Hey kids, do you like Violence?

Woman Buying Bindis (above) and Pail of Water (below)






Humayuns Tomb, the ever eternal




Isa Khan's Tomb








Little low on the blog posts right now, just been sporadic notebook entries ("Remember what happened today." which makes me go ??!!), it has been awesome, awesome weather and I even love driving again; with the window down and my own music and an endless supply of chewing gum in the car.

Above are a couple of photos, I lust to know what you think.

Paper Planes

Hello children, as I type this I stare out into a vast expanse of poppy fields with the sun blazing a goodbye in the twilight sky. Nah, it's just a park, a very staid one that one. We have been shifting, shifting, moving, moving, again, again, oh so overrated. this is new place is a bunch of apartment blocks, and I is on the sixth floor. The house is much, smaller than the earlier one but it's closer to my grandparents and now as I'm having chicken sandwiches and cake (the leftovers of Nani's kitty) I think it is absolutely in the affirmative worth the move.

So I have been very nirvana and zen like without the internet for almost a week. It felt quite good actually. First couple of days I was completely knocked out with moving boxes around, and for the rest I even opened my course books - miracles never cease! I feel most accomplished with my adam skills though, because with the the phone, I changed subcription and mailing adresses, got the worldspace and internet guy over and basically did all the chasing and running around by.my.self. - but let me tell you wifi is so overrated, and it eats into your speed; it's not that you get the same speed on all the computers, it's the total split up between the comps - gah! and since I still have a desktop it makes no difference to me whatsoever, except maybe the connection is slower on the whole.

Also, I have to tell you about a very momentous discovery in my life called tandoori moms - ohhohoho, why have a momo when you can have a tandoori momo? It's freaking brilliant dude! They serve it with green chutney and it looks like chicken tikka - but it's not! it's a momo that's been put in th tandoor and has that fake red colour thing on it, and it tastes like both - only better! (tpp many exclamations but forgive) Place is QDs, tacky, cheap, very Kamla Nagar - try it, you MUST.

More later. Have SO many blog drafts.

I was gonna take pictures and show you my room..if I could just find the damn camera now..

Excuse me, I need to see a man about a horse.

Boys and the girls, ladies and my gentleman, I’ve been trying to cut the chord since october, wanting to shut down this little corner of the internet down, sayonara blog buddies etc. I want to withdraw the pieces of my life from the world. Do you get those feelings too? I want to delete my facebook account, and my email id, I want to fall out of touch with people. I don't give a fuck how many pictures you can take holding the camera out with your arm, it doesn’t make me jealous, or envious, I just. don't care, and I don't want it to be an option, I want out. I hate people knowing things about me. But me? I want to know everything about them. I ask the most personal, the most intrusive questions, I want to know everything that's not my business. Point in case, when I know two people are dating, I go read their wall-to-wall.

Since I can't think of much to write in way of a blog post, going to give you some of the what’s spinning right now type of things -

I have a new obsession, a very bourgeoisie one, of cans. I love them, especially the thumbs up, nescafe and other weird juice ones, which have Air/Water listed as one of their ingredients. And straws. Constant sippage.

I is listening to When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold - Atmosphere, I is rock as true as the rock rolls, but experimenting none the less, little by little, on recommendations mostly. We are moving house again, and yet again my dusty cassette collection has no home, being shuffled from my car to the store room, and I decided today that I’m never going to give it up. Too many teenage type memories. I gave away all my MAD magazines the last time we moved and that shite didn't go down with me. It really depends on what you want in your home, and maybe flimsy black reel is my vinyl.

Been watching Californication. First I loved it, then I hated it - because

• it was nowhere as smart as they made it out to be,
• way to many titties on display,
• increasingly fanciful, ladies just present themselves to Hank boy and he never seeks any of em out
• and making writing out to be so glamourous and shite, all bullshit

It is misogynistic, and the fact that David Duchonvy is in therapy for Sex Addiction makes all the very graphic sex on the show seem a bit more perverse than it would normally, and the jokes are on the women, like entourage (which is unwatchable now) and no man who calls himself a gentleman is one, that should give you a clue but the cast is way too damn good, and they have some insane dialogue inbetween that rockstar fluff.

I love how they talk, like add 'the' before everyone’s name, and ‘itude’ where it doesn't belong..


Anywho, I'm enjoying my post exam couple of days of freedom, though I'm doing pretty much the same shite.

Reading On Beauty - Zadie Smith, long long time coming..and I was honestly surprised by the beginning, was expecting something much much more. Just 100 pages in though, and the author picture is soo hauntingly beautiful and sad and v neck black top with collar bones, what’s not to love? Don't stay tuned, I never follow up.

And now I is off to watch that Benjamin Button bonanza, please go watch Slumdog in a theatre and FORM YOUR OWN OPINION. That will help you get through the fucking press machine flipping out and as always totally losing it’s head.

Word,
That's all for tonight.

Stars Hollow Blues

Hello world,

Today is cold day - I decided to not wake up and go to college, an excellent idea as these always turn out to be inspite of the fact that I'd be missing double lectures bla bla - there's also the little thing called winter dressing, see when you leave your home early in the morning it's all cold and windy and you want to wear everything possible; then in the metro, which is centrally heated (and crowded) it gets warm and your sweater begins pricking your back, but by the time you reach university its cold again, and the rickshaw ride is freezing. As the day wears on it gets warmer till you have to take off atleast one layer and once your home, it's cold again but one can wear any old thing. So basically it's a lot of planning and today I wans't upto it, you know I'm kidding when I say things like this right?

So I've been reading Everything is Illuminated, which is interesting to say the least, and writing technique wise brilliant, but even though I'm reading it, not really enjoying it, especially since this guy's a prodigy and every single critic says he's not overrated. I liked his second book better, which moved me tremendously.

Also read Breakfast at Tiffany's which by the waw I had no idea was a novella by Truman Capote, yes of Capote the movie fame. Now that was a fun book, oddly suspenseful, and she (Holly Golightly, the belle of NY) mentions, that Nehru is her type of man. (!!!)

Felt like making brownies today, and went all enthu and all to pull out the cocoa and brown sugar etc, but there was noMaida, which was fine because to be homnest I didn't really feel like baking, I just missed it.

Instead I am eating parle g biscuits which are as good.

More later, ponchos aren't condusive to typing.

Like the drummer in Spinal Tap

Jeez, it has only been, well 9 days, and not to mention I is a full time student and do-nothinger, and blogging can really get in the way of that. (HAHAHA)

Let's see major development in my life; I am slowly weaning off my two mugs of bournvita a day. See pehle, there was simply no point waking up in the morning if I didn't have the milk, because well, it awakens one, just like a bath..and usually I'd have an afternoon nap and then I'd need milk again the evening to wake me up. For those time periods when we were shifting and between houses and there was no one to dutifully give me my milk, I had to make it myself, but somehow, it would always turn out terrible with fat spots dancing in it in quite a disgusting way. I haven't always had this love affair with my milk, believe me. Plenty of plants have flourished because of the wonderful calcium supplements that were surreptiously poured into it. These days ofcourse Buddy benefits. Anyway I have started having either coffee or tea in the evning, and it is helping me tremondously in the sense that I seem to be less sleepy. (ofcourse this is not including the two cups of chai in college, whole different story)

My internet speed, which would be a good graph of my happiness index, have returned to normal. This has left me with mixed feelings as there are no more 300kbps freak streaks with movies (in the plural) getting downloaded within hours. Blissful times they were, yet they could just as quickly slow down to a crawl, and I would sit despondently wacthing it go from 0.2, 0.3, 5.6! 3.2, 2.1 (oh come on buck up) 0.3, 0.1, your movie will take 5 years now, meh.

So I is having to go furniture shopping now for bedside tables. My sister and me have been at each others throats because apparently the light doesn't let her sleep at night and we have rediscovered an ingenious thing called the bedside lamp, so bedside tables first. Ofcourse since this was MY problem I have to go pick them and cart them over..makes perfect sense.

One delightful thing that I found in the Duty Shop were 200 packs of doublemint and I have been making a strand of its wrappers while watching movies. Remember Sandra Bullock in the drug rehab movie, 28 days? Just like that yea, and it is MOST fun, it flips out prettily in my hand. However, my urge to interwine the wrappers is faster than my desire to chew gum (more of a polo person) so there are a lot of inner silvery wrapper, shady looking strips lying around..

and now you wonder why you ask for a blog post.

Little Boxes on the Hillside

Sometimes it is possible to have a perfect half an hour. Let's begin with last thursday, so I wake up in the morning and there's a message from Kasha saying that oh, by the way, V is going to be in college today which made me smile instantly and I got ready singing and was generally cheerful - the singing at traffic lights kind. The thing is that even if it's all over on your side, seeing a person again and just chatting was fun and I REALLY didn't want to leave and go back but everyone was busy with some official sounding thing they had to, so with much reluctance I did. Random guy asks for a lift and on the way back he fiddles with my ipod and becomes DJ in the car. See, music is just a preference, you don't become cool or not because of what you listen to. And if someone likes the same stuff then it's a oh - universe conspiring kinda moment. There were a lot of ohmygod I can't believe you have this song, and oh I LOVE this one..and that's it, it doesn't have to be anything more (between you and him). It can if you want it to ofcourse, but I dunno, indie is really not my thing, Arcade Fire, DCC, Postal Service etc all ok, but in small doses..like I could never listen to a Damein Rice album. Delicate itself is pushing it.

Friday I said bye thee well to Eco Madonna who's off to U Chicago. He's the only person who I know in real life who actually reads this junk blog and gets back to me and that's sweet and he's promised to blog more, so I'm gonna hound him. (if you're reading this Roghan, hope you've landed fine and things are good!)

Weekend had Kasha (unexpectedly) spending the night. I knew like 2 hours before she actually landed up and it was much fun. Cheered me up a huge deal, as in lookie people I have a friend, and that's a big deal for me, cause I've mostly been a fence sitter as far as the whole have-a-bunch-of-friends thing goes.

Sunday for the first time in my adult(haha) life I had a nice chat with my Mum, it wasn't related to the future or what I should focus on etc etc. I was actually telling her about books I like and what kind I like and which people I like and how I talk to them about different things etc etc...and after a while she gets this vacant expression and I said, 'Am I boring you?' and she said 'No, you're surprising me.'

Monday I acted like a ladila lady who lunches. Woke up 12ish and met up with Fly. We had awesome cheap food though it felt strangely like a date, because I picked her up from college, we went, ate, and I dropped her back and we sat in the car talking for awhile. She gives the best answers to watsup...she looks thoughtfully into the distance with finger on chin and says..hang on wait, something must've happened, wait it'll come to me. (heehee - not funny? no? sorry)

THen, I fretted over a test whihc I studies for. I swear to god tests bring out the absolute worst in me, I really don't minbd studying but as soon as there's a test looming in the future I switch off and that fucking sucks because I end up bombing them. Season finale of weeds, Quinn is back - killer episode.

And today, for a change we hung out in my side of town which is oddly reassuring, and it's a market I've been tens and thousands of times before with Mum and Dad but with phrands we ate at this place I didn't even know existed, and had perfectly yummy Mughalai (not Panju) cheap food. Jeez priorities I tell you..

Argh, this whole post has been about recounting stuff I've been doing and if you made it through the snore fest, the lack of proper posts in blamed on the rain.

Whatever Sam Beam is mumbling

The thing is, I'm in a very whatever~Brandi Carlile(Fall Apart Again)~Iron and Wine(The Trapeze Swinger) mood. No no don't get alarmed just yet, this is what happens when you schedule every hour of your life and everything's on track - you're studying, swimming, reading, watching the US Open(yaay) etc. and then one afternoon you oversleep and your body doesn't feel like yours anymore - it's being tired and moody and doesn't want to work, so you say ok, just waste your time on the internet instead.

Have several half written blogposts lying in drafts, but just not been upto it, it's a moon thing yea?

Bookwise, finished My Secret History by Paul Theroux(did I mention this before?) which was so wonderfully good and made writing seem so easy that I'm thinking about it more and more somehow. His whole life has been to take the next train out, travel, sleep with women and write about it. That's the dream and it IS that easy. People might think I'm all focused and stuff, but anyone who REALLY knows me, knows that it's simply not true...and it's mostly a good thing.

Also (finally) reading Midnights Children which is till now everything it's het up to be. Since it's the only book he wrote without being super famous, the tone and language is much less silvery/flowery and more conversational. It's so cleverly ironic in bits, not a laugh out loud kinda thing, more like smirking through entire passages. Does this happen to you too that if you're reading a book and sorta doze off after it, your dreams end up being about the characters, and somehow the story continues in this weird way in your head and you wake up and feel - Oh, that was strange and can't read for awhile because so much has happened in your dream? I've written so many Estha-Rahel stories this way, it's not funny.

Also went to Majnu Ka Tilla today, an impromptu thing with Kasha and two people I dearly like. Omg, the beef and pork they put away was a bit scary. But you know I felt I was in a hill station, minus the heat ofcourse. It was all enclosed and on undulating (dulating?) land with those Mcleodganj bead bracelet type things, and usually Tibetans have the best albeit over priced silver and they NEVER bargain, but this time they totally did and while I bought earrings I really shouldn't have(but you can never be too rich or too thin or have too many earrings right?) The guys happily played the male role and rolled their eyes and said hurry up, you have five minutes then we're leaving bla bla bla. It's fun to do real time things once in awhile.

Pink carnation and a pickup truck

I like the concept of a notice board. How its sometimes empty, sometimes full and its like a continuous tide of things that happened and will happen and more than anything it’s full of possibility. One stray notice - it can change your whole life. A battered poster, peeking behind a fancy glossy one - someone somewhere thought enough to put it up knowing that someone like you would read it go wherever it was asking you to. It’s a testimony to life almost that things happen and keep happening, and there’s always that option available to you.

It was at one of these poorly attended college things, a dingy room with faux wood furniture and static microphones. He was sitting at the back while she had plonked her bag around the middle spread-eagled over two chairs. After they’re done with the event, they pass a paper around you know, “give us your name and contact number, we’ll get in touch with you if any more such events happen, etc.” He kept his eyes on the piece of torn out register paper as it was passed down from her to him and when it was his turn he quietly saved her name and number on his phone.

It was a maybe, and intuition, nothing more.

And a couple of months later after they’d seen each other here and there, established a common friend and talked a bit; it was time to exchange numbers she asked him for his and gave him a missed call so that he could store her number. When her name flashed on his old nokia 3210 screen, he made a split second decision and told her. She just smiled and turned away.

Pocket full of Sunshine

There are some people who you know, always keep their phone with them and will reply to a message within five minutes, like Kasha; so apart from being my phraand she's also my message buddy.

There are some people who you know check their mail everyday or maybe twice a day and will reply to an email within hours, like Fly, so she's my msn/gmail buddy, apart from being my BFF(private joke.)

Then there are people who read your message but take ages, maybe days to reply; who will let your call ring and ring and then say oh, my phone was flung across the room, etc etc - like me. I'm sick of making excuses and lying and avoiding calls. Guess there are some people who don't always pick up our calls and we have the upper hand with some people who'll call and we can decide not to pick up. Or something...

Anyway, I had a good day today, inspite of 3 traffic jams, THREE. Had a nice long chat with my grandparents and it was one of those days when they were talking about themselves as young people which is always wonderful to hear. Plus I had a full inbox and emails for all over, which made me smiley AND most importabtly, inspite of my dismal overall result, the marksheet which I received today says that indeed I have got 36 out of 38 in the ONE paper I studied for so I'm feeling mighty pleased with myself. (heehee, kaha se kaha)

Also, other stuff which I've been trying to get out of, is sorting itself now, and I can just relax and do my own thing and be with people I actually like and make PLANS, which I'd almost forgotten how to do.

On the movie front, I have been watching almost 2 a day, most recently saw My left Foot, The Prestige, Y Tu Mama Tambein (absolutely lovely even without the several nude scenes), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Son of Rambow (the humour of which I totally did not get) and several others.

Besides a threatening to rain, slightly breezy day, nice :) All is right with the world.

The Upside of Wet Jeans

because the most you can expect from perfection is a moment.

pebbleriver.

light even on the cloudiest day.

windscreentrees.

rounding up with my signature shot, the feet. :)

It's who we are

I realise now, the value of liking someone. I used to notice the littlest things about him, which maybe had a lot to do with him in particular and not with having a crush in general.

I liked the way his phone was always on vibrate, just like mine and when he’d get a call, he’d say excuse me, I need to take this, and he’d talk and I’d wander off but he’d come back smiling to find me. How long his fingers are as he messages, how he laughs out when he gets a funny SMS. In a picture of him with his girlfriend, I noticed his phone on a table beside him and I grinned widely; a private joke between me and the universe if you will. I liked a lot more about him, his smile that breaks out of nowhere and the curly hair that would flop on his forehead.

And just like that, all those things recede and he becomes just another person I say a quick, walking 'hi' to. It all goes away, and there was no one to mark, it’s significance in my life or his. There's no one to notice it's over. That the little red flag I was holding has been quietly put away.

Those days have passed, and he may have Great Love in his life, he may not, I may, though unlikely. Some girl might notice the same things, might like his hair, might make him cut it. I feel the weight of the beauty, the moment, that brief time that I captured and siphoned, that I pinned like a butterfly on velvet paper and put away in a box. He becomes just that to me, but if I’d told him, maybe it could have been something for him as well. Maybe he'd remember me, tell our story while he's on his second drink...

But see I never wanted anything more, I love my house, my way of things way too much and I’m constantly haranguing to be left alone by the world, and I never succeed and I’m always glad.

For Shane and Silis.

She sits with her legs crossed in yogic postition, tablets of cannbis in her jeweled box, beaded curtains around her. Horrible sickly incense clouds the red floor lamps and loud strains of Metallica float around, I bow, almost kneel as I enter.

"Blog Goddess?" I timidly beseech.

"I've been expecting you," her voice quietly booms.

"Err, umm.., it's just that I've come to collect my blogpost, there seems to be a problem, but I have been waiting and waiting for some kind of update to materialise and so far I have received nothing."

She stares into the distance passively, "Let's start with the most mundane, what did you do with your puny existence today?"

"Saw Hancock and went for a swim. Should I blog about the empty theatre and how these bloody popcorn movies are insulting us, squeezing our brain cells untill they're mere single cells."

"Who wants to know about that bugger, its not like you made a movie did you? You think anyone gives a shit about the one line you write about some one movie which everyone has already seen."

"Possibly, but there was this girl at the pool whom I totally recognised as a junior from my school but while I was busy avoiding her and averting my eyes elsewhere, she approched me and said Are you el and did you go to S. School? and I said yaaaa..really slowly, and she's like oh I'm so and so and I was like get out, no way, even though I knew exactly who she was I pretended to be surprised and oh, I never realised."

"And I care because?.."

"Blogs are so fucking one dimensional you know, text-image-links. Maybe I'll recycle some old pictures, pass em off as new. "

"Oh no you didn't. Blog about blogging, and then you come in my house and insult me?"

Sorry?

Maybe you could write about your college which has reclaimed it's sweaty time consuming place in your life.

Two words, no V.

You're kidding right? Are you honestly that delusional? You didn't even know him till a while back and suddenly everything's seen in context to him. So, same motherfuckers walking the corridors?

Check.

Still clueless about the future?

Check.

Allright then, you, have nothing to say, I'm bumping you off.

No, no, how about the yummilicious momos I'm eating right now, hot hot hot steamed chicken, with red chilli sauce that is all chilli and no sauce.

Girl I've got tablets, I mean huge tablets of this stuff and you're talking to me about food? One last shot, what song you listening to?

Harry and the Potters - Stick it to Dolores

Get the fuck out of my office.

Steady Hands Take The Wheel

It was my market than our market. I like how some things that were mine, we now share, including friends. Baristas and neighbourhood store owners who earlier recognised me, not recognise him as well. Even the guy who checks the air in the tyres at the petrol pump.

We drive by that market, everyday now, becasue to get to any arterial place really, crossing that choked road is the only way out.

There’s a dressed up crowd that hangs around the pubs and outside the theatre. Girls with their hair in sheets below their shoulders, with outfits to match their bags, who wear pin pointy boots no matter what the season. Guys wearing those t-shirts you get, you know? the ones that have a skin coloured extension of cloth under the noraml t-shirt to give the impression that the entire arm is tattooed? Flashing 10 rupee diamond studs in their ears and caked hair on their head.

Further back, beneath the tree and the circular cemented area, next to the cigarette stalls where I go to get polo, is a different sort of crowd. The girls have backpacks and is it just me or is their hair curlier? Tied up carelessly or the tangles let loose, glinting nose pins, dangling silver earrings, wearing washed out cotton kurtas, or maybe a black band t-shirt with a matching belt. They chat placidly, smoke comfortably and laugh occasionally.

Me, I don’t dress up, am a books and chai kinda girl, sure I’d love a bar with loud music as much as the next person, but tis just not my thing...yet. I will have shots and give in and dance to Usher and wear a Penny Lane faux-fur coat with a hoodie and pub hop. Someday, those times will come for me.

What a granny, he says, but he’s not much better.

At the front of the market, near the car park, boys and girls get out of big cars, their school bags stuffed with their uniforms and they're so self conscious of their outfit; it's not fair, to make them choose that one t-shirt that represents them the most, to wear on the day their exams get over and they hangout.

And African men, lots and lots of young African men, are they sons of diplomats then or sons of housekeepers? Does it matter? Which countries are they from, I wonder as I lock eyes with every one of them, Mozambique?(Maputo, my brain automatically says) Somalia? (Mogadishu) Niger?( Niamey) Guinea Bissau or The Guinea? Mali or Mauritania or indeed Malawi? Congo or the Democratic Republic of Congo? The Gold Coast or the Ivory Coast? Zambia or Zaire, now the infamous Central African Republic. Tunisisa or Tanzania? Maybe Morocco, though I doubt it.

I’m sure I’ll have tonnes of things to say to them, if we get past the accent, that mammoth effort of a simple smile and hello. It doesn't matter that we're on the same sidewalk, because their continent travels with them. That's the size of the distance between us.

The odds that one of them has just finished reading Franny and Zooey like I have, and listed down the family tree – Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, the twins (Walt and Waker), Zachary (Zooey) and Franny in their notebooks..How high is that possibility?

We shall never know, because we can cross each other several times, but I'm just driving past, sitting passenger to steady hands on the wheel.

Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are

Dear V,


Because I have been watching badly made, pseudo-gothic Japanese movies with End of the World scenarios and male leads I can't tell apart; as gorillas spew out chomped human guts and people all over plan what they'll do on their last day on earth, I think of you.

Because I'm reading the greatest war novel of all time and Erich Maria Remarque writes, "Franz is dying and what if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him." I think of you.

Because all I really have is ardor, its my only ammunition, my only protection. You keep me company up and down on that wretched train even though you're somewhere else.

Because you are my fantasy, my best case scenario, my triumph if you will, therefore I can only love you when I can't have you. For the rest of the world, I have other toys lined up.

Because you say, you like music without lyrics, but Chris and Eddie could wake me up from the dead. Even then, unwittingly, music which has been mine and mine alone, now reminds me of you.

Becasue it was always about me, and it didn't matter where you were, and that's why I can decide it's over. Because, these things aren't tangible and that's why they'll count as currency. It'll find you someday, all these things that went on in my head because of you, and maybe for a little while when you're down, it'll cheer you up, make you smile. And for that brief time, I would have finally found a place in your life.

~

Dear El,
I wish you'd shut the fuck up. And I really wish you'd stop writing for the sake of it, for trying to make yourself feel something just because you've read maybe 10 books more than the others. There's no need to be so smug about it. To be so antisocial. You've milked whatever we had to death and I really think it's time you moved on and accepted that you're bored and alone and verging on boring.
Find your own life please and stop trying to channel some of mine. I don't need your obsessive wheedling, it's not nice you know.
V.
ps - and stop memorising everything I say.

catch me if you can

Tag!

I am: his girl friday.

I think: thunk a lot as a kid, now I let it flow.

I know: the capital of every country, go on, ask me..

I want: a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. (~cause I'm a creep~)

I have: it pretty darn good.

I wish: something could have happened with V.

I hate: asshole drivers.

I miss: Bangalore and Meso

I smell: David Beckham Instinct, lol, Buddy and me share it.

I crave: Crackle, yea no fancy phoren chocolates, Dairy Milk does it for me.

I search: wiki since it's the new google.

I wonder: where these dreams go, when the world got in my way.

I love: good days when everything works out and all is well in el land.

I care: about my numbskull of a sister.

I ache: on days like today, for those friends I could've had, the train rides I didn't have, that white sari I didn't wear for Val and those photos I didn't pose for with him..

I am not: the kind to hold a grudge, unless you're my 10th standard history teacher.

I believe: when I fall in love, it'll be forever (damn Stevie Wonder, the song things become a reflex)

I dance: to Joan Jett and Dillagi kudi Gujrat di

I sing: in the car when I'm feeling good, Teenage Dirtbag(first love dies hard)

I cry: hardly ever.

I don't always: talk to mum and dad as much as I should.

I write: hehe, really?

I win: some

I lose: most

I always: reach late.

I listen: always, always, am eavesdropperviking but fucking hate radio ads.

I can usually be found: in the dingy seminar room in college watching subtitled films which I don't even like while Dinesh the peon sits behind, waiting to lock up.

I am happy about: not today hon, not today. ok maybe about blogging in general.

I imagine: there's no heaven, no hell below. and you-OUHHoooo may say I'm a dreamer~

I tag: amdp, Zaphod(if not already since he's quite the ma-uh-n), Arjun and roghan.

Riders in the storm, into this house we're born

~Gah, everyone is going on and on about their stupid internships but I'd decided to not do any of those. I mean aren't summer holidays supposed to be Riverdale-esque, with endless days of swimming and cold coffee or American Pie like with the partying and summer romances/getting laid-ness? When did this internship tamasha start? Especially if it's not going to help, you know Underemployment right? When 5 farmers can till the field but 7 are employed - that's exactly what internships are - either you have a big fancy contact somewhere and sit around in an AC office or you do some random type work with CSS or something. So got selected for 'Agenda for Survival', a course by CSE but chickened out, not sure why exactly, probaby am just plain lazy.

Anyway, got a little freaked because I'm indecisive and get convinced easily, and I'm starting something tomorrow, more on that later.

~Right, I'm not a rider, I'm a driver - my sister is but what with ferrying her up and down to the club, I sorta learnt as well and let me tell you I do a mean trot, ofcourse on some days the horse will refuse to move. My horse is Viktor (which is probably Victor as in the one that is victorious but I always think Viktor Krum) Anyway yesterday I just didn't feel like and we reached early, so like a true blue driver I took out the yellow kapda and started wiping the windsceen and windows, and then I opened the bonnet and fiddled around. And then, the driver in the Innova next to me took out his yellow kapda and we were polishing our cars together! Would have offered him a beedi and gone on to sit and play cards with him if I hadn't been summoned by the instructor and forced into riding, twas a good ride though.

But their names I tell you - Machinegun, Junglebaby, Topgun, Patience, Dollar, Ceasar, Leader and the Indian divas - Sundari, Usha, Nirmala, Meenakshi, Kajol, Anarkali...What would I name my horse? Zeus maybe, and my twin sons Alexander and Xerxes. You?

I remember vaguely going for horse racing in Turf Club Pune, sitting in those fantastic lawns with white picket fences and betting on horses called Desire and Destiny and fancy stuff like that.

But the ultimate relic of colonialism is in The Jorhat Gymkhana, betting there is like serious business. There's hordes and hordes of people who come for this annual gala - first the horses are kept in a ring and you inspect them and choose your which one you want to bet on, then go to the counter and put your money where your mouth is(just 10 rupeess for me.) The 'horses' are really ponies and the riders were barefoot in shorts. After every race there's a prize distribution and the owner is supposed to come collect the trophy and pose for a photograph. The Maaliks all wear dhotis and go to collect their prize in all seriousness and giggle but look staight ahead for the picture. Ofcourse the genteel society(mainly planters, no one famous sadly) come in hats and sat in the deck on top and have snacks and drinks. Much fun.

See riding is win-win, ek toh it's outside, and it's with animals and you know what they say, if you haven't loved an animal or had a garden, there's a part of you lying dormant that you'll never know. [/sermon]

Don't let the days go by, glycerine

We went to Mocha on tuesday, Kasha's birthday treat but more importantly it's a Young People thing to do and that's why we as young people faithfully went and 'chilled at Mocha'. It's full of people like us who have hours and hours to kill on any given weekday, twas much fun. Today is Dino's birthday and everyone's majorly excited about the par-tay, infact most of them put off going home by a week to stay back for this.

You know what I'm really glad about? (or glad for? where's that wren and martin) When you have just a couple of minutes to spare and you're hanging around, waiting in a crowded place and you want to dial a number and just talk for that little while? Well I have a number to dial, two in fact and I really do have friends who know me, who know know me and will call 50 times a day to talk if we feel like. It wasn't always like this, I went through a very long phase and having polite friends who I didn't get and who had no idea who I was and thats' more trying than anything, then nothing's better than something. So I'm glad.

The Meso has landed today.

The last time Meso (cuz sis) was here we went on this grand family holiday to Jim Corbett becasue shocker of all shockers none of us had been there yet. The park itself was a terrific disappointment almost like Sariska with only peacocks and deers, just a more puffed up version of the DGC or Subroto Park(haha) but the government type guest house cottage thing we stayed at had a lovely view of the lake and was simply delightful.

So many bloggers talk about the shaadi attack they get, and I sit back and chortle as my sis gets it. Her dad says, don't worry, yeh khud munda chun ke layegi what do we have to do? I know who she's got in mind. Her mum goes, she has NO ONE in mind very emphatically and vehemently as if that closes the matter. Though Meso says she can't marry someone who doesn't love Pearl Jam. Fair enough.

If you've ever watched a single episode of Sex and the City or read any American chick lit book, the ultimate cliche is "Marry an Investment banker" no? Bag yourself the big gun which is hilarious and now Meso's the hotshot, so it's like haha, tables turned and it makes me fiercely proud somehow.

I'd heard so much of IIM but when I went there to meet Meso it was just so different. Their rooms are tiny and it really is very hot. The first person I was introduced to was this guy from Tamil Nadu with this long long surname like Tiruchillapalli or something. He was quiet and dark with specs and smiled a lot. He was stoned throughout and because all the parents were descending the next day for their graduation ceremony or whatever, he was trying to sell the weed he had left, I swear, we'd cross people in those lovely brick corridor things they have and through some weird code he'd ask them if they wanted it and they'd say yes and he'd say ok meet me later. O then there was this bengali guy and they all have these wack nicknames like tiru and patpat and what not, didn't know who was who, but he smoked steadily with this small pringle box as his ashtray. One guy would come in and recall some incident that happened the night before, some dude who'd done something stupid with fair annise? or some hair removing thing and they'd all laugh, not just polite hahacoughhaha but big fat loud guffaws. Some other guy would come in and would say the same thing, heard about sattu? there's no hair on his head man or some such and they'd all start off again. It was so much cooler than I expected, they really were normal folks and not evil maths geniuses about to take over the world.

Maybe they were both.

Free Falling

Ah Exams over!

You would think this feeling gets old, but it doesn't, not a snowballs shot in hell, it's priceless this excitement over the empty empty summer months stretching ahead, full so full of watermelons and cool cooler air wafting from under the front door and swimming and the pitcher of nimbupani permanently in the fridge. The day before I was so nervous, I thought my brain would burst and while studying I kept thinking of what I'd do after they got over, so as a guilty, the world will equal things out way I expected the paper would go horribly which it didn't.

It went ok.

After that we went to Khan for the usual hogging, ate like deprived kids who'd just finished with their exams! and behaved most rowdily at the five eating places we stopped at. (Big Chill, duh, Barista, CCD, Market Cafe and because I'm not that kind of a person, Cafe Turtle).

Anywho, after all the eating, when I was turning out of the market this Innova comes rushing from the left and dang, I hear a noise and I look to see my rearview mirror hanging by this springy wire type thing! To be fair, I was in the right lane when this car sped by on the right and sort of pushed me onto the left lane so maybe, partially, I'll admit it was my fault, a teeny bit BUT becasue he was going so fast his car got hit bad. I barely registered what happened, and you know "On Delhi roads these bumps keep happening", so I keept driving but then he honked and waved and pointed and stopped and all that.

Me: Sitting in the car, honest to God not nervous, deciding to be a girl and be all sorry uncle galti ho gayee (this was because when I got pulled for overspeeding last month and actually shelled out nine hundred freaking bucks, I got laughed at for actually paying up, apparently you're supposed to act like you're going to start crying any moment or give them half the challan or something)

Big massive driver person gets out of big massive innova, examines dent, strides over: Kya kare Madam?

Me: (typing in english because I just cannot do the hindi version) Alternating between the indignant, it's your fault too and the other pushed me onto the left lane and the meek, sorry, let's forget it shall we?

He: I've been driving this car for 12 years and nothing like this has ever happened yada yada.

Me: Really? 12 years? Was the Innova even on the road in 1996?(didn't actually say it, but that's the first thing that came to my mind)

He: Aap batao, Nahin to hum police complaint karenge.

Me: Oh oh oh, I'll file the complaint before you. (or something to that effect)

He(menacing look): Wait karo, and he starts calling people.

Then looks at me(takes me into his confidence), Don't worry, nothing'll happen, the thing is that it's not my car no, if it was it wouldn't be a problem.

Me: As if!

He: Another call and then another.

Me: ho hum. look at the road, check my reflection etc etc.

He: Don't worry. (now, much more reassuringly)

Me: yawn.

He: ok give me your number, it's ok you go.

Ha! Anticlimax or what? Truth is, it could've been worse and he could've been a meanie so I'm not complaining really.

Other than that, you know what I don't like?People who don't reply to mails. I write to my sister often(cuz) and I know she's super busy travelling and working 14 hours a day and all that but still dash me a one line NON GENERAL mail once in awhile, especially when I've dished personal stuff and blabbered on, is a reply to much to expect?

All is forgiven though cause she got me a nice bright super swanky blue ipod which I Luhuhove and is only my lifeline as the train snakes up, up north into the city and winds its way back down, twice a day, everyday.

She's going to be here next weekend though so yaay!