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.

Tales from the plains, planes and a little bit from the hills

well, now since i have a lot of time on my hands, beacuse of the injury lay off, the only thing that's keeping me going is arrested development, books and the my pet project, my travel blog. the most delicious feeling in the world is looking at those photographs and reminiscing and reliving the entire experience. more importantly reliving the entire experience when my mobility knew no bounds. sigh. well, heres are some of my notes and observations on travelling through north india. i lost all my notes at the Kashmir airport, as previously mentioned. but i managed to remember a few.

>>>> there are three classes on a plane in india. the business class, the economy class and those with seats near the toilet.

>>>> travel to the north during summer only if you are a sadomasochistic fool.

>>>> Delhi indulges in its tombs.

>>>> why would you travel in a bus called "Panicker"?

>>>> gult crowd fighting with punju bus driver, in hindi, ( over kaput A/C) is the funniest thing ever.

>>>> never support a gult crowd fighting with a punju bus driver, in hindi.

>>>> the aforementioned punju bus driver has the power to put you on another bus (with A/C) when the A/C fails just to spite the aforementioned gult crowd.

>>>> beware of taxidrivers with streaked hair, they might take you for an another ride altogether.

>>>> Bhakra Nangal damn makes your chest swell with patriotic pride, till you read that the Brits initiated the project and us guys only "completed" it.

>>>> where there is water, there are hippies.

>>>> where there are hippies, theres no point shopping.

>>>> don't venture eating israeli food in a place called "Hotel Parampara"

>>>> fields of lavender anyday.

>>>> mountain air these days consists of diesel fumes, smell of roasted bhutta and wails of a petulant two year olds.

>>>> statutory warning that should be present on all touristy snow capped mountains : Beware of Horse shit.

>>>> avoid public hotsprings, unless you're into flabby nude people.

>>>> 15 hour bus journey in treacherous terrain on a bus with no suspension can bring about a spiritual change

>>>> there is a coffe day 4km into the climb to vaishno devi. (???????)

>>>> a 3 sec darshan after a 12 km climb. someone doesn't like you.

>>>> border road organisation rocks!!!!. favourite signs include, "Be gentle on my curves" and
" If you are married to speed, divorce her!".

>>>> what is "100% pure vegetarian" food?.

>>>> kashmir is beautiful, but don't follow an army convoy, chances are, it will get blown up.

>>>> and if it does get blown up, nobody cares.

>>>> kashmiri pulao will make you want to have "100% pure vegetarian" food.

>>>> snow fights are fun!!!!

>>>> they grope you a LOT at kashmir airport and its all legal.

>>>> Sahara is the worst airline, and Kingfisher air serves chocolate mousse.

>>>> if you ever ask a mumbai cop for "Sundance restuarant" chances are he'll point you to a nearby toilet.

>>>> colaba cause way is a riot of colours.

>>>> i love mumbai.

and since pictures speak louder than words, heres my travel blog. i've yet to blog about vaishno devi, kashmir and mumbai. i'll do that soon. and if anybody wants any information about travel in these cities, feel free to contact me.

lonely planet, here i come.

The rain in spain falls mainly in the plain

commiserations to my fellow mumbaikers about the rains. or should that be bombayites?. gujju today, told me that calling a bombayite, a mumbaiker is the ultimate affront. ok i'll compromise, how about mumbaiiytes? (bombayker doesn't cut it, even i know that!!)

My dad who's an out and out bombayite ( i'll bow to gujju's demands, after all, the poor chap waded in squelchy water for 5 hours before reaching home) told me, to my surprise, that the media was sensationalizing the entire issue and that most bombayites were rather enjoying the whole ordeal, secretly atleast. how could they?. how could anyone enjoy wading in knee deep water, that wet miserable feeling under gloomy ominous skies?. i told my dad that it was impossible to be even cheery under the circumstances, so the idea of enjoying it is plain daft. but then he looked at me as if he couldn't understand why it wasn't apparent to me. " its a part of their lives" he said, " it happens every year, and as with most things, they take this in their stride"

i love bombayites. i really do. they are so tough and i feel like a spineless wimp infront of them. they make me feel small and puny and without no guts whatsoever. very very few people make me feel that way, but i'm always overwhelmed by a bombayite in bombay. i call it the local train sassiness. most of them have spent a significant portion of their lives travelling by local train, and i still can't postulate how, but i'm sure there is a correlation between local trains, chaalooness and zero slouch tolerence. everyone i know in mumbai, works so hard, the city brings about such a ferver in one, that its unthinkable to rest even for a second. thats why holidaying in mumbai was a bizarre experience. i got stuck in Dadar station, waiting to rendezvous with my bro, and all around me, people were moving about with a purposeful worker frenzy, as if there was no time to be lost, and the trains zipped by barely stopping for a few seconds, and i felt i had transgressed just by standing there purposeless.

oh, i'm sure, you guys will get through this, you guys are tough bastards. and god bless you for that.