Those dumb punk kids will buy anything

~There is such shelter in each other.

I think you would fit nicely. I can see it now, I can feel it. And I'm looking better than I ever did when I was a teenager.

~Then I sit still and think, really think of New York and I think I understood more about it from Ramin Bahrani's two films - Man Push Cart and Chop Shop than any other source. It's so firmly in our psyche, babies will recognise Jesus and the Empire Sate. I had a huge NY poster up in my room for many years, and looking through facebook albums of lucky folks who've been there there's one thing I certainly DON"T want to do - pose in front of the statue of liberty bla bla..That's why there's no longing anymore, I wonder if there ever was. Because I don't want to go there now, as a student, as I am now. I want to go there as someone successful, someone independent. Who can bum it out and live it up. It's an idea of myself really.

What do I want to do now? Well for starters get my Hard Rock Cafe, Delhi (yea baaby) t-shirt, Beijing and Barcelona better get used to a new favourite. I want to drive down the Malabar coast and up the Coromandel Coast - with thousand bucks in my pocket, a tank full of petrol, bandana, sunscreen and camera. But you can't steal photos, you have to win them over. When you're a stranger in their land, they're looking at you, you can't look at them.

I want to win a ticket to a Wimbledon match, I'll go and come back I swear, won't overstay by one hour even.

I want to live out cliches first before I reject them. I don't want to be around eyes that know me. Even a little bit. I want you to think I've been like this always, and even that is not saying much.

I love men of music and men of science. I love women of theatre, their noserings and smoke blacked purple lips. Their veneer, their lack of inhibition. I love men who pick up their baabies and hold them and look their kids in the eye. Who write computer codes and run the world from college dorms. I love a lady with a hat. That's just too damn ninja.

Just because I'm losing...

Doesn't mean I'm lost.
Doesn't mean I'll stop.

What is it with the blogosphere these past couple of weeks? It seems like one person lost their nerve and so did everyone else simultaneously. It's a chain reaction with blog-blahness, and suddenly things are either too trivial or too huge to put in here. However abandoned readers fear not, for I am back with..err, vengeance?

So the easiest, let's talk about books. Have several to read at the same time, which is no fun but the most memorable one is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's - My Melancholy Whores. It's a nice, small compact book and fits in your hand nicely, besides it's hardcover which is a plus. I can bet you a huge load of cash that Marquez himself kept a diary where he counted the women he slept with. I mean first Florentino and then this guy. Or if he didn't, he thought about it alot.


Anyway, over the past couple of days I've had long long chats with old friends, and you know what they say, all birds come home to roost. Guess we leave bits of our selves scattered in the past that comes a full circle. They recount all their escpades, sexual and boy related, over the past couple of months, like getting sorta drunk and holding hands with Goan boys who jive. And then, after half an hour of them, it's like what about you? Man oh man am I glad I have no news.

Among friends then, there is that reassurance that yes, we have the same life for tomorrow and the day after and the year after that, and I'm really happy about that - someone has your back you know, who'll give your proxy attendence if you're not in class or pick up your fee form when they get theirs, or order two cups of chai without asking. It sure is nice to have a friend.

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.

May Angels Lead You In

Car got towed, which was total bullshit, I went to the COLONY market, which is like 5 feet away from home (yea, yea environmentally treacherous etc) stepped out for 2 minutes and when I came out no little zen standing under tree, had to then go to the police station and pay 200 bucks, no challan, what bull. Also upgraded my RAM - all by myself and was smothered by the dust inside the CPU and, best of all learnt the caribbean capitals, so feeling most gangsta.

Some tennis talk now, skip if you're not into it -

*******************************************************************************

Andys match was such rubbish I tell you, I admit now what they've been saying for years, he was no variety in his shots, he moves really poorly on court and simply has nothing to fall back on except his serve. Plus what drama - baazi he was doing on court just becasue he was winning and a certain girlfriend was watching. Like yelling at himself and making faces when he's 2 games way from victory. Poof.

Go Safin! (yaay fly) People are like oh you support him because he's hot, so not true, that guy is the original and last of the mavericks. Honestly he doesn't care about what's proper, about being scoff, consistent. He can come out of nowhere and win. Incidentally, he's not a very good player when he's winning, he's fantastic when he's losing, him and Baghdatis, watch them play when they're 2 sets down. They get this super human strength and gun for every ball though they've been playing for hours and hours. Good Wimbledon it looks like and don't feel too bad about Novak, he's just starting out in his career and you can't be a number one player unless you've been thrashed by Safin, that's just how it goes.

*******************************************************************************

Right, so if life fails us or we fail life or whatever, we have to have a back up job right, like what would you do to get by and be happy doing?

El presents My List of Alternate Job Options

Driver, no kidding, think I can manage this well, esp. to an old couple, take him for golf, her to the parlour, club, whatever and at night for their parties. Park the car, road gaze, do what I wantfor 20 hours a day.

Setup an Illegal Parking Ticket Thing - Start handing out tickets wherever they're cars parked. Take 10 bucks per car, pay off cops if necessary, get protection from street gangs*(lol) if needed and eventually hire my own parking attendents and make money by advertisemets placed on their uniforms.

Bake - Don't know how successful I'll be because my cookies sure are fine but take forever and a lot of effort to make, and think I might get sick of chocloate by the end of it. Which would de disastrous for my happiness and self confidence but overall better fro my waist. So might have to do a pro con list before take this one on.

Word Whore - something like Florentino, write love letters for people who can't "expess themselves", or maybe be a word-on-hire, be a pimp or sorts, write out personal letters, break up messages, threatening notes, stuff like that.

Door to Door Movie CD Lender(or CD walli in short)- and when I was thinking about this, I became so excited that I might just do it. I already have a considerable database and anyway half the time I'm giving movies to people, so it is totally realistic. You want any? I'm only doing distribution don't ask me about my sources, that's confidential. :D

edit - also maybe teach piano, like at a very rudimentary level, my theory is pretty solid and I can fluff a lot if rich kids prents are wiling to dish.

So got myself covered I think.

This years love had better last

Sometimes you get goosebumps about just being alive, and I want to love you, Nothing Man.~Caught a bolt of lightning, cursed the day he let it go.~ Isn't it something? It is Eddie. How can it not be..

Hmm, exhausted is the word I'm looking for. So much work, so many things to do, usually life is happiest when I'm busy but I haven't got 8 hours of sleep in a row in about a month now. At the risk of sounding like a CPM politburo member, the "honeymoon" period with my blog is definitely over.

Met aforementioned friend, such a riot I tell you, some people are just funny, and I got lots and lots of american frat movies with naked boobies and lewd jokes off him, Superbad(ha-HA-Ha-ha), Oldschool, Van Wilder, Eurotrip, Girl Next Door, Blow...you get the gist.

Yes, Andy is engaged. Joy, normally I'd be happy but do you know how he met her? He saw her picture in a Sports Illustrated isssue and had his agent track her down. What a fucking cliche, its like boning your secretary. Gah. As fly says, it's like he picked her out of a catalogue. I mean imagine the call she must've got, hi, erm, there's this guy, who's sorta famous and a little rich and he wants to be in your pants. Sure, that's my twenties taken care of.

Also have become friends with that new boy at work place, even though he's a kid and all, we're pals now. Ha, dropped him to his hindi class today, these firangis types I tell you. Laughed about superbad stuff, and duh, Celtics won(heehaw) and he was all Lakers, na huh, there time had come, it was going to be Celtics, everyone knew that all along.

Read Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami,) and can definitely see why he's so popular. The story is literally about sheep and you're reading along thinking, man, a whole book about sheep, this should be weird, but it so isn't.

Something I've been meaning to put up here, I can't stress the importance of Zeitgeist enough, seriously folks, go watch it. Tis this really radical left wing documentary type thing, and even if you're skeptical and don't believe everything, STILL, it's stuff that we just have to know, and think about.

For all those who've slow danced to Strangers in the Night

We came out of the movie hall, with the sun making our eyes crinkle and the warmth tingling the air-conditioned goose bumps on our arms. There’s a sleepy contentment that washes over us, as we make our way out in a community shuffle. He has his arm around me as we walk down the sloping parapet, back into the mall.

It’s hot but not too hot. Not unbearable, not muggy and there’s an ever so slight breeze.

We move past the food court into the open air sitting area. We smoke. We chat lazily. He talks about something in the movie which reminded him of something he did as a kid. He goes to get me a gelato, because usually when I see chocolate I want it. He’s being nice but I don’t really feel like it today. We have a spoon or two and watch it melt between us., forming an icky brown mess.

A person from a nearby table comes over, an old friend apparently, he smiles and shakes my hand, I’ve never met him before but he obviously knows about me, whether through him or common friends I don’t know.

It’s early evening, and a different kind of crowd is thronging the mall, less students, more families who’ll end the evening with dinner in this very food court.

I feel like a chilled drink, not a heavy, milky one and definitely not an areated one. The waiter comes over, I ask for seventy rupees worth of ice, water and strawberry flavouring in a tall glass. He brings it fairly quickly. I sip at it.

We talk some more. He’s restless I can make out, because he doesn’t know where he’s going to be this time next month, he’s wrapping his head around the ideas on his tray, and all of them are just ok. None of them involve me. Because I’m still going to be here. I’m happy though, I’m out with him and the impromptu movie turned out to be much better than we expected.

The ice melts and the drink tastes like water that’s been poured into a used juice carton. I abandon drinking it altogether and play around with the straw. We smoke some more. As the sky darkens, he pays the bill and we head to the parking lot.

I give him the keys, because he likes to drive. He’s a careful driver with no cursing and no sudden braking unlike me. We’re quiet most of the way, because the music on is good, he sings a little, I hum, we listen.

We reach his place, he gets out and I scoot over to the drivers seat, he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead and goes inside, I head back home. The music is awful now.

My parents are throwing a big dinner party tonight and I must get ready, wear something ironed and suitable and talk to some horrifically overdressed women and some debonair, aging men who were once young pilots and tell them, how I spend my time. I don’t mind, because we bargain stories, I get to hear about places like Kalaikunda, obscure Airforce bases where these men spent their youth learning to fly Jaguars and MIGs. Now they’re gentlemen of course who talk of their chicken farms on the Jaipur highway and holiday homes in Mashobra.

“I was at Tezpur and your grandfather was doing reconnaissance,” said a suited elderly man in a dull red turban cradling a whiskey soda in his hand, “he’d come down from Agra and we’d fly down to the China border together and he’d report back the next morning to Agra.” He’d cackle and thump me on the shoulder, carried away by the impishness of it, the merriment of the moment.

He’ll message me soon, to check in, in case I need a lifeboat, how’s the evening going? Should I call?

Fine, I’ll say. Just fine.

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.

Cause I'm the one that jaded you

This is a long, self indulgent type post - so run away now and no one will know.

It all started last night, was watching the frenchie final and then the prize distribution after when people talk on and on, and basically embarrass themselves and put everyone else off to sleep. Reminded me of NS our crazy nut of a music sir in school. See, as the school band (not those shady school bands of south delhi schools but a proper Brass Band with percussion, euphoniums, trombones, trumpets, French horns et all) we had to play for the major functions - valedictory, passing out, sports day etc. and as soon as the principal or chief guest came up to give his speech, NS would say, instruments down, sit back, take a nap and start mock snoring. Was also watching Spelling Bee side by side and all those kids man, 12 and 13 and so brilliant got me thinking of me back then...

Now, NS was mad and a musical genius, and a godfather of sorts, he had the run of the school, no one could say a word to him. He knew everything about every single band member and would get us out of trouble and so high up in the hierarchy were we that no teacher could lay a hand on us, both literally and figuratively. We all had nicknames (mine sniffy, gremlin, iguana, nurse, and malai kofta) but you realise this guy was crazy right, I mean everyone was shite scared of him and if you got on his wrong side, that’s it - he’ll torment you the rest of your school life. Anyway, there was these boys who used to make my life hell, as in I'm sure they never intended too but it used to make me sick in my stomach and not want to come to school. Ofcourse NS got wound of it and would regularly come to class, rough them up a bit and never once acknowledge he did it becasue of me. If you ever read this NS - thank you whatever twisted logic you might have had!

Then, one fine day, a note appeared on Faiz's desk which said -

Dear Faiz,
I love you.
El

What an uproar it caused. Obviously I didn't write it, I was cleared immmediately and Faiz was like no man, 'someone' put it on my desk. Kriti - this bossy pushy type girl who all the boys were scared of and not even really my friend, took it upon herself to solve this case. She inspected and studied the note, the paper and the ink and pronounced that a gel pen was used. She made Faiz take out his pens and lo and behold the gel pen he had been using just in the last period was missing. *gasp* Faiz denied all knowledge so such a pen. So, she went down to the stationery shop and asked the sir there if Faiz had bought a gel pen that morning and it was confirmed that indeed he had. Case solved! Then the confrontation, she pulled me along to the basketball court in the 12:20 lunch break and demanded of Faiz- you wrote it, don't lie, she shrieked, and I just wanted to curl up and disappear.

And there was this other dude Olsen too(Anglo school ya, there was a Ryan, Harry, Steve, Gary, and William in my class alone) who'd follow me around in break..loads of other stuff happened, like these two they had a tug of war match and apparently whoever lost had to back off and some such - stuff I found out only later. Once I got a note, always getting these bleeding notes, that if I didn't meet Olsen at the Lunch Shed after school he'd jump of the builiding. Dramatic I know. Oh yea, I was quite the diva then and could have been in real life too, instead I turned into me. He failed the year though, and I moved school and sorta never saw them again.

And how dare they not be on facebook so that we can keep wary eyes on each other? It's a time bomb ticking, I tell you. If they were to meet me now. Huh, let's not got there.

Talking of blasts from the past, Akash was this dude in my colony and our dads worked together etc. and he took it upon imself to chase me and declare his ahem, feelings publicly - that dude just wouldn't give up. Oh, and he was the first boy who 'asked me out'. Guess what I did? Go tell mummy dearest ofcourse, what should I say to him? Mother's eyes duly popped and gave me the be friends lecture which I relayed to him. Let me give you some background info though -
a. He wore mickey mouse shorts
b. I was listening to nsync those days

Thats's how low we were.

He used to play this computer game Aladdin which was all the rage back then, and apparently when you win all the rounds, you get to kiss Jasmine the Princess and you can name her something. After this episode, he changed Jasmines name from mine to some other girl in his class. Oh the treachery. He kinda stayed that way then, always just out sight, refusing to make eye contact etc. So met him at a Lodi party last year after AGES and he was still wearing funny clothes and kept glancing at me furtively, while I hovered around the bar trying to sneak some vodka into my coke. You might ask readers, why couldn’t I have gone and said something but I spoke to his sister, friends and dad and he would run out of sight. I mean sure I’m not the skinniest person in the world, but atleast I’ve grown up!

The Bioscope Man

Nope, not a song title - tis a book title for a change.

GuesswhatGuesswhatGuesswhat? Generally the other day (Thursday)I was reading the paper, and Indrajit Hazra had reviewed Jack Johnson's new(ish) album and it wasn't a very favourable one. Now I'm not that into the guy(Jack), but as it happens when you have the whole day infront of you and you read the paper first thing in the morning, I got all charged up and wrote him an email.

Now I've been following this guy(Hazra) for years and I always thought he was just so damn cool - and when it came to music, his reviews were actually worth reading. He's funny and wry and also very intelligent. As for his column Red Herring, the tone and languge is totally free falling, I mean you ask anyone about him - they'll be like oh yeah, he's having a ball writing what he wants. Mostly I like his column, occasionally I don't but that's ok. Karan Thapar is aiye aiye aiye - pretentious to the hilt. What with his 'Pertie' and 'Did I start the Rahul Gandhi as PM controversy?' That way Jug Suraiya has no hangups - he's very no-water-in-gurgaon, stray-dogs-folowing-me, Dear ol Bunny etc. etc.

Anyway, he emailed back!!!

Jeez, I was SO excited because you know when you're sitting around and chatting with friends and unexpectedly the conversation goes on to life affirming turf and you talk about really huge stuff like life and what you want and the kind of person you like etc etc - he's exactly the kind of person I would fall for. He was super nice and chatty, replied back the very same day and even recommended a song! AND, he told me his book was out tomorrow(that is yesterday, friday.)

So - so, just because he , himself had told me, I went and bought it - first day first show or something like that. I mean how many times do you get to read a book, that the author himself has told ya to go read it.

As far as the book itself goes, this is going to sound mean, but it's not a bad as I thought it would be. Yes it is very bengali but it's about silent cinema which is pretty specific - so you really need to know what you're talking about. I'm not too far into it right now. He's just laying the ground with the family and pre partition, and taking on an era which already has so much fantastic literature to chronicle it must be a bit unnerving but till now, he's managed quite well.

Also, I like his last acknowledgement - "And everything boils down to Diya. I'm still trying to impress her." Which Diya person?! I thought he was notoriously single? Anyway, that was kinda sweet, and don't see no reason why this lady shouldn't be impressed.

Onto other stuff, I'll be off tomorrow and I'm actually pulling out Jackets and woollens muhahahaha, what was that? 45 degrees in Delhi did you say? I'll maybe write a post from some internet shack in the mountains just for the novelty sake, otherwise I'll see ya all in 1974. Oh we're not on tour with Stillwater? Next week then!

*Hope you never Love in vain and in my heart you'll remain, Forever Young.

Hysteria, when you're near

Hello world, been busy-busy and rather enjoying the flurry of activity amidst the nothingness, Me? I'm happiest when they're lots of things to be done. One of which is something like this. I figure as bloggers you're writers and it's all for fun so you absolutely must check it out and send in an entry just for laughs. Book coupons if ya win! Besides it's just 250 words or less which is less than a blogpost so do send in an entry.

Finished On Chesil Beach and I'm a bit disconcerted to be honest. *disclaimer - spoiler ahead*

I thought it would be painful to read because cmon, two virgins on their wedding night, pretty specific no? It read ok and it's slim so you can finish it in one go but I honestly didn't see the end coming. They, as in the couple, split up and simply don't talk to each other after that night, I mean wtf? I was almost convinced when I read the last page, that yea, maybe doing nothing, not saying something can change your whole life, the entire course of your marriage but, after I'd thought about it for awhile my conviction wore off. It's hard to believe that two people who loved each other all that much never once, in their whole life didn't even try to talk to the other again.

Or maybe I'm missing something here.

By the way, Van is a big fan of Ian McEwan and he loved Atonement(the movie) which I didn't and he didn't like Pride and Prejudice(the movie) which I loved. (Both of them were directed by Joe Wright, very British and ~ladila~)

me:No! how can you not like that movie?
he: oh they butchered the book
have you even read it?
Studied it. (ICSE or some such) You know that part when Darcy first confesses his love to Elizabeth, he says something like I love you. Most ardently.
nod head, uh huh
They ruined it and made it a bollowood filmy sequence in the rain with the clinging clothes and dramabaazi and what not.

Huh, I'd never thought of it that way and I came home, dug out the book, reread that part - and if I was on the edge about him before, I well and truly crossed it then.

Yea I sound dweeby and all but it's my blog shog after all.

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!