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!