you have to have someone to be seen with or you might as well curl up and die!. I don't think I've been with anyone for any new years. Last year's took the cake. briefly, big south indian family gathering, cousin from berkely showing off his affiliation to the Berkely Bhangra club, and then the big south indian family gathering also vying for a spot in that bhangra club. that made my new year's resolution for this year - I need a Stiff drink!.

This year has seen numerous phases. I was in college till may, truly some halcion days. Parting with all my friends and with that insouciant life was truly painful. Even now I miss how we used to indulge in meaningless arguments while the sun shone fatheadedly. then came some does of real physical pain when I got operated upon for a ligament tear, I thought I'd never walk again. barely after I started walking, I found myself in hyderbad working For Google. working for the big G can only be described a FUN!. In Hyd I had my own bed, my own curtains, my own toilet with flower motif on all the tiles and my own geyser in my own toilet!. I'll never forget my apartment and my weird roomies. and then 6 weeks after I found myself back in bangalore, back in my parents place.

I still need a stiff drink.

Happy New Year All!

If only I don't Bend and break, I'll meet you on the other side....

Ummm, its been a looooooong time. thankfully my blog is forgiving, unlike most people I know, I even forgot my best bud's birthday. happy belated b'day best bud. oh I even forgot to commemorate my blog annniversary. happy belated b'day bloggie.

I have nothing significant to blog about. Well I do, but I can't really blog about it, and besides my life revolves around work these days. You I didn't even know Paris was burning, I don't have time to read Newspaper you see and besides I was quite shocked when I heard it. Paris always brings images of this 6 footer, anorexic blonde model with no boobs swishing about, amidst flash bulbs in a chanel skirt. Arsonists torching cars? umm no. Mebbe thats why it burned

anyhooo, the only exciting thing (that I can blog about, mark) of note is this grocery store outside office called Monday to Sunday. Now, normally I wouldn't be caught dead using words like Grocery. Enid Blyton made it her own and ran with it. Why are all Enid Blyton's Grocers such ruddy nice people, with nice warm smiles and who always gave bets/daisy/diana/anne a complimentary boiled sweet?. Even her thuggish grocers are squeaky clean. I mean her mean guys are the kinds who buster/timmy/scamper can shoo off with just a growl. Grocers really aren't that pleasant. I mean, you have some who whine when you don't have the exact change, they frown with displeasure when you've chosen something that does not have a bar code, like all of it is your fault.

Ok I majorly Digress. MtS rocks because they have this fabulous Alcohol section which has all the assorted breezers, a good wine collection and get this, even a baby smirnoff Vanilla twist. Jeez when I saw it, I almost ran to the counter to get it billed instantly. oooh another must buy is the Choco crunchers cereal!. Now when it comes to Cereal the world is divided into people who eat it with Hot milk and cold, and I alawys belonged to the former but after Choco Crunchers, I've converted. You have to have it with cold milk to know how good it tastes. Part of the reason for my ebullient reaction to this cereal is the minimum effort involved!

Ok I'll stop now. The product-whore signs off

The Picture of Doriana Gray

Most people drink or smoke to bust stress, I shop. one look at my bank statements (cool huh? bank statements and all, I sound so Important) confirms this. and some smarty pants suggested the other day that I apply for a credit card? eh?? I think I'll I end up on Oprah, teary eyed, confessing that I have a shopping mania, and you know what she'll say? "This is just a symptom, of a deep emotional issue", and I'll say "yeah my mom loved my brother more". ok we digress, but the problem I think is quite chronic, and particularly so when it involves Mango. I love their clothes, I can't help it. their clothes are exactly me!. quirky, girly, chic yada yada and gosh its gotten so bad, that they actually call me when they get new stuff, in a sugary "gotcha sucker" voice.

Well anyhow, my depleting bank bank account made me think about my shopping pattern, this is ofcourse after the initial horrified shriek. All my clothes are indicative of my state of being. and I wonder if its true of all people, their clothes representing who they are. that sounds rather shallow and what the high school clique would endorse, but I think there's some truth to it. I think when people buy clothes for themselves, it subconsciously translates itself into how they're feeling.

hmm so one of the truly awesome investments i made over the past week has been getting myself a world space connection. and for just 2000 bucks. Its a steal! and I love the jazz channel, its called Riff and its heavenly, and ooooh I got my very own remote! all my life, the men around me, my Dad and my bro, have been snatching the remote from my hand and lording over it. So apart from being a perfect lip-synching instrument, it will also be my redemption from those troubled memories of remote grabbing.

also made some investment for the home, read crockery. went to Jamal's to buy mum a neat non-stick frying pan. sort of a first salary gift thingie. I love Jamal's. Every time I pass that store, I'm planning my crockery, linen, curtains etc in my own house. And that thought always thrills me up. I got some chop sticks too and I think another shopping trip is in order to get me a good egg-beater, some mittens... sometimes I think I have all the trappings of that enid blyton cook who just made those kids fabulous scones and cakes all the time. I also need to buy dad something, but I can't think of what to buy him, i thought of Chivas regal, but umm does it look proper buying your dad alcohol? any suggestions anybody?. need help for this one!

Come on baby light my fire.....

arrite too late for a diwali related post, and I had such nice sentences running in my head.
I think I've out grown Diwali. seriously. these days its not so much about lights, festivity as is about Corporate Kaju Katli Give aways and bumper draws promising Cars at the clothing store. Please tell me if anyone actually wins those "Bumper Draws"??? Anyone you know? Please because I've filled 5 billion of those and I've never won anything.

But the vanishing of the Diwali charm (And I think that sentence was wrongly framed, but its 1 AM and I'm still at work, so spare me!) is what's making me a tad sad. I remember what diwali meant to us as kids. Preperations would begin about a week before the grand 3 days, and that would be heralded by mum preparing the batter for real crispy chakulees. Another thing that symbolized the official onset of Diwali was the building of the family Khandeel. Nobody here makes it, but in bombay its really popular. Khandeel is a sort of lantern and some of my fondest memories are of Dad building the Khandeel, with Coloured paper and gum spread astray on the dinning table. Can you imagine glitter strwn all over the solemn Dinning table?. And then we'd get our boxes of crackers. Our Dad always got my brother and I identical boxes of crackers, and then I would ceremoniously hand-over bombs and other despicably loud crackers to my bro, while I held on to other sissy stuff, like Flower pots. I liked flower pots. They came alive with a whoosh and then they burned out and didn't split anybody's Ear drums.

We had to have a piece de resistance too, something that'd make the neighbours look up in stifled awe and envy. We had to. and when you're 12 and competing with the neighbour hood apartment kids, with apartment Diwali budgets, Its absolutely Important. Ours was called the "Shree harikota". It spun like mad in the sky and then burst into a shower. Too wowowow for words. One year we experimented with this thing called "Rainbow" basically 7 multi hued projectiles hurled into the air, but unfortunately, Rainbow became parallel to the ground, while hurling these aforementioned projectiles, and Babli the neighbour's labrador never quite forgave us for the trauma so inflicted.

Diwali also brings back memories of my petrified dogs. Have you ever held a Dog during Diwali. Nothing quite breaks one's heart as that. The heart beats like its going to explode any minute, The body shivers and yet in the eyes complete numbness. I hated having to feret out my dogs, hiding in a dark corner, from under the bed . I guess that marked arrival of anti- Diwali- anti- child labour- anti- air pollution phase. and also lets face it, some of us get tired with the scurrying-after-the-cracker-has-been-lit routine. I prefer watching all the fireworks in a worn out pajama on the terrace. its so much more fun.

This time round, the rockets have improved immensely, we didn't have such good stuff 6 years back sigh!. Well I guess its all for the best, Me being a mute spectator, besides I need to atone for what happened to babli, the neighbour's labrador.

can't find a better man.....

Its turning out to be a ritual Friday night story. I stay back till 9 at work and then everybody else also in the same 9 PM boat, decide to go some place and get some drinks, and that place is turning out to be LOR. now LOR is the place where all your rock/psuedo rock/head-banging types come to, basically weirdos. The kind who'll argue passionately about pantera vs sepultura, (whats the difference???), who find mascara boy marilyn manson cool or are into some band called "Gravediggers" or "Death" or prolly "Blood Blood, Die Die", but last night that place redeemed itself with one simple act. they played Eddie Vedder's Even Flow. I can't describe in words how sexy I find him, or how much I love Pearl Jam. I lurrvee Eddie Vedder, I want to have his babies, but I guess He found someone to do that for him huh?.

Friday night ritual also includes goin to Cousin's place for the night, she lives the closest to my office and I obviously can't go home after downing cosmopolitans right?. I love cousin, she's the kind of person whom you can periodically tune out to while in a conversation and tune back in and still get the drift what she's saying. Thats a good thing. and she's always always on the phone. thats a good thing too when you're head is spinning. Those phone conversations are interesting too. Last night it was how a fellow colleague was dating a married woman, previous week was about how a fellow colleague's marriage was breaking up. last week she also gave me very passionate and embittered gyan on how, "all men are the same".

Friday night ritual is then followed by the saturday morning ritual where I trudge back to work from cousin's place. Saturday morning gyan from cousin are much more educative than the previous night. She's warned me about the perils of the hair growing curly after you've straightened it. what mouse to use, if it does get curly, what straightening Iron to buy, where the jeans can be bought for a steal etc etc. and then its all followed by mom's call in the evening, yelling at me for working so much and how I'll burn out and shrivel away. She YELLED at me one night , when I was in still at office at 12:30. so much so that I had to keep the phone a mile away from my ear. I wonder where it all stems from? maternal care or distrust?

No matter what anyone says, I'm enjoying all of it. Ritual or not.

Swish Miss or alternatively bring on the shampoo ads

a big reason for my relative good humour these days is my straight hair. Yes My hair has direction, it has focus, it has ambition infact its a better career woman than me. I just lurrrve the fact that my hair and I argue no more, and now if that wasn't something to cheer about, I can SWISH my hair!!!. yes swish, like those shampoo ads, where its all sunshine, and her is all straight and silky and she's bouncing around. ofcourse she's a prissy flooze, but she's a flooze whose hair obeys and that mind you is a lot to give up for.

I once was a strong believer in curls, infact in class 12 it was my raison d'etre and vowed never to sell out to straightening Irons and chink beauticians who do the straightening, sorta of a janis joplin ragged doll phase, not that I'm saying curly haired woman are ragged dolls mind you. Curls are beautiful. in fact the very word Curl is beautiful in itself, it reminds me of a purring stubborn cat, but thats the problem, curls are stubborn, they're unpredictable, and they're always at odds with you, while you're in tuscany they're in marakesh, and I used to like the discord, those hair days infuriated me, but there was something acutely alive about the whole thing, something turbulent and I remember how I tied my hair with a paint brush and attended class sincerely believing that I was making a fashion statement. Dear God what was i thinking?

If college was the janice joplin days, work life is more like Sade. smooth and straight and cool and a slightly slightly arrogant. yes I've even discovered the straight hair arrogant hair toss, and its fun, especially when dealing with guys, i can see why guys like straight hair women more. I mean no way you can toss your hair arrogantly when a guy asks you your number and not look endearing. and since only I can turn a straightening iron into an instrument of philosophy and also the fact that I'm very tired, understandably, i've been working for 14 hours and really want to hit Publish badly and go to sleep, all i can say is, living this shampoo ad is fun and all hail chink beauticians!

Acchoo, twenty two and wooo hooo

go shorty it was your birthday!!!! yeah yeah, yesterday was my b'day and it began with some rapid fire sneezing, signalling the onset of two runny nosed days. not too good. kay called at midnight and well girlfriends are the best ever, they love you so much, they'll stay awake till twelve and make you feel soo special. kay you're the best!!!. then later in the day darshini called. *hugs* thank you, nandu and charms for remembering. you googals rock!!!. ofcourse darling anna called twice,and then today a day later i gotta cut a cake in from ofthe entire office. yay me!!. I didn't get any presents though, but I guess I've passed the stage where material gifts really matter,these days I'm giving myself all the gifts, life long romance and the like. I went to these designer stores at atmosphere, gosh they make some crappy clothes, and you'd think with all the footage they'd pass muster atleast!, i ended up buying at top at Mango, which i decided not to wear in the final analysis cause of the plunging neckline, but i love it. ok I sound like a flooze, peh! anyway, got my hair straightened in the process and am enjoying no-hair hazzle days, but looks like it ain't gonna last long, its already freaking curling up!

anyhow thanks to everybody who wished me, really appreciate that. and if you'll excuse me, i need to find some tissues quick before i start sneezing again...

That I miss....

I love Susheela Raman. Yes me too, after reading about her in Vaish's blog, I followed the links and oh my god! i got goosebumps. Nagumomo was so stellar, that I sat under my desk near the comp tower to hear it better at work. Her voice is so seductive and sexy and yet well traditional and thats what blew me away, her music is like us South indian women always straddling the modern and the traditional. ofcourse when mom heard she was so over wrought with emotion, that Vaish and I have proposed to start a "our moms cried for susheela raman" fan club. Its verry much in the offing.

I don't know if the music connects better with south indians, but for a moment there, it threw me back to a time, when I was little where i spoke only kannada with my parents and fancied wearing jasmine flowers on my hair. a place which was rife with sandal wood and bharathnatyam dancing and the ocassional brush with the tanpura. when summers meant guarding over ajju's rice crispies drying in the sun from crows. I've definitely moved on from that realm, i'm no longer thrilled at wearing a mysore silk saree and the like. and then there are these sudden attacks that tradition throws at us renegades, like poojas for instance where I feel totally alien, instances where mum and her ilk are completely at ease knowing what to do, while i stand awkwardly in a corner looking on helplessly.

there's a rift in me, a rift that susheela so elegantly sweeps away for a few minutes. for the duration of that song my mom and I share the same heritage. oh i love her for that!

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style

7th Oct (when the internet connection was well )

I like the quiet whirr of machines. its peaceful. its like my fridge is going about its business doing fridge type of things, and more importantly perfectly happy doing fridge type of things and now some evil genius, i swear i saw it on TV, want my fridge to talk to my microwave so my microwave, which was also busy doing its own thing mark, can decide how long to defrost my leftovers based on what my fridge says. pretty soon they'll be gossiping over me. my fridge will soon tell me to clean my room, and come home soon and then my microwave will whine and tell me how lazy I am, freak, who thinks of all this stuff?

umm, met priya this week. did i mention that she's the sweetest person ever ever. probably the last guiless girl left down south. we went to landmark and i bought her a copy of the english patient. god, the number of people I've suggested this book to! Ondaatje should prolly make me his agent. I still find the passage on the winds of Africa mesmerizing. not been reading a lot these days because of my job, I can't wait to sink with my books this weekend and finish a good dose. I wish i had the habit of rememering memorable lines from books, the only line i remember vividly, was a line in the death of vishnu, " and somewhere a movie started in his head". i love that line and ofcourse, Nabokov's "She was dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita". i wish i had his talent of making prose sound exhilerating, his words seem to bungee jump with glee. i hope i get the time to re-read lolita again sometime.

cut to 9th Oct (when the internet is all well again, thanks to some maniacal threats and some choice abuse directed at cable guy's err clan)

Priya called to say that my erst while cot in hyd got sold for 750 bucks, I bought it for 1400. sweet. and they (my two erstwhile roomates, and the fraidy cat accountant, who took my place and got my lovely sliding door cupboards) were going out to garbha that night, ras leela and what not, why didn't they do such fun stuff when i was there? the most fun we had was prolly going to farmaish and eating mhooli paranthas. tell me why i gave up all that again?. I wish maslow had just shushed for once in his life. self actualization! hrmph

ah yes, i sank with a book finally, it was jitterbug perfume and i love tom robbins for his sheer manipulation of sentences, he makes up sentences that nobody ever ever would conjure up. this one's my favourite : "Kudra gave him a look that you could spread on a bun . Her words, however, pricked him like the knife that does the spreading", oh i nearly forgot, i had a fancy bookmark while reading this book, a recall arrest warrant slip, of a one Mr. Fordyce, merry company you keep eh? SP, care to explain?? and while i was reading about perfume, i went and got myself one today, CD's j'adore, yea, i bench pressed my economic muscle and cleaned out half my account *sheepish grin* bought myself loads of b'day presents in advance, hell why not?. I really must get myself a boyfriend* soon, i need an alternative to shopping.

*preferrably within a 15km radius, across the atlantic really doesn't count

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.

getting along just fine.

yea no exciting news from my end. i just work---sleep----work and I can't comment on the weekends because 2 of them have been spent house hunting and getting tipsy and one was in bangalore with a sore throat. Hyderabad is such a quiet place and when i get back from work, and i've morphed into the person who doesn't want to get back from work and feels good about it, i just read to fall asleep. I really hope theres a *Bomb* ineffable plan for us pathetic people.

well, to spice things up, i mooted an idea to throw a house warming party. My building needs it. all techies doing their mundane techie things, i swear they need to hear loud garrish Hip hop music to wake them up from their stupors. My hommies in my office agree. CD my buddy vehemently agrees that soporific people have no right to exist and vows to throw a party even if i don't consent to it, but i do. but my roomates arn't too enthusiastic about it, because their boss lives on the 2nd floor and their thinking about their techie career path, what if their techie boss gets pissed off?

why can't people show their boss their Hip hop moves i say?. oh speaking of roomies, one of them read a book of mine, the kiterunner, when i was out for the weekend. I'm glad she did, because now we can talk about books, but she read it even before i did, and thats kinda sad, because well when i give my book to somebody, i know the plot, i know what pages they're gonna love, what pages they're gonna blanch, but she knows that now, and claims its absolutely wonderrful.
sigh.
why can't i get my way??

My baby's got ooooooooooooh angel eyes

what do you get when you combine a rather unsocial city and a free gym membership?. well, you get the resurgence of the gym maniac. yes i'm back to my freaky exercise ways even though this gym has distastefully loud pop music. My prevoius gym had world space membership and since I'm the queen of gyms, (i'm the queen everywhere baby), i always manipulated the music to the Mike kauffman show, i miss that soo much, does it still come on?. gyms are verry interesting places. you get all types and by that i'm referring to the male species only, my eyes don't wander around to the women, but yes occassionally when another woman has a bitch figure and then I monitor her exercise routine and obsessively wonder about what i ought to incorporate into my exercise routine ,yadada, but men, aahh them i survey freely, and ofcourse they know you're watching and then they lift those weights or pedal that cycle with extra oomph. In my previous gym, this guy came upto me showing off his iPod. ofcourse i didn't know then what an iPod was, i just saw his playlist and blanched, backstreet boys, codered, blue etc, eeks why can't a guy hit on me with say coldplay on his playlist? but my present gym is pretty cool, largely filled with techie guys and interestingly they even gym like techie guys. techie guys do all things like techie guys, they even eat pizzas like techie guys, lemme know if it isn't true. lotsa interesting things happen at gyms, and this is my favourite gym tale. in my previous gym, i was listening to radiocity while on the tread mill.

RJ : we have a caller who wants to make an announcement to the whole of bangalore city.

caller : yea i do

RJ : go on, what do you want bangalore city to know?

caller: Bangalore! I'm in love with my cousin sister.

RJ: *silence*

caller: *silence*

me: *fallen off from the treadmill*

lol, anyhow back in bangalore for the long weekend but stuck with a sore throat, and no, it was to get 2 weeks of laundry done and not because i miss this city terribly, because i kinda don't, its easily the greatest city around, but somehow its fun living in an alien city, where you need a map to navigate through, where you don't understand the language, where the transportation is totally effed up, where there are umpteen continental food massacres. yea, inshallah its been fun.

Independant Woman update.

the weekend was a glorious sleep deprived one. i think i've slept for about 6 hours the entire weekend, which obviously means i'm getting along fine socially for the moment and i have enough ghost stories and faux pas tales to last me a life time. also did a lil bit of sight seeing. i saw the charminar, and by the looks of it, they ought to maintain it a lil better. hullo?? it has domes on it, one ought not to maintain it like a paan shop. then we proceeded to the salar jung museum, which obiviously was a museum on the life of salar jung, who i gathered was a nawab of this place, but gosh they all but displayed his diapers there. oh i moved to my new apartment this weekend. also fought with the guys who transported the wrong mattress to my place. jallu was there to be the "man on the scene", he also took pics of my place, from his snazzy new phone. thanks jallu. then i dealt with uber control freak roomate's mom. i swear there should be a Nobel prize for taking shit. and today i got my checque book. yahooey, i'm working womwn, who's getting paid, and i can sign checques now, oh arrite from the 1st of next month.
ok i'm done. i'm off now.

*Selecting A Reader*

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty from not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses, and there in the bookstore,
she will thumb over my poems, then put the book back up on its shelf. She will say to herself, "For that kind of money, I can get my raincoat cleaned." And she will.
Ted Kooser

thanks to a co-worker who generously passed on this poem to me.

quasi home.

finally, after numerous betrayals, (i'm guilty of one btw, i'm sorry but theres no way i'm gonna be happy living right outside a cowshed. err looooooooong story), i finally found meself an apartment. i'm sharing it with two other girls and yayyy i'm finally gonna have roomies!!!. i always fantasized about this moment. me livin an independant life in an alien city, in an apartment with roomies...i always somehow imagined my roomies to be a hair dresser or this total bohemian DJ type chic, you know, completely different from me, well it didn't exactly turn out that way but i'm extremely satisfied with the outcome. i have me own wardrobe now and soon my own cot and my own mattress, and my own bed spreads, my own linen.....
aah yes, i'm a satisfied independant woman , scrounging but independant. yay!!!.

oooooooh very exciting news just in, managed to rope in some girls and we're gonna go out and experience some "nightlife". double yayy!!!

....take me home to the place I belong

yes folks out there who are curious as to what happened to me and even if you aren't i'll tell you anyway. i've been out house hunting. no thats HOUSE HUNTING!. lower case just doesn't convey the requisite emotions.

my house hunting sojourn began on friday evening. when a friend's friend called up to show me a house and i went forwith, with eager anticipation, romanticizing the entire hunt as a coming of age of age ritual, when the heavens burst open, it is after all, the "rainy" season and literally drowned the pretty picture. trust me on this, the landlord isn't impressed when you show up all dishevelled because of the rain. the aforementioned flat was good but the location wasn't. which is the story of all my house hunting. the flat is good but the toilets arn't, the toilets are good but the location isn't, the flat is good, the toilet is good, the location is good, but sadly the budget isn't.

if that wasn't worse i get stuck with weird people. for one, a schizophrenic fellow house hunter (SFHH) who can't decide between living with the relative and living on ones own. i swear SFHH ruined my house hunting. when SFHH turned judas, i was stuck with over critical mom of friend's friend house hunter (FFHH). over critical mom who thought i didn't know hindi and proceeded to tell FFHH that i didn't look like a "nice" girl. very sweet . thank you. then SFHH would, by now, do a predictible, volteface, and find us a apartment to inspect. infact SFHH found this great apartment on jubilee hills, a 3BHK deal, and the land lord took us in a green ford IKON to inspect the apartment with. the house was fabulous. the view, no thats VIEW was fabulouser. but sadly since another unreliable fellow house hunter (UFHH) was in chennai, we couldn't seal the deal. you the know the woman living in front of that fabulous apartment was a popular telugu actress???. i don't know her name, but imagine i could have landed a role in tollywood!!!, i could have gone to new york, london, paris, egypt for song sequence. i could have had a zillion people dancing behind me!!!.

now that i think of it the whole thing has become a bit too complicated. SFHH, myself and UFHH were a trio and we were supposed to house hunt together. but myself being very smart also secretly teamed up with FFHH, and kept a parallel stream going. but alas! smart won't get you a house. UFHH wasn't interested in the dream apartment, SFHH has decided to stay put with relative , FFHH found a house and is happy and what about me you ask?

STILL NO HOUSE. godammit!

..and so it goes.

work is cool. lots of benefits. this place is stocked with things that are totally nutritionally wrong for you.

New beginnings

my god! does work sap the creative juices or what?. i feel thoroughly disoriented, for one, there's an over whelming majority of girls in our office. imagine, my plight then, coming from 4 years of mech class. jeez its not easy. brings back haunting memories of the girls' school experience. and then hydie sucks, i'm saying this only because i got thoroughly ripped off over 4 passport photos. but i'm hoping things will change, and no cute guys!!!, darn it, i think i'll push for a transfer to the mumbai office when it comes up!

but my workplace is great, we have a uber cafeteria, and i'm waiting to sneak in there again for a second helping of lemon souffle, but they're having a meeting there. double darn it!!!. still looking for an apartment, but i'm put up in the company guest house which is a villa if you please!. i swear, i won't leave this place without a fight. lots and lots of stuff to do, before i can finally reclaim my bangalore mental equilibrium, i wonder if i'll ever get that ever again. that insouciant life where someone else paid all the bills, where your vocabulary did not include rent, immersion heater,water bill, electric bill and 3 day weekends.

i'd never thought i'd say this, but the word thats in my mind right now is "rich husband"

I'm leaving on a jet plane.

actually more like Sahara..... err bad joke. but its true! i'm leaving Bangalore to a place that has "high" and "bad" in its name and inspite of it, the only thing people have to say about it, is that the biryani there is very good. but what i ask, if you're not into biryani?. then??

so today i went shopping, and i dig most forms of shopping, books, music (very rarely these days, all hail torrents), shoes, oh my shoes is almost a fetish, and handbags, and the "unmentionables", but i abhor, shopping for jeans. yes i hate it. its an ordeal, and it morphs into a tragedy, if you can't walk properly. for the first time in my life, today was not a shopping i looked forward to by a mile.

we landed at central, and i with great trepidation made my way to the jeans section. oh right, i forgot to mention why i loathe jeans shopping. ever seen a typical south indian woman? that nice child bearing hips? now see the world is an unforgiving place, we (south indian women(SIW)) my dear folks, are the perfect child rearing machines, ample bosoms, wide hips, slender waists, you get the picture, its like the creator of the universe put in a favour to us SIW to propagate the species and can you say "boo!" to the creator of the universe, can you say, no i'd rather not, can i have normal kate moss type hips please? ofcourse not, and how does the world repay us? by giving us horrendously ill fitting jeans. 28-30-32-34... bitches this isn't an even progression, its waist sizes for heaven's sakes!!. ever hear of midsizes?

well anyway, i'd rant if i hadn't found perfectly fitting jeans on my 14th attempt. yes i did!!! and i heard bells ringing, and the hills came alive and the lark tripped on the brook, the works.

my beloved SIW, its called lycra, embrace it.

* folks out there, i'm moving to a new city for the first time ever, so any tips/advice on moving, finding apartment, things to take etc will be most welcome.thanks.

Scaramouche,scaramouche will you do the fandango?

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening......

i'm sorry, i absolutely dote on the bohemian rhapsody, its one of my favourite songs to lip-synch. and i lurrve to lip-synch. i can't sing, no siree. simply can't, but hell i can lip-synch! and i look so cool, if i do say so myself. i realised i can't sing when my mom used to record our (bro & mine) recitations of nursery rhymes and play it out to visitors who came home. that was a maternal subliminal hint i caught on to rather early. but i wanted to sing like a popstar, i wanted to look cool and my world to look like an amy grant video, (hopeless, i know!!) so it wasn't long before i substituted the remote for a microphone and started lip-synching. a compromise i'm very happy with. with time, the remote gave way to the hair brush, this happened when i got my very own tape player in my very own room. too cool. sooo much room for antics. and this week there has been a progression in my lip-synching career. i've got a new microphone substitute. My tripod walking stick!!!

well, admiteddly, i wasn't very thrilled when the doc prescribed a tripod walking stick (knee surgery remember?) for me, like hullo i'm 21!!!, but the depression soon gave away to thrilling optimism, when i discovered its hidden raison d'etre. it looks exactly like a microphone stand. the handle looks like a microphone, and its long and slender and stable, dude!! now i can rock lip-synch!!!. i can do, what eddie vedder and axel rose do to their mics. i can twirl it around and totally put up a convincing rock act. and if i only had a high stool, i'm sure i can even do a unplugged version of "the man who sold the world".

yeah i'm thrilled, but mark, i'm very aware that i'm pretending to be a rockstar, unlike these guys. shame on you INXS for desecrating michael's memory.

Edit : humongous hugs to vaish for this.