Just had a cup of delicious peach n passion fruit yoghurt and a piece of toast. Feel like a human again.
After a Gorilla’s Fart, Vishal’s Kiss, Mr Mesh, B-52 and three Roses later I had turned into an airy fairy being. Oh how we danced the night away at Mambo’s a after a stopover at Cocktails & Dreams – my favourite bar in Goa. It is right in the heart of Baga, next door to Mambo’s. All those above mentioned cocktails were downed there, one after the other of course in no particular order.
Now let me recommend the Gorilla’s Fart to you. It is a banana drink flambéed to perfection. This is how it was presented to me. Vodka (and some other spirit which I am a bit erm about) poured into a small martini glass with three slivers of banana floating in it. Next the cute waiter comes in the picture. He lights up the drink and while a blue flame hovers over the drink, he makes you slurp it down in a go. The sexy touch is him spooning in the slivers into your mouth.
Now instead of pouting and licking it up and doing the siren act, I was doing the goofy one trying to prevent the slivers from falling apart outside my mouth.
A bit of a recap before I proceed further about the drunken glories of airy fairy being.
A few months before, on one good day, a group of my friends decided that we would be there in Goa for the year end. Surprisingly everybody fell in with the plan. I mean you do know that when there’s a group planning an outing, party or anything really, there’s always the odd one out pleading their way out…
All tickets were booked. Though three of us, C, N and me, first would spend two days in Bombay and take the Volvo to Goa.
Then came the security alert which changed things. Family and friends started warning me over and over again. I thought about it actually even before the alert was set off -- about Goa being one of the prime targets for bastardly buffoons.
What made me determined not to cancel my plan was that otherwise these people would win. In their business of terrorizing. It’s a business after all. Literally, a bloody business.
Ah, I digress.
Things were a bit iffy with my friends. I even got upset with C when she kept telling me about the beach parties being banned. I told her, ‘If you want, you can back out.’ Both of us were miffed with each other post that statement of mine. But hey both of us finally made it.
N had to cancel her ticket cause she says her office cancelled her leave the day we were taking our flight.
On Christmas eve therefore, bleary eyed I set out with our group for Bombay. They took the next flight to Goa while C and I stayed back in Bombay as was our plan. She went with her friend to Andheri and I took off to my former flatmate’s place in Lower Parel. Since E was not in her apartment, not even her hot pant wearing flatmate, I was left on my own. Not that I minded it at all. I am such a loner anyway.
That day I rested, mooched around the apartment, ordered a salad and napped.
Don’t you just love that feeling about being on a holiday?
In the evening, I took the train to Andheri to a college friend’s place in 7 Bungalows. At some point in time, he says the place was supposed to have had just those many bungalows. Hard to imagine what it has given way to. A concrete jungle…Now catching up with college friend was good till he tried some amorous stuff. I put him in his place well. I mean he was this very good friend of a guy I liked a lot in college. I couldn’t have done otherwise.
The night though was spent with a date in Firangi Paani in Andheri itself. He was cute and shy. And also younger (I either seem to be meeting men who are in their late thirties or those in their early twenties of late). But he was mighty chivalrous -- a wonderful change from people I usually meet.
As the night wore on, he lost that shy touch to him too. There were those usual questions about past relationships and things gone awry and what one looks for in a guy. Now the boy was in earnest. He came up with pretty predictable stuff but to give him his due he wasn’t boring. Let’s see where that goes.
At the end of the night in Firangi Paani, I loved the chocolate liqueur and Bailey’s shot we downed. In between I had told him I wanted to wind up the night with chilli ice cream from Bachelor’s on Marine Drive. But I had the feeling that he had forgotten about it. So was kinda disappointed till he bought a bottle of wine for us on the way back to Lower Parel. And then he said, “Hey the ice cream’s left!” I was super happy then.
The chilli ice cream was had. Was it hot! You must try it and tell me if it catches your fancy. It tastes very good – ala that fatty and milky taste. Then it suddenly hits your throat every moment it slips down.
Wasted night. But nice night.
The next day was spent with C and her friend who is a great street shopper. I love street shopping, so she was my favourite person at that moment. Flip flops, pretty sandals, chic flats, nice lingerie and even a summery bed sheet (the previous night I was so drunk I kept a hot pressure cooker full of popcorn on E’s bed sheet and lifted it to find a round black mark on it) – after that lot we sat at this small eatery in Linking Road called Just Around the Corner. The salad bar was commendable. I mean even C, who is a veggie, had a whole lot of options.
I also met an old school friend at the station from where I took a train back home. That was the night we left for Bombay in a Volvo from the Andheri highway.
That was one journey that started out with giggles and more giggles and yet more giggles when a man and his girlfriend –both of whom were dopeheads – got onto the bunk atop us. Hold on…it was not us who were doing the odd girly giggle. It was them.
Oh how they giggled after they had drawn the curtains. It made everyone squirm in their pants. It made us giggle too till it got pissing off.
In the meantime, I was popping peanuts at an alarming rate. I finished a big pack and got onto another one that was jeera flavoured. It was compulsive munching that refused to be given up on even though it was not exactly my favourite flavour. I guess it was the lack of something to do (the lights were too weak to allow me to read, the conductor took it upon himself to get inspired by C playing music on her mobile phone and started playing corny ones on his own, I didn’t feel like plugging in the headphones). So I was hankering for dinner which finally was some omlette at a small dhaba. Yeah sounds exciting right?*grimace*
While sitting at the dhaba we noticed these three guys – attractive but cocky – hanging around. One of them was particularly weird in light of the fact that he kept going to one of the seats in the place and kept sitting, lying down and putting his legs up in the air. Definitely did not look like yoga to me.
In the middle of the night we were suddenly woken up by the sounds of extensive puking. Something tells me to stop poking my head of curtains in Volvos next time. Because this time when I suggested the guy (that same one of the weird postures) to ask around for some anti-nausea pills, it behove that I also agree to his friend asking us to exchange seats. They were right at the back. Which was really uncomfortable and the air conditioning vent was right above our heads. I froze that night. Nonetheless next morning when the guy thanked me, I could not help pointing out to him that he had motion sickness and that he should have carried appropriate pills with him. His reply made me know that he was probably one of those youngsters who have just started working and decided to bloom with their new-found economic independence.
Saturday morning we were in Panjim. And then delivered by friend S, a casino manager in a five star in town, to his apartment in Miramar. It's very nice -- his place that is. Clean and well done up.
Thereafter started our Goa sojourn. Which I think I will write about in my next post. It’s time for a power nap before we hit the beach.
22.12.08
Lusting for moments long gone
I am in the mood to write a long, long post. It must be the contentment that comes from devouring a cheese burst pizza and washing it down (if one can call it that) with a bar of dark hazelnut chocolate. In short, the sins of gluttony that I have not indulged in some time.
Life this month has been nothing short of a dream. It has made me believe in a fairytale all over again. Now before you rush off thinking in terms of a prince charming and all, I must pull you back and beckon elsewhere. Some place where there can only be happiness.
Travelling does always tend to make one so beatifically happy.
This time I found romance. In a teardrop shaped island we all know as Mauritius.
I found it high up in the mountains while literally flying up and down rocky and flat terrains on that fat four wheeler called the quad bike; on the beach watching ice cream trucks playing tinkling music pull up; on the bed of the ocean walking in between coral reefs; through the portholes of a submarine watching marine life pass me by while staring at a ship wreck.
Let me confess though that the romance was dented a little when I was informed on surfacing that it was not some wreck lost decades ago – merely the skeleton of a ship sunk specially for the submarine tours.
My first impression when I landed in the Mauritius airport after a seven-and-a-half hour flight was that I was in a little India. There were Indians all around. I even heard a Bengali twosome chattering away. Since I was a guest of the Mauritian Tourism Board along with three of my co-travellers, we were taken care of by the tourism authority. So right from being escorted through immigration to waiting in the premium lounge while our luggage was being collected, it was a smooth sail.
Before I had started for Mauritius, a friend of mine who had come back black but ecstatic from her time spent there had ranted on and on about it. But I was still not prepared for the beauty of the island to intoxicate me so.
Firstly, sun bathing and swimming is not all that you can do here though you could easily spend hours taking in the postcard quality of the blue waters. The hues change. From turquoise they turn pale blue and aquamarine and further into the horizon it becomes a brilliant sapphire.
The point in the horizon where the waves break happen to be where the coral reefs are. The reefs that protect the island from deadly storms like the Tsunami. Here the waves don't crash on the beach. They make love to it, lapping it gently. You realise you wouldn't dread slipping into it even at night for a quick dip.
I was staying at the Le Pearl Beach Hotel (not a high-end option, but at 110 Euros for a night it is well recommended) on Flic en Flac beach. It is one of the most popular beaches in town boasting a lengthy coastline.
The view from my room was gorgeous. It opened onto the pool and a cabana that is right on the sands a few metres away from the sea. Lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves, I could only think of all that lay ahead.
My rendezvous with adventure began on Belle Mare Beach. It was where we donned our swimming gear and was spirited off by a speed boat to a platform in the middle of the sea for an underwater walk in the sea. So there we were putting on rubber slippers while being briefed on how to indicate whether we were comfortable underwater or not (you cannot hear the next person down there). And just as we entered the waters while climbing down a ladder that led down into the bed of the sea, lantern-box like helmets were lowered down on our heads. The water never rose above the shoulders.
Now I have done it already once in Goa on Vasco beach. The waters there were murky because of the silt from the river muddying up the sea bed and therefore all I remember of it is a scary translucence. So as the first few seconds of panic was replaced by awe when I found my feet on the bed of the sea, I told myself, 'At last, the real deal'!
The best part about going for an underwater walk is that you don't have to be a swimmer. Take a cue from me. I can barely swim to save my life. But there I was, walking around attempting to touch the reefs and being thwarted by the safety diver. He did however deign to let us feel a straw coloured, pink rimmed sea urchin that he plucked off the reefs.
In the mean time, another diver gave us bread crumbs to hold out to the zebra fish that swarmed in by the dozen and nibbled at the crumbs with gusto. Let me warn you, those little things can give nifty little nips. I eventually surfaced with a fish bite or two.
The rest of our day was spent at a lagoon island, Cerfs, near the town of Trou d'Eau Douce. A speed boat put us on the Ile Aux Cerfs beach that surrounds this island off the east coast of Mauritius and therein began a surreal experience of paddling in the warm waters of the lagoon and at times pawing through the sand not unlike a crocodile. In fact, in some time the lagoon almost resembled a communal bathtub of sorts.
After that we speed boated our way to the gushing waterfalls of Grande Riviere Sud Est. How beautiful it was, flanked by emerald green carpetted towering cliffs. And the occasional sighting of the white-tailed tropicbird (you see it on the tail of Air Mauritius).
Parasailing over the sea and getting our behinds thwacked at least two dozen times in a minute as we took the tube ride were the exhilarating highlights of that day. I happened to take the tube ride twice over. The second time around I was in expert company – a hot Creole guy with a diamond stud on his nose who did all kinds of feat while all I could do was busy hold onto the sides of the raft.
Lunch turned out to be a lazy island-style, barbecue affair on a deserted patch of land in Ile Aux Cerfs itself. A meal of fish, chicken and coleslaw was accompanied by glasses of the local rosé which was heady enough to make me join the black dancer and sway to the rustic tunes of the guitar and drums played by the locals. Let me observe in between that the Creole men are great flirts. But their language makes it all seem very romantic. The Creole patois is mostly derived from French you see. So when they greet you with bon jour and whisper admiring nothings into your ears, you truly feel like a goddess.
I divert.
What took off the effect of the rosé like in a second was walking back to our speed boat. Somehow we stepped on all these sharp as hell stones. I have never in my life walked on such stinging stones. It seemed like I would never reach the boat that day. On top of that, the clown that I am, I actually took off my flip flops to walk barefoot thinking I could leap nimbly over them. So of course when I tried to push the flip flops back into the water under my feet, they kept floating and floating away!
We visited another island yet another day. The Île Plate or flat island, off the north coast, famous for its lighthouse built around the mid 1800's and still functioning. Apart from that it has a graveyard dating back to the 19th century when people were quarantined there by the British.
Cruising our way to the island we passed the small nature reserve of Coin de Mire (Gunner's Coin). But I remember it as the 'sexy hole' – our catamaran navigator's christening for it -- there being an opening in the side of the steep cliff.
The day on Île Plate was thereafter spent in a hot haze of sega dancing (introduced by African slaves during the French colonial period), drinking Champagne, feasting on lobsters with Xavier Luc Duval, the vice prime minister and minister for tourism. He was very good looking and a flirt at that but it is probably island living that makes even a minister cordial enough to join in dancing the sensual Sega with colourfully dressed women twirling around in their elaborate skirts.
That same day I also chanced to meet Anais who in the course of our conversation told me she had just won the Miss Mauritius 2008 crown last month. So poor thing got very embarrassed every time I introduced her to international journalists as the beautiful Miss Mauritius. At one point she even thought I was a lesbian. Yikes! I almost fell back into the water when I heard that. I had to hurriedly assure her of my straight straight heart.
Our other list of water activities took us to Mont Choisy. Here is where we went for a Blue Safari submarine tour. The submarine dove 35m under water and we stayed underwater for 40 minutes. And as I said the only thing down there -- the wreck -- that caught my fantasy was a faux one!
If you ever happen to be in Mauritius, you got to try out the Blue Safari's other innovation. It is a sub-scooter which you drive 3m underwater in a twosome. It is the brainchild of its director, Frenchman Luc Billard, who has taken out a patent for the sub-scooter. And hey, if you ever want to get married underwater, he can arrange for that -- a wedding in a submarine with Champagne and lunch.
In between these adventurous experiences, we had some cultural and heritage tours thrown in.
Anything historical has me hooked, so it was fascinating to walk through the botanical garden at Pamplemousses where the French used to grow sweet potatoes to feed the slaves with. I would recommend the giant amazon lily pool here.
Now right opposite the garden is the oldest church of Mauritius -- that of St Francois d'Assises. In its compounds, is a statue of the French Paul & Virginie. The plaque beside it was written in Creole which while it sounded so exotic on the tongue of the Mauritians, was hopeless on mine. It fell on Bimal, our driver, to come to the rescue with a translation and say that they were a pair of star-crossed lovers who were drowned in the sea.
Another must-see in Mauritius is a tiny chapel with a red roof in Cap Malheureux, the northern most point of the island where a general landed his troops when the British swooped down on the island. What charmed me was the holy water basin fashioned out of a giant clamshell.
We also got to visit L'Aventure du Sucre, a museum spread out over 5,000 sq m in the grounds of the Beau Plan sugar factory that closed shop in 1999. I had expected it to be somewhat of a bore, but the tables were turned on me. I couldn't stop clicking pictures of old barges, de-humidifiers and bagasse purifiers. It was an insight into the soul of the country – sugar that at one point was its economic mainstay. Now it has been replaced by tourism.
On the other hand was a stop at a shipping factory. The island's craft is to build model ships. You see them all around in souvenir shops but be warned that they fall apart within a short time. But if you get one from a shipping museum like the one we visited at Floréal, it lasts you a lifetime or so they say.
Our other stops: Troux aux Cerf, an extinct volcanic crater which you get to see from an elevated point (it is 85 m deep), the second biggest statue of Shiva in the world at Grand Bassin in front of which one looks like a lilliput (I have pictures to back me up on that) and the seven coloured earth at Chamarel. The last of these had us gaping. It is an astonishing phenomenon what with blue, green, red, yellow, purple and various other shades coming together on dunes. It is said to be an inheritance of the island's volcanic past.
On the evenings that we got free from the bustle of our water sports and historical excursions, we would attend the cultural evenings which were part of the ongoing International Kreol Festival 2008. It was an opportunity to witness rich multicultural performances at heritage spots. Since the Mauritian people are a mix of African, Chinese, Indian, Muslim and French descent, the dance forms reflect each of these cultures.
One of them, the 'Sware Metis', was at the Citadelle overlooking the city of Port Louis and the harbour. The fort which once was used by the British to watch out for riots in Port Louis before the abolition of slavery has now become a hub of cultural evenings. Our evening there was about downing local 'rhum' shots in flavours of coffee, vanilla and sugarcane accompanied by delicious canapés and watching a fashion show choreographed by famous Mauritian choreographers.
The other we spent at the Le Morne village to the husky sounds of the ravane, a wooden circular musical instrument, around a bonfire. Since it was difficult understanding most of what transpired at the 'Sware Tipik' show – it was entirely in Creole – I spent the evening drowning my language sorrows in bread-crumb fried chicken served up with a red hot sauce by an African mamma.
Le Morne however fascinated me with its history. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was once a hideaway for runaway slaves. The story goes that once when the police travelled to the rock on Le Morne to let the slaves know that they were free, the slaves misunderstood them and jumped off the gigantic rock to death.
If there was something of the old to savour, there was something new to try out. My date that night was this incredibly hot Mauritian, married sadly.
To get back to the nightlife in Mauritius, it is mostly concentrated around the Grand Baie area. My hotspot on that Friday night aptly enough was the Buddha Bar which sizzles during the weekends. The music varied between R&B and Techno and while dancing I observe that there were quite a few kids around. The other nightclub which caught my eye was Les Enfants . I didn't get to experience it though. Gotta keep something for next time, right?
One of our final adventures was walking with lions and petting cheetahs at the Casela Bird Park in the Black River district. Let's say it is an experience of a lifetime. There are very few places where you can settle down next to a lazy one-year-old cheetah and feel the joy of him purring and turning over his belly to you to be stroked. The one who charmed me was Bwana. He was too big to be brought back home or I surely would have risked it!
The encounter with the lions even though they were only 6 month old cubs – Chiara and Kimba – were less personal. We did get to walk with them over a long trail that passed through a leafy glade and a gurgling stream but we had to be on our guard. They were pretty frisky and even though small in size compared to a full grown lion, their paws would make you think twice before getting too up and close with them.
All this was topped off with quad biking in the mountains at Le Domaine de l'Etoile, one of the largest estates on the island. It has rich birdlife, lush valleys, and vanilla and coffee plantations.
After a brief session of archery and a typical Mauritian meal, I sat at the helm of a quad bike with aforementioned hot Mauritian as my pillion rider. What a ride it turned out to be. I had the thrill of flying over the mountainous and flat terrain, but overconfidence often gets the better of you. That is when you ram into the bike ahead driven by a honeymooning couple.
It took a split second for it to happen. I guess that is how accidents take place. Oh how I wished at that point as the in-charge barked at me that the red earth would just open and suck me in. It was an awful moment that lasted for the next half-an-hour. I could barely talk and when I had to, I would sob. I guess it was the shock and the fact that something could have gone terribly wrong had the couple hurt themselves bad. It made me wonder of all the times I have been quick to shoot off my mouth and spew venom at people who cause an accident.
But the hurry of returning to the hotel, packing for the flight that night while also getting ready to dress up for the evening kind of took away my troubled thoughts. And while I walked to the all-night concert near the Le Caudan Waterfront in the city of Port Louis, I could feel the tension ebbing away from my shoulders.
As I write about it, I can say that nothing gladdens the heart more than to dwell on beautiful moments.
With all the sun and the salty air, I was the girl on the beach with a golden brown tan and more. My knees are skinned, my feet are sore, I look nothing less than the smoked marlin I had the last day there.
But I wouldn't have exchanged it for any other experience – romancing the island and having it romance me back.
Life this month has been nothing short of a dream. It has made me believe in a fairytale all over again. Now before you rush off thinking in terms of a prince charming and all, I must pull you back and beckon elsewhere. Some place where there can only be happiness.
Travelling does always tend to make one so beatifically happy.
This time I found romance. In a teardrop shaped island we all know as Mauritius.
I found it high up in the mountains while literally flying up and down rocky and flat terrains on that fat four wheeler called the quad bike; on the beach watching ice cream trucks playing tinkling music pull up; on the bed of the ocean walking in between coral reefs; through the portholes of a submarine watching marine life pass me by while staring at a ship wreck.
Let me confess though that the romance was dented a little when I was informed on surfacing that it was not some wreck lost decades ago – merely the skeleton of a ship sunk specially for the submarine tours.
My first impression when I landed in the Mauritius airport after a seven-and-a-half hour flight was that I was in a little India. There were Indians all around. I even heard a Bengali twosome chattering away. Since I was a guest of the Mauritian Tourism Board along with three of my co-travellers, we were taken care of by the tourism authority. So right from being escorted through immigration to waiting in the premium lounge while our luggage was being collected, it was a smooth sail.
Before I had started for Mauritius, a friend of mine who had come back black but ecstatic from her time spent there had ranted on and on about it. But I was still not prepared for the beauty of the island to intoxicate me so.
Firstly, sun bathing and swimming is not all that you can do here though you could easily spend hours taking in the postcard quality of the blue waters. The hues change. From turquoise they turn pale blue and aquamarine and further into the horizon it becomes a brilliant sapphire.
The point in the horizon where the waves break happen to be where the coral reefs are. The reefs that protect the island from deadly storms like the Tsunami. Here the waves don't crash on the beach. They make love to it, lapping it gently. You realise you wouldn't dread slipping into it even at night for a quick dip.
I was staying at the Le Pearl Beach Hotel (not a high-end option, but at 110 Euros for a night it is well recommended) on Flic en Flac beach. It is one of the most popular beaches in town boasting a lengthy coastline.
The view from my room was gorgeous. It opened onto the pool and a cabana that is right on the sands a few metres away from the sea. Lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves, I could only think of all that lay ahead.
My rendezvous with adventure began on Belle Mare Beach. It was where we donned our swimming gear and was spirited off by a speed boat to a platform in the middle of the sea for an underwater walk in the sea. So there we were putting on rubber slippers while being briefed on how to indicate whether we were comfortable underwater or not (you cannot hear the next person down there). And just as we entered the waters while climbing down a ladder that led down into the bed of the sea, lantern-box like helmets were lowered down on our heads. The water never rose above the shoulders.
Now I have done it already once in Goa on Vasco beach. The waters there were murky because of the silt from the river muddying up the sea bed and therefore all I remember of it is a scary translucence. So as the first few seconds of panic was replaced by awe when I found my feet on the bed of the sea, I told myself, 'At last, the real deal'!
The best part about going for an underwater walk is that you don't have to be a swimmer. Take a cue from me. I can barely swim to save my life. But there I was, walking around attempting to touch the reefs and being thwarted by the safety diver. He did however deign to let us feel a straw coloured, pink rimmed sea urchin that he plucked off the reefs.
In the mean time, another diver gave us bread crumbs to hold out to the zebra fish that swarmed in by the dozen and nibbled at the crumbs with gusto. Let me warn you, those little things can give nifty little nips. I eventually surfaced with a fish bite or two.
The rest of our day was spent at a lagoon island, Cerfs, near the town of Trou d'Eau Douce. A speed boat put us on the Ile Aux Cerfs beach that surrounds this island off the east coast of Mauritius and therein began a surreal experience of paddling in the warm waters of the lagoon and at times pawing through the sand not unlike a crocodile. In fact, in some time the lagoon almost resembled a communal bathtub of sorts.
After that we speed boated our way to the gushing waterfalls of Grande Riviere Sud Est. How beautiful it was, flanked by emerald green carpetted towering cliffs. And the occasional sighting of the white-tailed tropicbird (you see it on the tail of Air Mauritius).
Parasailing over the sea and getting our behinds thwacked at least two dozen times in a minute as we took the tube ride were the exhilarating highlights of that day. I happened to take the tube ride twice over. The second time around I was in expert company – a hot Creole guy with a diamond stud on his nose who did all kinds of feat while all I could do was busy hold onto the sides of the raft.
Lunch turned out to be a lazy island-style, barbecue affair on a deserted patch of land in Ile Aux Cerfs itself. A meal of fish, chicken and coleslaw was accompanied by glasses of the local rosé which was heady enough to make me join the black dancer and sway to the rustic tunes of the guitar and drums played by the locals. Let me observe in between that the Creole men are great flirts. But their language makes it all seem very romantic. The Creole patois is mostly derived from French you see. So when they greet you with bon jour and whisper admiring nothings into your ears, you truly feel like a goddess.
I divert.
What took off the effect of the rosé like in a second was walking back to our speed boat. Somehow we stepped on all these sharp as hell stones. I have never in my life walked on such stinging stones. It seemed like I would never reach the boat that day. On top of that, the clown that I am, I actually took off my flip flops to walk barefoot thinking I could leap nimbly over them. So of course when I tried to push the flip flops back into the water under my feet, they kept floating and floating away!
We visited another island yet another day. The Île Plate or flat island, off the north coast, famous for its lighthouse built around the mid 1800's and still functioning. Apart from that it has a graveyard dating back to the 19th century when people were quarantined there by the British.
Cruising our way to the island we passed the small nature reserve of Coin de Mire (Gunner's Coin). But I remember it as the 'sexy hole' – our catamaran navigator's christening for it -- there being an opening in the side of the steep cliff.
The day on Île Plate was thereafter spent in a hot haze of sega dancing (introduced by African slaves during the French colonial period), drinking Champagne, feasting on lobsters with Xavier Luc Duval, the vice prime minister and minister for tourism. He was very good looking and a flirt at that but it is probably island living that makes even a minister cordial enough to join in dancing the sensual Sega with colourfully dressed women twirling around in their elaborate skirts.
That same day I also chanced to meet Anais who in the course of our conversation told me she had just won the Miss Mauritius 2008 crown last month. So poor thing got very embarrassed every time I introduced her to international journalists as the beautiful Miss Mauritius. At one point she even thought I was a lesbian. Yikes! I almost fell back into the water when I heard that. I had to hurriedly assure her of my straight straight heart.
Our other list of water activities took us to Mont Choisy. Here is where we went for a Blue Safari submarine tour. The submarine dove 35m under water and we stayed underwater for 40 minutes. And as I said the only thing down there -- the wreck -- that caught my fantasy was a faux one!
If you ever happen to be in Mauritius, you got to try out the Blue Safari's other innovation. It is a sub-scooter which you drive 3m underwater in a twosome. It is the brainchild of its director, Frenchman Luc Billard, who has taken out a patent for the sub-scooter. And hey, if you ever want to get married underwater, he can arrange for that -- a wedding in a submarine with Champagne and lunch.
In between these adventurous experiences, we had some cultural and heritage tours thrown in.
Anything historical has me hooked, so it was fascinating to walk through the botanical garden at Pamplemousses where the French used to grow sweet potatoes to feed the slaves with. I would recommend the giant amazon lily pool here.
Now right opposite the garden is the oldest church of Mauritius -- that of St Francois d'Assises. In its compounds, is a statue of the French Paul & Virginie. The plaque beside it was written in Creole which while it sounded so exotic on the tongue of the Mauritians, was hopeless on mine. It fell on Bimal, our driver, to come to the rescue with a translation and say that they were a pair of star-crossed lovers who were drowned in the sea.
Another must-see in Mauritius is a tiny chapel with a red roof in Cap Malheureux, the northern most point of the island where a general landed his troops when the British swooped down on the island. What charmed me was the holy water basin fashioned out of a giant clamshell.
We also got to visit L'Aventure du Sucre, a museum spread out over 5,000 sq m in the grounds of the Beau Plan sugar factory that closed shop in 1999. I had expected it to be somewhat of a bore, but the tables were turned on me. I couldn't stop clicking pictures of old barges, de-humidifiers and bagasse purifiers. It was an insight into the soul of the country – sugar that at one point was its economic mainstay. Now it has been replaced by tourism.
On the other hand was a stop at a shipping factory. The island's craft is to build model ships. You see them all around in souvenir shops but be warned that they fall apart within a short time. But if you get one from a shipping museum like the one we visited at Floréal, it lasts you a lifetime or so they say.
Our other stops: Troux aux Cerf, an extinct volcanic crater which you get to see from an elevated point (it is 85 m deep), the second biggest statue of Shiva in the world at Grand Bassin in front of which one looks like a lilliput (I have pictures to back me up on that) and the seven coloured earth at Chamarel. The last of these had us gaping. It is an astonishing phenomenon what with blue, green, red, yellow, purple and various other shades coming together on dunes. It is said to be an inheritance of the island's volcanic past.
On the evenings that we got free from the bustle of our water sports and historical excursions, we would attend the cultural evenings which were part of the ongoing International Kreol Festival 2008. It was an opportunity to witness rich multicultural performances at heritage spots. Since the Mauritian people are a mix of African, Chinese, Indian, Muslim and French descent, the dance forms reflect each of these cultures.
One of them, the 'Sware Metis', was at the Citadelle overlooking the city of Port Louis and the harbour. The fort which once was used by the British to watch out for riots in Port Louis before the abolition of slavery has now become a hub of cultural evenings. Our evening there was about downing local 'rhum' shots in flavours of coffee, vanilla and sugarcane accompanied by delicious canapés and watching a fashion show choreographed by famous Mauritian choreographers.
The other we spent at the Le Morne village to the husky sounds of the ravane, a wooden circular musical instrument, around a bonfire. Since it was difficult understanding most of what transpired at the 'Sware Tipik' show – it was entirely in Creole – I spent the evening drowning my language sorrows in bread-crumb fried chicken served up with a red hot sauce by an African mamma.
Le Morne however fascinated me with its history. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was once a hideaway for runaway slaves. The story goes that once when the police travelled to the rock on Le Morne to let the slaves know that they were free, the slaves misunderstood them and jumped off the gigantic rock to death.
If there was something of the old to savour, there was something new to try out. My date that night was this incredibly hot Mauritian, married sadly.
To get back to the nightlife in Mauritius, it is mostly concentrated around the Grand Baie area. My hotspot on that Friday night aptly enough was the Buddha Bar which sizzles during the weekends. The music varied between R&B and Techno and while dancing I observe that there were quite a few kids around. The other nightclub which caught my eye was Les Enfants . I didn't get to experience it though. Gotta keep something for next time, right?
One of our final adventures was walking with lions and petting cheetahs at the Casela Bird Park in the Black River district. Let's say it is an experience of a lifetime. There are very few places where you can settle down next to a lazy one-year-old cheetah and feel the joy of him purring and turning over his belly to you to be stroked. The one who charmed me was Bwana. He was too big to be brought back home or I surely would have risked it!
The encounter with the lions even though they were only 6 month old cubs – Chiara and Kimba – were less personal. We did get to walk with them over a long trail that passed through a leafy glade and a gurgling stream but we had to be on our guard. They were pretty frisky and even though small in size compared to a full grown lion, their paws would make you think twice before getting too up and close with them.
All this was topped off with quad biking in the mountains at Le Domaine de l'Etoile, one of the largest estates on the island. It has rich birdlife, lush valleys, and vanilla and coffee plantations.
After a brief session of archery and a typical Mauritian meal, I sat at the helm of a quad bike with aforementioned hot Mauritian as my pillion rider. What a ride it turned out to be. I had the thrill of flying over the mountainous and flat terrain, but overconfidence often gets the better of you. That is when you ram into the bike ahead driven by a honeymooning couple.
It took a split second for it to happen. I guess that is how accidents take place. Oh how I wished at that point as the in-charge barked at me that the red earth would just open and suck me in. It was an awful moment that lasted for the next half-an-hour. I could barely talk and when I had to, I would sob. I guess it was the shock and the fact that something could have gone terribly wrong had the couple hurt themselves bad. It made me wonder of all the times I have been quick to shoot off my mouth and spew venom at people who cause an accident.
But the hurry of returning to the hotel, packing for the flight that night while also getting ready to dress up for the evening kind of took away my troubled thoughts. And while I walked to the all-night concert near the Le Caudan Waterfront in the city of Port Louis, I could feel the tension ebbing away from my shoulders.
As I write about it, I can say that nothing gladdens the heart more than to dwell on beautiful moments.
With all the sun and the salty air, I was the girl on the beach with a golden brown tan and more. My knees are skinned, my feet are sore, I look nothing less than the smoked marlin I had the last day there.
But I wouldn't have exchanged it for any other experience – romancing the island and having it romance me back.
18.12.08
When it's time to open the door...
I am awake, Divya. Here's to waking up from a deep slumber.
Once in a while it feels good though. I guess I was busy turning life’s pages…
Divya's tag stated two rules:
Firstly this that I tag five people all of whom have to respond to it. And that none of them can tag me back or anyone who has already done it.
Secondly, you do not like any question here, make your own.
It starts now:
1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be?
Castrate him. To which effect I would have to always keep myself armed with a huge pair of gardening shears. So let’s say this was a knee-jerk reaction.
A more real reaction? I would want to know why. Then walk out the door (Of course, these are all hypothetical. I hope the day never arrives for me to find out what my really real reaction would be).
2. Whose butt would you like to kick?
One who takes the high moral ground. If anything, I have realized with time that it is easy to judge. Try walking in one’s footsteps.
3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Ah this one makes me giddy with anticipated delight.
Let’s see: Own a shack on the beaches of Goa (nowhere else would do for me), spend six months tending to the shack and spend the rest of the year in a villa in Italy nestled among luscious wine groves.
4. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Why not? If I could, I would.
5. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
To love someone and be loved in return is so rare. It is something that is so blessed.
6. How long would you wait for someone you love?
An eternity.
7. If the person you like is secretly attached, what would you do?
Secretly attached to whom? Me? Why, I would swoon with happiness and then get up on my feet and land a slap on his face. What was the point of keeping it a secret, eh?
8. What takes you down the fastest?
Thinking. Often over trivial details. And yes, a bad tummy!
9. Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time?
In a beautiful little villa on the beach making home and working from home. I want my home to be my universe and the universe to be my home, let’s say.
10. What's your fear?
To be alone all my life.
11. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
I am greedy. I want best of both the worlds. So I will compromise a bit here. Married and 'well-off'…
12. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who would you pick?
Oh bugger! I would be singing Torn Between Two Lovers…
13. Would you give all in a relationship?
There’s no two ways about this!
My all.
14. What's eating you now?
Is he in earnest when he’s writing poems for you…
And here are the 5 I want to tag:
Sonia
ABY
Saltwaterblues
Nish
Essar
Once in a while it feels good though. I guess I was busy turning life’s pages…
Divya's tag stated two rules:
Firstly this that I tag five people all of whom have to respond to it. And that none of them can tag me back or anyone who has already done it.
Secondly, you do not like any question here, make your own.
It starts now:
1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be?
Castrate him. To which effect I would have to always keep myself armed with a huge pair of gardening shears. So let’s say this was a knee-jerk reaction.
A more real reaction? I would want to know why. Then walk out the door (Of course, these are all hypothetical. I hope the day never arrives for me to find out what my really real reaction would be).
2. Whose butt would you like to kick?
One who takes the high moral ground. If anything, I have realized with time that it is easy to judge. Try walking in one’s footsteps.
3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Ah this one makes me giddy with anticipated delight.
Let’s see: Own a shack on the beaches of Goa (nowhere else would do for me), spend six months tending to the shack and spend the rest of the year in a villa in Italy nestled among luscious wine groves.
4. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Why not? If I could, I would.
5. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
To love someone and be loved in return is so rare. It is something that is so blessed.
6. How long would you wait for someone you love?
An eternity.
7. If the person you like is secretly attached, what would you do?
Secretly attached to whom? Me? Why, I would swoon with happiness and then get up on my feet and land a slap on his face. What was the point of keeping it a secret, eh?
8. What takes you down the fastest?
Thinking. Often over trivial details. And yes, a bad tummy!
9. Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time?
In a beautiful little villa on the beach making home and working from home. I want my home to be my universe and the universe to be my home, let’s say.
10. What's your fear?
To be alone all my life.
11. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
I am greedy. I want best of both the worlds. So I will compromise a bit here. Married and 'well-off'…
12. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who would you pick?
Oh bugger! I would be singing Torn Between Two Lovers…
13. Would you give all in a relationship?
There’s no two ways about this!
My all.
14. What's eating you now?
Is he in earnest when he’s writing poems for you…
And here are the 5 I want to tag:
Sonia
ABY
Saltwaterblues
Nish
Essar
30.9.08
Are we really sensitive, 'hypo' sensitive or simply 'hyper' sensitive?
I have been thinking about it for quite a few days now.
I know the blasts happen to be quite a clichéd topic for most of us. I mean they are happening so often that you would be forgiven for describing them as ubiquitous.
What made me actually start gathering my thoughts here is coming across two things today.
First of all, I had a packet of food with me this evening to give away to some needy person on the streets. As usual, whenever I have such a packet, I never meet anyone to hand it over to. So I gave it to my auto rickshaw driver and asked him to pass it on. Now the packet very obviously contained food, it smelt of food and was kind of squelchy soft. But given that he seemed so suspicious, I even asked him to check it. But the man wouldn’t just take it.
I mean this is exactly what the bastards planting those bombs want. They have succeeded.
But then at night I was reading Sunday’s paper (I sometimes do a Mrs Thurlow – the ox-like character from Bates’ short story The Ox if you happened to have read it – who in her leisure time read up old newspapers) where there was a guy’s account of the September 13 blast at Connaught Place. Of how he saw people coming out to help the injured. Of how he saw a sardarji with his brand new car giving a left to the blood-soaked injured. Someone apparently pointed out to him as to how his car was getting soiled to which the sardarji replied that he would rather give it up 50 times over than not do what he had decided to do.
In the meantime, I have had friends whose reactions have absolutely stunned me. One of them actually said this to me that the day the bombs went off in the GK market, she was 40 minutes away in the Priya market complex. The next day she was getting drunk and announcing to me on the phone, “AB, I am celebrating the fact that I am alive!”
There also remains the fact that while I was very shaken that Saturday about the blasts and getting very hyper about my conversation with the above-said friend and others like her, this Saturday I was calmly taking in the news of the fresh blast in Mehrauli. Is it a calm acceptance of things as they are or it it about losing sensitivity somewhere?
It's weird to look back at myself then and myself now.
I am rambling. The midnight-effect.
I know the blasts happen to be quite a clichéd topic for most of us. I mean they are happening so often that you would be forgiven for describing them as ubiquitous.
What made me actually start gathering my thoughts here is coming across two things today.
First of all, I had a packet of food with me this evening to give away to some needy person on the streets. As usual, whenever I have such a packet, I never meet anyone to hand it over to. So I gave it to my auto rickshaw driver and asked him to pass it on. Now the packet very obviously contained food, it smelt of food and was kind of squelchy soft. But given that he seemed so suspicious, I even asked him to check it. But the man wouldn’t just take it.
I mean this is exactly what the bastards planting those bombs want. They have succeeded.
But then at night I was reading Sunday’s paper (I sometimes do a Mrs Thurlow – the ox-like character from Bates’ short story The Ox if you happened to have read it – who in her leisure time read up old newspapers) where there was a guy’s account of the September 13 blast at Connaught Place. Of how he saw people coming out to help the injured. Of how he saw a sardarji with his brand new car giving a left to the blood-soaked injured. Someone apparently pointed out to him as to how his car was getting soiled to which the sardarji replied that he would rather give it up 50 times over than not do what he had decided to do.
In the meantime, I have had friends whose reactions have absolutely stunned me. One of them actually said this to me that the day the bombs went off in the GK market, she was 40 minutes away in the Priya market complex. The next day she was getting drunk and announcing to me on the phone, “AB, I am celebrating the fact that I am alive!”
There also remains the fact that while I was very shaken that Saturday about the blasts and getting very hyper about my conversation with the above-said friend and others like her, this Saturday I was calmly taking in the news of the fresh blast in Mehrauli. Is it a calm acceptance of things as they are or it it about losing sensitivity somewhere?
It's weird to look back at myself then and myself now.
I am rambling. The midnight-effect.
21.9.08
It doesn't sink in...
It’s been four days since Mr S died. He of the sandwich-that-everyone-I-know-has-had-it-swears-by store, he of the lender-borrower of David Baldacci thrillers and Amitav Ghosh novels, he of the one always eager to discuss everything from the blasts to the crisp burgers he specialises in.
On Wednesday morning I stepped out to buy a pack of muesli loaves for my colleague. N store but was shut. I was astounded. Never had I seen it closed before except on sultry afternoons. ‘Oh god, is it something to do with Mr S?’
The owner of the store next door happened to be standing outside. I asked him, ‘Uncle, what happened? Why is it shut?’ To which he said, casually, ‘Oh the owner, that old man, he is dead.’ His helper boy gave me a grin.
I walked away.
Today, the same next-door-store uncle informed me it was a heart attack. ‘You know it happens. People die all the time. And heart attack is such a common thing really. Which is why I say, let us all be as de-stressed as possible,’ he smiled as he looked askance at this delivery man who kept nodding his head vigorously in agreement.
I met Mr S two years back when I shifted to this current flat of mine. My colleague’s husband, a food critic, had ranted about his sandwiches and described it as a local Pop Tate’s kind of a hangout. So soon I met him.
An ageing, portly man with round-rimmed glasses and a mustache that was curiously balanced midway between his nose and upper lip; it was trimmed so well that it did not actually touch either of the above mentioned features, it hovered between them oh so carefully (Ignore this weird fascination if you will. But I have this thing for observing different kinds of mustaches. If any of you ever read this short story while in school where in a particular village the caste and importance of the men were determined by the mustaches they sported -- lion mustaches, tiger mustaches, mousy mustaches and the like -- you would pretty much get the crux of what I am babbling about right now).
The moment he heard about what I do for a living he was respectful. I mean I was touched. You can see when one is genuinely nice.
With time I realized that he was an ardent reader. We became book pals. While initially I was just the lender, soon he started lending me books after he had taken permission from their owners. If a particular book of mine appeared to be in not great shape, he actually got it bound nicely so that the pages wouldn’t pop out. Further the covers were always in well wrapped in transparent plastic with no brown cover or so to take away from it. I remember the day I got back an Amitav Ghosh copy in a better condition than I had sent it out, I consciously deemed Mr S worthy of my books.
The last book I had borrowed from him was A Song for a Pagan. A travelogue by this fellow called John Bealby on his journey across Delhi, Pakistan and Afghanistan to discover little known places like Nuristan and Kafiristan in Afghanistan. Mr S had started reading it I remember when I spoke to him last on Friday evening. Did he get to finish it?
The store hasn’t opened till date. I wonder what will it be like to enter it when it does. To not see him at his usual place by the counter inside the store. To know that he will never be there.
On Wednesday morning I stepped out to buy a pack of muesli loaves for my colleague. N store but was shut. I was astounded. Never had I seen it closed before except on sultry afternoons. ‘Oh god, is it something to do with Mr S?’
The owner of the store next door happened to be standing outside. I asked him, ‘Uncle, what happened? Why is it shut?’ To which he said, casually, ‘Oh the owner, that old man, he is dead.’ His helper boy gave me a grin.
I walked away.
Today, the same next-door-store uncle informed me it was a heart attack. ‘You know it happens. People die all the time. And heart attack is such a common thing really. Which is why I say, let us all be as de-stressed as possible,’ he smiled as he looked askance at this delivery man who kept nodding his head vigorously in agreement.
I met Mr S two years back when I shifted to this current flat of mine. My colleague’s husband, a food critic, had ranted about his sandwiches and described it as a local Pop Tate’s kind of a hangout. So soon I met him.
An ageing, portly man with round-rimmed glasses and a mustache that was curiously balanced midway between his nose and upper lip; it was trimmed so well that it did not actually touch either of the above mentioned features, it hovered between them oh so carefully (Ignore this weird fascination if you will. But I have this thing for observing different kinds of mustaches. If any of you ever read this short story while in school where in a particular village the caste and importance of the men were determined by the mustaches they sported -- lion mustaches, tiger mustaches, mousy mustaches and the like -- you would pretty much get the crux of what I am babbling about right now).
The moment he heard about what I do for a living he was respectful. I mean I was touched. You can see when one is genuinely nice.
With time I realized that he was an ardent reader. We became book pals. While initially I was just the lender, soon he started lending me books after he had taken permission from their owners. If a particular book of mine appeared to be in not great shape, he actually got it bound nicely so that the pages wouldn’t pop out. Further the covers were always in well wrapped in transparent plastic with no brown cover or so to take away from it. I remember the day I got back an Amitav Ghosh copy in a better condition than I had sent it out, I consciously deemed Mr S worthy of my books.
The last book I had borrowed from him was A Song for a Pagan. A travelogue by this fellow called John Bealby on his journey across Delhi, Pakistan and Afghanistan to discover little known places like Nuristan and Kafiristan in Afghanistan. Mr S had started reading it I remember when I spoke to him last on Friday evening. Did he get to finish it?
The store hasn’t opened till date. I wonder what will it be like to enter it when it does. To not see him at his usual place by the counter inside the store. To know that he will never be there.
28.7.08
O sylph dear, where art thou?
Though I have been faced with my share of fat luck, I think two huge thaalis of Benarasi food made up for it. If it can be considered as some kind of making up for having one's mobile phone stolen.
Life and it's small ways of making you feel better.
The afternoon started off with me sitting at a table in a hotel with this food critic. In a way it was fun (moments when she bitched about a person not very close to my heart either) and informative (she had a lot of little tid bits on different kinds of spices, different ways of cooking and the like), but then it went on forever. I thought at one point that I would fall asleep on the table. Which was also probably because all the dishes with the exclusion of none were cooked in desi ghee.
We were supposed to guzzle on Banarasi Lassi and Godaulia ki Thandai to begin our lunch with. But I am glad I resisted. Or I would not have been able to nibble on anything that followed. We thought we were clever and ordered a tasting menu kind of a thali even for the starters which promised us Kaashi Ki Chaat. In it came a whole lot of chaats. Dahi Palak Ki Chaat, Matar Tamatar Chaat, Chidwa Mattar, Khasta Matar Chaat, Makuni Bhaji and Hari Matar ki Chaat. Lipsmacking!
Next came another thaali of supposedly tasting menu samples of the main courses. It was of course Indian-style tasting menus. Large bowls with generous portions of Punchmel ki Daal, Aloo Dum Banarasi, Konhara Channa, Besan ka Khadra and Nimona. As I dabbed and dipped my puri and crisp Sattu ka Parantha in the bowls, I marvelled at the taste of home-cooked food. They were made without garlic and onions by this maharaj from Benaras. I have never had Satvik food . So consider me a convert.
There was quite a bit of similarity in the kind of dishes that they served with those from Bengal and Bihar. The Besan ka Khadra was ala my Bengali favourite of Dhokar Dalna. The other interesting items were the Konhara Channa that was a preparation of kaashiphal with black channa and put me in mind of my ma's kumro with kalo chhola (mashed pumpkin with black channa). The Nimona sounded like a sultry piece of thing/a medicinal thing (take your pick) but turned out to be a dish of greenpeas simmered to a thick daal-like consistency, with little cubes of potatoes and daal vadis peeking out.
At the end of it, when we were served the syrupy and crumbly Kheer Mohan (a close cousin of the Bengali Raj Bhog), the crisp Laung Lata (Bengali Mohan Bhog counterpart) and the Kamal Gatte ka Halwa (quite as delicious as Moong Dal ka Halwa, but made from lotus seeds), I realised that however clever I think I am being when it comes to asking for small portions, my pit-like stomach always gets the better of me. Always.
And to go back to my bit of bad/good luck. I choose to see it as a piece of good luck now because it gives me the chance to go for a better, new one. Bad luck to the one who stole it. May he experience the devilry of my phone*evil cackle*
It happened yesterday after an evening of loitering around with friend S in a mall. I was particularly enjoying my stint in a small Miss Jo shop trying out different kinds of wigs. And craving for an electric blue, waist length one which I would have definitely bought had it not been the end of the month. I could visualise shocking the wits out of my bugging relatives during the pujas three months away besides of course making my boss's eyes bulge out. After some clowning around, a lot of window shopping, we -- S and me -- got down to a spot of serious expensive shopping at the FCUK store.
It was only when I was seated at a coffeeshop and rummaging in my bag for it that I realised it was in the changing room of the store. So therein lies the story of the stolen phone. That has gone away for good. And in the aftermath of which I have been lying awake all night trying to figure out when it would turn 6 so that I could rush to the gym. I woke up at 10.
Life and it's small ways of making you feel better.
The afternoon started off with me sitting at a table in a hotel with this food critic. In a way it was fun (moments when she bitched about a person not very close to my heart either) and informative (she had a lot of little tid bits on different kinds of spices, different ways of cooking and the like), but then it went on forever. I thought at one point that I would fall asleep on the table. Which was also probably because all the dishes with the exclusion of none were cooked in desi ghee.
We were supposed to guzzle on Banarasi Lassi and Godaulia ki Thandai to begin our lunch with. But I am glad I resisted. Or I would not have been able to nibble on anything that followed. We thought we were clever and ordered a tasting menu kind of a thali even for the starters which promised us Kaashi Ki Chaat. In it came a whole lot of chaats. Dahi Palak Ki Chaat, Matar Tamatar Chaat, Chidwa Mattar, Khasta Matar Chaat, Makuni Bhaji and Hari Matar ki Chaat. Lipsmacking!
Next came another thaali of supposedly tasting menu samples of the main courses. It was of course Indian-style tasting menus. Large bowls with generous portions of Punchmel ki Daal, Aloo Dum Banarasi, Konhara Channa, Besan ka Khadra and Nimona. As I dabbed and dipped my puri and crisp Sattu ka Parantha in the bowls, I marvelled at the taste of home-cooked food. They were made without garlic and onions by this maharaj from Benaras. I have never had Satvik food . So consider me a convert.
There was quite a bit of similarity in the kind of dishes that they served with those from Bengal and Bihar. The Besan ka Khadra was ala my Bengali favourite of Dhokar Dalna. The other interesting items were the Konhara Channa that was a preparation of kaashiphal with black channa and put me in mind of my ma's kumro with kalo chhola (mashed pumpkin with black channa). The Nimona sounded like a sultry piece of thing/a medicinal thing (take your pick) but turned out to be a dish of greenpeas simmered to a thick daal-like consistency, with little cubes of potatoes and daal vadis peeking out.
At the end of it, when we were served the syrupy and crumbly Kheer Mohan (a close cousin of the Bengali Raj Bhog), the crisp Laung Lata (Bengali Mohan Bhog counterpart) and the Kamal Gatte ka Halwa (quite as delicious as Moong Dal ka Halwa, but made from lotus seeds), I realised that however clever I think I am being when it comes to asking for small portions, my pit-like stomach always gets the better of me. Always.
And to go back to my bit of bad/good luck. I choose to see it as a piece of good luck now because it gives me the chance to go for a better, new one. Bad luck to the one who stole it. May he experience the devilry of my phone*evil cackle*
It happened yesterday after an evening of loitering around with friend S in a mall. I was particularly enjoying my stint in a small Miss Jo shop trying out different kinds of wigs. And craving for an electric blue, waist length one which I would have definitely bought had it not been the end of the month. I could visualise shocking the wits out of my bugging relatives during the pujas three months away besides of course making my boss's eyes bulge out. After some clowning around, a lot of window shopping, we -- S and me -- got down to a spot of serious expensive shopping at the FCUK store.
It was only when I was seated at a coffeeshop and rummaging in my bag for it that I realised it was in the changing room of the store. So therein lies the story of the stolen phone. That has gone away for good. And in the aftermath of which I have been lying awake all night trying to figure out when it would turn 6 so that I could rush to the gym. I woke up at 10.
25.7.08
The Champagne Buzz...
is quite zzzz...I mean I am quite zonked out and happy. I just winded up the rather late evening with three gooey brownies and a cream-laden profiterole. And I was greedy enough to run back for a helping of the wedding cake.
I also think I am feeling the beginnings of a sore throat *note-sip on your favourite caramel cappuccino right from morning till noon*
But I am grinning as widely as a Cheshire Cat. Seven glasses of Champagne count, right? For once however I supplemented it with a generous helping of batter-fried chicken drumsticks done crisply to an oily perfection. They were balanced out by bland cheese and jalapeno croquettes.
It was colleague H's wedding reception at a farmhouse.
We entered early, so everything was pretty quiet. Made friends with the place and the people who were there (who happened to be the bar men) and settled down with our respective glasses.
For a while I remember subsequently gabbing away with Jabberwocky about books. It felt good. I wished randomly and suddenly that I had a library room here in my rented flat in Delhi as I have back home in Calcutta. I miss it.
Ok, but I am back. I have to be back. Living in a fool's paradise does not work.
The evening was beautiful. H was glowing and looking beautiful as she stood elegantly dressed in a cocktail dress and stood by her husband's side to usher us in. A slight breeze ruffled our hairs and dresses. Then this crooner and her guitar-strumming partner took their positions on the dais and turned the night into mush when they started on with their love songs.
I could close my eyes and see myself by the sea lying back on one of those lounge chairs, feel the salty taste on my lips and the cool breeze sweep through my being. Or slowly walking by that vast inky darkness. And I knew then as I have before that I have to have my wedding on a beach just like this. With music in the background and guests all chilled out. Not bothered about how heavily dressed they are, where is the sari from yadda yadda but how the evening promises to move ahead in a haze of happiness with dancing, drinking and eating.
Will I ever get it?
I also think I am feeling the beginnings of a sore throat *note-sip on your favourite caramel cappuccino right from morning till noon*
But I am grinning as widely as a Cheshire Cat. Seven glasses of Champagne count, right? For once however I supplemented it with a generous helping of batter-fried chicken drumsticks done crisply to an oily perfection. They were balanced out by bland cheese and jalapeno croquettes.
It was colleague H's wedding reception at a farmhouse.
We entered early, so everything was pretty quiet. Made friends with the place and the people who were there (who happened to be the bar men) and settled down with our respective glasses.
For a while I remember subsequently gabbing away with Jabberwocky about books. It felt good. I wished randomly and suddenly that I had a library room here in my rented flat in Delhi as I have back home in Calcutta. I miss it.
Ok, but I am back. I have to be back. Living in a fool's paradise does not work.
The evening was beautiful. H was glowing and looking beautiful as she stood elegantly dressed in a cocktail dress and stood by her husband's side to usher us in. A slight breeze ruffled our hairs and dresses. Then this crooner and her guitar-strumming partner took their positions on the dais and turned the night into mush when they started on with their love songs.
I could close my eyes and see myself by the sea lying back on one of those lounge chairs, feel the salty taste on my lips and the cool breeze sweep through my being. Or slowly walking by that vast inky darkness. And I knew then as I have before that I have to have my wedding on a beach just like this. With music in the background and guests all chilled out. Not bothered about how heavily dressed they are, where is the sari from yadda yadda but how the evening promises to move ahead in a haze of happiness with dancing, drinking and eating.
Will I ever get it?
23.7.08
Miles and miles hence you will end somewhere!
Tagged by ABY!
I like tags by now. They make me think of things which I probably don't get to think of otherwise. This one is about reminiscing and hey, nothing beats a touch of the past to make one happy. So I will make it 2 posts per head.
But there's just one hitch. I cannot master the art of linking, so I guess I will be pasting all the related posts following this. I believe this will be one long long post!
Family
Ah my family. Now I have written about them in fragments really. But this was the one post that I found brought back some happy and funny memories for me from the puja of 2005. That year it was in October. So I returned and here's my post from October 25th.
Homecoming
Well I am back. Two weeks of home was bliss.
The smell of the dhuno, the bhog, the smell of homecoming - I was so glad to be back in Calcutta.
We have a family puja which is some hundred years old (my father, heaven forbid, if you get him started on it will give you the history as vividly as possible and bring out the family tree chart as well). We rotate the Durga Puja among three houses, ours being one of them. But this time it was at an uncle's place.
I rediscovered many things at the puja. Amongst which foremost was a crush on a cousin. A distant one - may I point out! I still feel the same way and I was strongly tempted to talk to him about it. Thankfully this time I let my impulse take a back seat.
In the same house was my aunt's husband who is bedridden. He has cancer. From a healthy good looking man he has been reduced to what I cannot even call a shadow of his former self. His daughter has come down from the States to be with him. Apparently she has been crying all the time, so her husband sent her back. The aunt couldn't even smile properly when she met me. I felt like hugging her and telling her everything will be okay. But that was the one thing I just could not do, could I?
On the second day of sapthami I realised that I was only the youngster around. Otherwise it was only my parents, and my uncles and aunts. Would my generation ever take the pains to carry on this tradition? Seems highly unlikely. All my cousins are abroad and scattered in different parts of the country.
The relatives were highly flattering though. I was a major celebrity among them. "We read you every time and wonder how you know so much!" By the end of it my jaws were aching with smiling. Next they leapt on to what is their favourite territory. "Have you found a guy for yourself? What is it with you girls that you do not want to get engaged?" asked aunt A whose daughter N is the same age as me and studies in London. "I am telling you what I tell N. When you have a slim waistline, guys should fall in line. Is it that you don't want to commit?" she asked.
And she launched on to a story. She recently visited N and was very excited about her male friends. "It was a reunion. The first guy whom N hugged and kissed was this really good looking guy called Simon. I was excited. She introduced me to him and then his girlfriend. Some time later she hugged another guy, Paul, and told me he was a very close friend. He was not bad looking and I tried hard not to raise my hopes. She introduced me to his parents and siblings. I thought this is the one. Till another guy came along and she introduced him as Paul's partner." What was aunt A getting at? Get yourself a guy.
My parents did the best they could to remedy that in their own way. On consecutive days, there were two guys, AG and AGT, to see me along with their family. With the two meetings coming to an end, I have realised that I don't want to get married in this way.
Being asked what I cook, why my Bengali has an accent (I don't. AG's father insisted I had. I didn't bother to argue after a point), why I want to get married (I replied very honestly to this. My parents want me to, I said. AG was of course not happy with it), what I had talked about with the guy can you believe this? AG's uncle asked me this. And I rattled it out.. what are my working hours, what am I looking for in a guy, why I want to marry blahblah. Till the uncle looked at me and said you are a quite a child. I was pissed).
AGT was nice but I got brotherly vibes from him. My mum couldn't believe this. "You can adjust," she said. I couldn't think of either as my partner. My folks were very disappointed. "Mamma, do you want to look for yourself? Is that it?" my father asked in a concerned manner. And then, "How do we say no to them now?" But there's always a way out. My father has figured it out by now. Besides the boy and boy's family meeting girl sessions I endured, I did something I have been obsessing about. I had KFC. I overate till I felt sick.
And I went cycling. The weather towards the beginning was fabulous in Calcutta though a bit humid. But once I was on the cycle, I felt the world was at my feet. It felt so right.
All in all I was the perfect daughter (I did not fight for a single day). Except for the last day when I fought with them. We did make up before me leaving however.
Funnily I didn't feel much homesick after reaching Delhi. The weather is perfect. It's not so bad to have two homes after all.
This second post on my family is from March of 9th in 2006. It really tears me up.
How many times must a man look up/ Before he can see the sky?
It was my once-a-week home dusting spree yesterday night. And as it happens when you come across photo albums, you rifle through them and feel happy in the warmth of the past.
I have two albums of my childhood with me here in Delhi-- one with pictures shot in Oman and the other in Thailand. Just before this I had come upon something that was written by someone who will always be special in my life, regardless of how complicated he is. I was feeling blue and wondering how things never turn out the way you want them to. A look, however, at those photos of me in my baby clothes posing with my mom, dad and bro put a smile on my face.
Memories kept flitting in as I turned the pages of the album. Dresses which I had a thing for as an 8-year-old -- a sky blue nightie that made me feel like a queen, an orange and brown checked dress which gave me an Alice-like feeling because that was the time around which I watched Alice in Wonderland (I even remember Alice's face right now. Amazing really, given that my memory quite fails me at times, especially when I want to recall the faces of old schoolmates), a frothy lacy pink concoction of a dress that I would always be made to wear for school functions. Maybe dresses fascinated me because I was perpetually in jeans or trousers, often my brother's hand-me-downs. Which is why I guess I am so fond of skirts now.
Photographs of my mother and father - then in their 40s and 30s (they had me pretty late) - my mother young and beautiful with her fair lovely complexion and my father in contrast really dark and robust with the same thinning hair I have seen since I can remember. It was a standing joke then. My bro and me wondering aloud in front of him whether his head ever brimmed with hair. "Yes once upon a time when I was really young," he would say. But then we would come across his black-and white pix and bawl because dad never really had much hair on his pate.
Photographs of dinners organised by my mother. It was a party-like atmosphere in Oman when Indians, Germans, Iranians and Pakistanis would throw parties very often to escape boredom. Mother says there was not much to do. But I was well entertained with what we did - go for long drives, spend time by the sea, climb mountains, or go shopping in supermarkets to stock up the larder. My personal favourite past time though was sitting in front of the telly and gorging on my quota of cheese balls, 7up can watching Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny. And even though I studied there till I was 8 years old, I am surprised to say that I have no memories of studying. Not one! That feels nice.
As for the Thaliand photos, they had the complete feel-good look. The brilliant blue skies, the clean waters, the long stretches of beaches, my mother in her yellow silk sari, me in my polka dotted yellow frock with my four front teeth missing, my father who had developed a good paunch by then and my brother a long and lanky teenager who looked distinctly disgruntled with life at times...
Now I see how things have become. My parents have aged. My mom's skin,which was once flawless and glowing, has developed pigmentation, while my father has become very thin. My brother wants to marry someone whom my parents don't like. There's kind of a cold war going on between them as a result. So when I say this that the time I spent reminiscing made me feel good, I mean that it made all the difference to my ageing 25-year-old heart.
Friends
Oh I wish this day would come back again -- March of '07.
You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful, it's true, la la la la la la
Woke up to strains of James Blunt. Then sprayed on S's bottle of Beautiful. As did E. And almost instantly we were taken back to our days of staying together in Malviya Nagar. Umm... I sound disjointed. It's a random state of the mind. You know when you are so happy that you cannot just put it down in words. When you feel like flying around work and making everybody smile cause you are happy.
Now to throw some light on the above. I have been on a kinda roller coaster ride in the last two months. Great highs and great lows. But to quantify, the highs have been higher than the lows.
If I start from yesterday night, I would tell you how I had the most amazing time with ex-flatmates S, E and S's husband V. The evening started with S and E making me wait at Sarojini Nagar Market for half-an-hour. After which we set ourselves on shopping, shopping and shopping for 33-100 ruppee skirts and what not. In between, we were caught in this shoe shop (Soft and Sleek -- if you are a shoe freak, you must visit this shop in SN. It rocks and I am not exaggerating), mainly thanks to E. It almost felt like we were part of the staff at the shop -- only we were trying out all the shoes under the price tags that said 150, 200 and 300 ruppees.
Some more shopping and we were finally out of SN. Once at my place, we of course modelled all our clothes and each of us had two more opinions to count on (I shudder to think of my bed. It is a humongous pile of clothes). By the time, we were out, dressed in our respective new buys -- E in her 'bordello' top (an affair in red topped off with sheer net), S in her lime green sphagetti and me in my new tunic -- we were pretty late. So much so that we reached GK and found that we were walking down the middle of a ghost town. It was only 10 pm.
But Gelato Vittorio was open. "You got us here for gelato?!!" the two shrieked. But since it came right at the point through which we entered the market, there was not much choice left for them. I was conned by the guy behind the counter in to buying two scoops of Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch and Whiskey Irish Cream and shelling out Rs 135. "Divine justice," mouthed E and S.
Since there was hardly any dining option, we sat ourselves in Yo China. Where I did an Obelix. As in picked on three plates of Crispy Honey Chicken and ate my through a huge plate of vegetarian noodles. The fact that I could move on my feet after that was in itself a piece of good luck. Meanwhile V had joined us and had what he said was soup that tasted like nothing he had before. It was not a very appreciative comment actually. And E had met her friend who is getting married.
When all was done, the four of us headed to Shangri-la. This time for coffee. I have probably never laughed so much in my life what with old stories and reminiscences of our recent trip to Murud Kashid together. I think you have never heard of any one drunk on chicken. I was. It was so bad that I was planning to rest my butt on a water-filled platform in the hotel. S stopped me thankfully. Thus we ended our night or should I say started today.
But truly, simple pleasures create such great memories.
This second one is special. It is about S's wedding partly on April 12, 2006.
Each day just goes so fast, I turn around it's passed...
Have you ever got up at 5 o'clock in the morning for a wedding? I did and since it was S's wedding, so did she. Actually whoever attended the wedding did. You see, it was a Tamilian wedding. I had stayed over the night before at E's place, so we could go together to the venue. So bleary eyed we somehow managed to wrap on our saris on the morning of April 3 and rush for the wedding.
The wedding itself was alfresco with a shamiana for the guests and a pretty pink pandal decorated with flowers for the bride and groom. S was wearing a maroon sari with a broad gold belt. She shooed us out of the room where she was getting dressed. I wonder why. Why S?:-)
Mr S's relatives crooned as the ceremony took place. And as the fresh morning breeze carressed us, it felt nice. It was not a very long affair. Soon we were cramming down samosas and jalebis.
Then there was a short Bengali ritual that S and Mr S observed. Where they dipped their hands in an earthern bowl and had to fish out a ring. In the meantime, there was Mr S's Irish friend who sang two Rabindrasangeet songs very softly. Apparently she had picked them up in Benares where she has been staying for some time now. Mr S himself sang a song. And could we resist asking S for the same? Of course not (now if you have known S, you would know that singing is just not her forte;) But it is amazing how family can come together. The minute we started off, S's aunt came in and said, "Ok now it's time for breakfast."
By then all us sari clad women were feeling pretty hot and bothered even though we were inside an air conditioned room. But S's mom and aunt insisted we stay back for lunch. So there we were -- E, B, A (that's Tatonnement) and I struggling to find some way to entertain ourselves. It was a struggle alright but it was fun. The evening reception was fun. S looked very good and relaxed. So we left S very much a married lady now. Now I hear she is having a great time in the South. She's heading next for Goa.
As soon as I landed here in Delhi, it was time for Fashion Week. Jacquards, silks, nets, velvets, balloon skirts, frills, ruffles...I think at the end of three days I was ready to throw up fashion. But it was good to see eye candy material in the form of Suchitra Pillai's good looking firang hubby. The two designers who managed to put a finger on the pulse of the girls in the audience were Manoviraj Khosla and Arjun Khanna. They had only men walking the ramp and after watching just semi nude females, I must say it was very refreshing.
Aha how can I miss out the food that was specially put together by Shikha Sharma. It was all low calorie stuff but I wonder how low cal could it get if you really piled up your plate. The amount of baked fish I had two times a day for the five days can probably make up for the lack of it in my life the rest of the year. What I freaked out was with the dessert spread out there. Blueberry cheesecake, apple strudel, rich chocolate cake, fruit tarts, kulfi, malpoa...the list would run at least a mile long. Lunch and dinner were clearly the highlights of each day for me. I wish my mother could have seen me at work on during meal times. There's no way she wouldn't have done a double take.
Fashion week is fun but it leaves you as exhausted as it can. So I am kind of glad to get back to my normal routine. Except the day we got back to office, there was a fire here. Though some of my colleagues made fun of us for running down with our bags, the same night I caught the Meerut Fire clips on the channels and realised how scary it can be. Especially that our building has no fire exit. Just one entrance. It's liking waiting for a disaster to happen.
Myself
I posted this on April 20 of 2005. I quite think it captures me. My gaffes.
Musings of a mosquito-infested night
Yesterday night as I was being bombarded by a contingent of mosquitoes that invade my room every night, my mind wandered to certain incidents in my life, incidents when I found myself wishing I could wave a wand and undo everything or simply disappear from the face of the earth.
1. Like when I had convinced a friend that he was a nitwit. We weretalking about Egypt. He said it was in Africa. I gasped at his foolishness and said, "O my god! What's wrong with you?" Anxiously heasked me what was wrong with that. I replied, "Well, it's in the Middle East. For god's sake, don't reveal your ignorance to others." Well, I took a peek at the Atlas and I was foolish enought to call him up and admit my ignorance. Till this day my friend doesn't lose a chance of rubbing it in.
2. Last year I had gone on a junket to Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. The PR person took us around to show the local attractions. There was a temple high up in the mountains called Jakhni Mata Ka Mandir. Now when I reached there, I saw these rows of big and small trishuls (tridents). I lifted one and sidled back to the vehicle with it. I was very happy about it. Don't ask me why. The adrenaline was flowing high.
The PR guy told me,"If ever you want to get rid of it, call me. We have a temple at home where we will put it." I pooh poohed him and came back to Delhi only to see my flatmates shocked at the sight of it and warning me that it would bring bad luck. They made a deal. I had to keep it in my room. I was ok with that.
But as I relaxed in my room and read a book, I just couldn't take my eyes away from it. It was thoroughly freaking out. By night, it was out on the balcony. And the next day I called up the PR guy and almost begged him to pick it up from my place. He obviously had a good laugh. Whenever he calls me, even now, he reminds me of it.
3. While I was studying in Delhi, I went back home for the holidays. I went to the library room (the exclusivity of visiting this room is mine, or so I thought) and checked to see if all was in place. It was not. My mother had very conscientiously dusted my books. Nothing was in its place. That's one thing I just cannot bear.
The absence of one thing was particularly conspicuous - a photo frame that displayed the smiling face of a crush of mine (I think of it now and cringe in embarrassment). This meant it was in the safe custody of my mother (In the past, when I was a kid, she would catch me sneaking Enid Blytons and later MBs into the bathroom, where I would spend hours with them. Those books were confiscated by her and gone forever because it was eating into study time).
At night the same day, when I sat down for dinner, my mother looked at me with a suspiciously naughty glint in her eye and said, "Not a badlooking guy at all." I put on the most innocence face I could pull off. But I guess it wasn't good enough.
4. I think this was the worst. I had gone for an interview with tennis player Vijay Amritraj. He was talking about a soap that he had acted in and which ran on the lines of The Police Academy. "Have you watched Police Academy?" he asked. I said: "No. Actually I am not into action." In a matter-of-fact manner he told me: "Well, it happens to be a comedy."
Oh I want to go back to this time again! March of 2006:
Oh to pack my bags and leave again...
Yes my bags are packed and I am ready to leave for Calcutta. Ten days of lolling around. I am so excited.
This is exactly the kind of life I want to lead. Pack my bags every week. Last week this time I was leaving for Palampur and Mc Cleodganj. It was an amazing trip. I can still feel the cold mountain air. Actually I was working on a story and stayed at a tea plantation for a day in Palampur. It was beautiful, the snowcapped Dhauladhars, the gurgling brook in the valley...that reminded me of Tennyson's Brook...you know that poem with the refrain 'Men may come and men may go but I go on forever'.
There was yummy homecooked food rustled up by the cooks at the estate. They were such people. Sarwan and Dharmo. They belonged to the local tribes -- the Gaddis and Dhogries. They reminded me of the good old servants who take care of you and make you feel cherished. Sarwan's gajar ka halwa was one of the best things I had on the trip.
The highlight however was my walk back to my cottage at night from the lounge area which housed a television. It was a Sunday night and I was desperate enough for Desperate Housewives to stay back in the lounge at 10 pm. The whole place was eerily silent by then. Everybody had gone to sleep. Now leopards are commonly seen prowling around the estate. All I could do was sit with an irregular heart beat and check my watch every 5 minutes to see whether it was 11 yet and when the soap would end. It was that bad. I was shit scared. Further the owner had showed me photographs of the British planters who owned the estate in the 1800s. And a picture of the planter's wife who had died here during the devastating earthquake of 1905. I kept looking at the glass doors thinking that any moment I would see a face staring at me. And I swear when I swtiched off the lights of the room and ventured out, I heard a rustling in the tea bushes. That was it. I ran for my life and for the shelter of my cottage.
It did not end there. You see I am rather a coward. I just couldn't go to sleep. I called up E who thought it was adventurous and sounded fun. "It must be good for newly weds. Roam around in the morning and have sex in the evening when there is nothing else to do," she mused. Even trying to read an MB didn't help.
Next morning I set out for Mc Cleodganj where I had spinach and potato momos for Rs 2 each (they were delicious especially as it was drizzling with a cold wind blowing. A monk called Tenzing egged me on saying they were the best momos to be sold there), listened to the Dalai Lama and couldn't make out anything of his Tibetan chants, saw nice looking firangs most of whom seemed like they needed a bath badly, searched for a monk I knew at the Namgyal Monastery but was told to look at the archives so didn't bother, bargained with a ruddy faced Tibetan junk jewellery seller who didn't relent much, sat down in a cafe and enjoyed piping hot coffee with macaroni and walked down to the St John's Church in the Wilderness (where Lord Elgin is buried) and thought I would get raped and thrown down the forest (it was that deserted, on top of which it was a dark and windy day). I did as much as I could do in a day before I set out for Delhi in the evening.
Now I have made some more plans. This time it goes like this: six months of the year I can spend in Goa, from October to April. The rest of the year in Mc Cleodganj.
Now I have to figure out some way to do this.
Love
I would like to leave this one out. But I am writing about sad twists to it. The first post is in June of 2007.
Happiness is so transient. Just when you think that something good is finally happening to you, the kind that you hear happens to others, it all ends with a bang. But this I have come to believe from this particularly mind numbing experience that please do not take away from anyone her right to truth.
It makes you wonder whether you can take anyone at face value ever again. Actually, I just met someone. I had not previously, but I had seen his snaps. For two weeks I kept talking to him on the phone. Daily conversations that would extend to 3 am. He said all the right things. Of course I waited for that toe-curling feeling that accompanied those calls.
And then I met him. He flew down from Bombay.
A brief recap of what took place that evening.
1. The moment I set my eyes upon him, I wanted to let it out: "Err...you are NOT the same person I have been talking to!" The pictures he had sent me must have belonged to his brother. This guy looked at least 40.
2. He was a pansy creature. Too pansy for my comfort.
3. He insulted a girl who was trying to promote some wine to us with the words: "Do you realise you are interrupting an intense conversation!" And let me tell you what the intense conversation was about -- it was about my level of inanity. I was horrified. Next a waiter while passing us by asked him if he wanted another round of drinks. He received no response. So I had to turn to the hapless waiter and say: "Sorry, I don't think he wants anything else." Was he classless!
I have been never so humiliated in my life as I was sitting in that beautiful restaurant-bar. Whenever I asked him a question, he would turn his head the other way, turn back to stare at me and then say nothing.
4. Apparently the fact that I had chosen to simply sip on a cranberry juice had put him off so much that he couldn't bear to order a drink for himself or talk to me at all. And even though he did eventually ask for his favourite tipple, he would not talk. Just stare at me.
I have never spent a more strained 2-hour rendezvous ever. To the point of desperately wishing that anyone, just anyone, would rescue me.
Disbelief, shock, numbness, sadness and an incredible surge of anger that made me want to throttle the guy -- a variety of emotions has been keeping me busy the last two days.
And right now I have one wish -- that I could press the delete button. On all of it.
This was another weird phase in my life around December last year. As you can see I don't have any posts that really scream love. Doesn't it say anything?
How high does the sycamore grow?/ If you cut it down, then you'll never know...
Life has been beautiful since the last few posts here. Ever since I returned from Calcutta. I learnt a lot too in those days. Like how you should learn to ignore strangers on the road and give them a wide wide berth, if you want some peace of mind. All I do is plug my iPod into my ears and go with the flow of music. Often I sing along. Yes, I am sure I look funny, but who really cares. The thing is we all learn to be happy.
But life is ironic. Things happen which you never thought could happen to you. Some time back I was out with a guy and I happened to meet his best friend, a photographer from Bombay, at a nightclub here. We danced together. That was the first time we had met and I had liked him a lot. It seemed the feeling was reciprocated. He had asked me if I would go out with him again when he returned to Delhi. There were some complications. I was not his friend’s girl or anything but he seemed to have got the impression.
After a long time, 8 months to be precise, photographer guy called. And suddenly at the end of the conversation he wanted me to be his girl. I was completely taken aback. I was floundering like crazy. I did like him but I certainly didn’t see THAT coming. Since then we chatted a few times. But one day I got very freaked out because he was thinking in terms of us setting up house together! He talked of converting for me (he belongs to another religion). On top of that he pronounced some words a bit funnily. And he has studied in a not-so-great college. Do I sound very superficial? It’s just that I do not want to be ashamed of the guy I am with.
One night I told him that we shouldn’t even talk because it would go nowhere and that he was rushing things. He wouldn’t hang up without a proper reason and really I couldn’t think of any except the religion card (which I admit was very cheap of me and wouldn’t really matter much to me). Finally he said he wouldn’t ever call me up.
A day passed. The next day he called. This time he said that he had to meet a girl from his own religion. “My mother and sisters are trying to set me up with her. And you cannot imagine how beautiful she is. You will lose your senses! She is so much more beautiful than you” -- was what he had to say. My reply: “Good for you! Go for her then!” I was hurt. I have never claimed that I am a beauty queen. So I thought that was pretty nasty and unwarranted. He ended the conversation with the fact that he had made up his mind about the girl he wants to be with. Then three days of silence and he called yesterday with a story about how that girl turned out to be pregnant. And how he was pretty astonished about me not calling him once.
Let me confess. I was a bit cranky about the absence of calls or text messages from him.
Right now, I am so confused. I really do not know what to do. I don’t even know much about him. He was supposed to come down to spend New Year’s Eve with me. But I told him not to. WHAT do I do?
Anything I like
I like this particular post. It makes me feel nostalgic and sad but it makes me feel happy too in a strange way. From September 19, 2005:
For old times' sake
On Sunday morning, as I lay half asleep on the bed, I smelt childhood. The smell of Quality Street biscuits. The memory of the round tin with the buttery biscuits that I loved chomping down. It was weird because suddenly I thought of all the people I had almost pushed to the back of my mind, to the extent that now I have trouble remembering some of their faces and names. They were old people I knew as a child. For instance, there was Mr X (just can't remember his name) whose house was called The Haven. It was extremely ironical because his son had committed suicide in that very house. He was a sad man, my dad used to say. But to me he was a friend who used to call me Wax, play cards with me and chat with me for hours.
Then there were my three old neighbours. Their houses are opposite to ours. The extreme left hand side is the only one who is still alive. But Mr D doesn't talk to anybody now. I wonder why. He used to take me to the circus and whenever I used to catch sight of his wife we would wave to each other from our respective balconies with much vigour.
The other two are dead. Sometimes I forget it. And I expect them to be there when I go back. One of them, the owner of the house in the middle (It was the prettiest of them all. It was a small villa with flowers all over), was especially dear to me. Mr S had a swing in his house. And every day at 5 in the evening, I would be there to take a ride. I felt very privileged. After all it was not a community park thing that I would have to share with others.
Except that his dog Pixie was a bit intimidating. Initially she would growl and growl (I would make faces at her) but slowly she became used to me. Later I stopped making faces at dogs. Thanks to my friend Amy's dog Teddy, the hugest alsatian I have ever seen. The day he chased me and my other friend Sudakshina all over Amy's place (I happened to have pointed fingers at him which Amy had told me not to), I lost my fear of dogs. So with time I learnt to ignore Pixie even when she was in a black mood.
Mr S died in London. His mother is still alive and a broken woman. She hates the fact that has outlived both her sons.
Dr D, the third of my neighbours, used to give me medicines on every occasion. When I suffered from tummy aches to when I ran high temperatures. Last time I went back home, he was there. Now he isn't.
I miss them.
And there's a relative - an aunt's husband. I have seen him as a healthy man who would sit back and enjoy his drink, drive around a contessa with much pride. We used to live at the same time in Oman. They returned to Calcutta soon after us. I have the fondest of memories with him. Whenever I would meet him, I would plant a kiss on his cheek. It became a ritual with us except for when I grew up. Their house is near to ours in Saltlake. It is an ornate house with his paintings all over it.
When I was in college, I visited his place and carted out a huge canvas that was unfinished. After that whenever I visited his place, he ask me to bring it back for him to give it the finishing touch. He never got the chance. One day he had a stroke. Now he lies on his bed with one half of him paralysed. When I visited him last October, he saw me and tears ran down his cheeks. He couldn't speak. He had to be fed like a little baby by a nurse.
How things change. And how they make one overwhemingly sad.
The second post here is just a random few things I thought about on the day of June 6 in 2006.
I really can't tell you why I feel so right now, but the feeling - it refuses to go away
Experience takes years. And the years teach you a lot. For instance, life isn't as you always thought it would be when you were the ubiquitous school girl with pony tails. When you thought it would be a grand affair and you would be the queen of it all. I can't even begin to count the number of things I have learned over the years.
*For instance, you can never take anyone for granted. Not friends, not anyone for that matter. There was a time when I thought friendships are indestructible. They are always there to stay. I was so wrong. I have lost so many friends over a period of time. A guy I knew pointed it out and said, "You know, maybe the problem lies with you". Is that true? Because if it is, I wouldn't know how to deal with it. But I do try to reach back to friends I have lost. There's my school friend SK. Amy, me and SK were thick till college. Till Amy decided to go to Canada and I had just S with me. Then a bunch of complications crept in, in the form of a man she is married to now, and nothing is as it was. I tried to call her when I went back home the last time. She was kind of funny and she never called me back. Her husband by the way is a professor I took tuitions from when I was in college. I still think he is a damn good teacher but I have doubts about the human being in there. I get the feeling SK is alienated from everything she is familiar and I wonder how she is actually.
I suddenly remembered a silly thing Amy, SK and I did when we were in school. We had stood beneath a tree outside my house and taken a solemn oath. I don't know if either of them would recall that evening when after an afternoon of pure mirth, one of those days when we couldn't stop laughing, we said we would never stop being friends.
*I have also learnt in these 25 years that the only people who you can take for granted and count on with your eyes closed are your parents. No matter what. For sometimes, I feel, you do need such people in your life to create a balance between the let-you-downs and the never-let-you-downs. I don't know how many times I have yelled at them and misbehaved, but they have always been there. Just the other day I told my dad that they didn't have an idea about my choice. This because he had yet again sent me a photograph of an eligible guy (a guywho resembles comedian Vinay Pathak. Now don't get me wrong. I like Vinay Pathak but I don't know whether I would like to marry him). I felt terrible later, but still I didn't call him back. Because I knew the you-are-growing-old-and-past-the-marriageable-age thing would start again. They have their point, I want to tell them, but I can't help it if I don't fall in love with the guys they hunt out.
*There again, creeps in a disillusionment. Life is not a Georgette Heyer tale, where I could say hornswoggle to a rude duke and get away with it and even win his love. In fact, I have started wondering whether there is anything as the perfect guy out there. They say, there is a right time for everything. But is there a right guy? E says its karmic. Since she's kinda in the same boat, she commented: "We must have been kings in our past life with harems. Hence we are paying for it in this life."
*Brothers change. Mine has changed so much that I can't begin to wonder at it. The same brother who would treat me as a pesky little thing and a plaything to be toppled in her walker, has started treating me like I am his older sister. He relies on me and I think I have let him down. He wanted to marry a girl whom my mother never liked. To cut a long tale short, I didn't feel comfortable forcing my parents to accept it. It was complicated alright. Now my mother refuses to talk to my brother and I feel awful about it.
* There's nothing like young love. I met an old crush, a school friend of my brother's, who used to come over to our place pretty often. I was quite young and head over hells in love with him. Ex crush got married a year back and the other day he was in Delhi. When he called and said who he was, I almost fell out of my chair. We met up. It wasn't at all uncomfortable as I feared. I don't know whether he ever had an inclination of my infatuation, but he was very nostalgic. And for once I didn't feel like saying a sarcastic 'Oh yeah' when he commented to my brother: "AB has really grown up R. God I can't believe it." As he was leaving, he gave me a gift. The gesture touched me.
*Experience has taught me yet another thing. One fine day you just bump into someone you have never thought of laying your eyes on ever again. I have a list of such people I would want to meet and wouldn't want to meet. In the latter category would be rock photographer dude. Maybe I should forward it to my guardian angel and trust him to take care of it. And, oh yes, keep my fingers crossed.
Tags
I am adding another sixth thing. What else? Old tags themselves! I had to do this after I came across this particular post which was in response to a tag again on August of 2006.
Let's decide the time and place
I have been tagged by Sines. But it's a nice tag. It's about the bloggers I want to meet and where I would like to meet them (I have tried my best to link everybody but I am so horribly challenged that I am resorting to italicizing names). So here's the list:
I want to meet a bad person with a nice body and a good head. He's one of the first bloggers I read and a dear one at that. I think I would like to meet him on a train. It would make a dreary journey seem so much more interesting. No wait, I just thought of a much better meeting place - the Gay Pride:) Still not guessed who it is? Why, it's Jay of course!
I love Mint Chutney's posts, be it her post on her eyebrows, her ex-flames or her cute little kids. I have a pact with Mint. She said she's gonna drop off Chutney at my place soon. So I guess we meet at my cubbyhole in Delhi. Hey Mint, I am waiting...
I connected with Sonal when Mint started the postcard exchange. And I have to say that even though Sonal sent me one soon after she got my postal address, I haven't got around to sending her one. The postcard's still lying in my office drawer. That's how lazy I am! Sadly, I can't make it to her wedding. So, Sonal I will make it up by visiting you in Detroit. Promise. And bring the postcard along:)
Now since Sines has so kindly offered to introduce me to her hot doc friend, I would be very rude to refute it, no?*impish grin* That's a nice incentive by the way. At the rate my folks are going, I would jump at the chance. So I will be generous with you -- you get to choose the venue...
Saltwater blues is mad (Swb don't you dare feel offended because with you I can never tell how you're gonna react to something;)). He loves to delete posts and comments, but he is nice. He's going to help me set up a shack. So I would like to meet him in Goa.
I have to meet Sonia. We seem to have a lot of things in common including our parents. We get to meet in Dubai, if I get to go there that is. The one thing I wouldn't go anywhere with Sonia though is on a long drive. C'mmon Sonia you can't blame me:0)
Rat and Penny Lane - Aha the party girls... They seem to be on a constant roll, so our meeting point has to be a party (maybe in Goa). I would love to get sloshed. I would have company I know!Now let's see how and where we meet.
And whoever reads this, consider yourself tagged.
The last one! From September 2006.
Let's tag you
Since I am pretty jobless at the moment, here's a response to Essar's tag.
I am thinking about........opening a shack. If only I could come up with a plan to lure a venture capitalist into parting with some dough. I have the name of the shack as well a theme. Of course t is going to be in Goa. So if any of you are interested in sponsoring a shack, do let me know.
I said.............yes to two partners for the shack.
I refuse...to toe the line.
I want to....get married without any rituals or anything on an island. Cyprus.
I wish.....I could go back to my school days, not for anything else (certainly not the studies), but the lovely friendship I shared with AM and SK. Those morning walks to the Central Park from where we used to come back to my home in a rickshaw and then collapse on the sofa while my mother had hot pakoras and chilled orange juice ready for us. After a short snooze, AM and Sk would leave for home. And the evenings when we used to hang out at Scoop. Those were the days.
I hear.....Let me say that I try to avoid hearing anything most of the time. Nine out of ten times you will find me with the headphones plugged in.
I wonder...What is up with SK. Is she happy with her husband? There's no way of finding that out it seems.I regret....oh so many things. Most of all I regret my impulsiveness. There have been so situations I have wanted to undo -- situations that were a direct outcome out of my impulsiveness.
I am...a dreamer, impulsive and lazy.
I dance...to anything in particular. But not trance. Somehow I can't figure out how to sway to it. And I love shaking it especially when I am high. The last time I really got drunk and danced like a crazed person was at a party thrown by my erstwhile newspaper. Oh was it fun!
I sing...Breathless by The Corrs. I love the feel of it.
I cry....once in a while. When I am feeling real blue. But then again, I do let those fat tears roll down -- when I am watching a film. I can't seem to stop myself:) And I remember that crying used to be a part of my life when I was with my previous office. I would rush to the loo every day after my senior had a go at me and after I returned my boss would ask me what was wrong. He would actually counsel me and say that I had to take care of myself since I was on my own in the city. At times like those he could be nice.
I am not always....finicky. There are some things like a cluttered room, badly handled books and an unlean loo though that can raise my hackles considerably.
I make with my hands....salads and veggy dishes, mostly to sustain myself. But I must say this for cooking, that it is a great way of destressing. On days when I feel very tired, I need to chop onions, beans and let the smell of garlic soak into my senses to feel better.
I write...for a livelihood. And I quite like it except at times when I am feeling particularly jaded or have to come up with story ideas. I want to throw all of it then and poof! just disappear.
I confuse...places when I am home. I don't know how I do it considering I have lived most of my life in Calcutta. I think I know Delhi better. Wonder whether that says much;)
I need...a corkscrew. To open a bottle of Zinfandel and Chenin Blanc that are tucked into one end of a rack merely because I don't have a corkscrew. The last time I tried to pry the cork of one loose with a knife, a huge portion of it landed plop on my lap.Nothing like a tag to bide time. Are any of you as jobless as me at the moment?
I need a pair of roller skates...
I need them desperately. I wish I had not thrown away the ones I had a few years back. I also wish that I had learnt how to walk around or run around on one. At least it would help me run!
Of late I have had two individuals in my life -- both girls -- who seem to mirror me to the point that I want them to disappear. I am not kidding. And for the life of me, I cannot get over the irritation of having someone (oh no, make that two of them), echo everything I say, adopt my words and magnify them so many times over, that I am left thinking, 'Uh, didn't I just say that?'
A friend remarked that it does seem pretty flattering. I told her to think twice and many times over if she really thinks as such.
So I have been waiting to buy this particular author for a few days. Yesterday one of these ladies was with me as I was about to buy the one copy that I found after days of rifling through numerous book stores. What did she do? She pounced on that one copy! Doesn't matter that she has heard of the book from me. Today she tells the same friend (the one who thinks I should be flattered by the attention) that I wouldn't have let AB take it away from me for the world.
I go to a coffeeshop and a common friend mentions it to the same lady. She wants me to take her there. I go and buy a certain eyeliner. She buys it.
The other one is equally entertaining and as exasperating. She has a fascination for everything 'hip'. Partying in south Delhi, hanging out with 'firangs' and living in Defence Colony! She is fond of me for all the wrong reasons -- because I have guy friends with whom she can party, firang friends who seem to be the new 'in' thing for her and the fact that I live in south Delhi. One morning she climbs up the stairs of our common office building and tells me and a friend, "I have just come from Defence Colony!" with a famous flick of her hair.
Needless to say for a few minutes I was hysterical with laughter. But now I am going hysterical with sheer dread because I meet both items everyday by dint of working in the same vicinity!
Will there be any respite?
15.7.08
Show me those Jazz hands, will ya?
"You walk like you are out to walk your dog on the street. When you are actually supposed to walk with attitude, one that screams, 'Hey look at me!'"
When my lithe little teacher from the Jazz dance classes (I have just joined) raps out those words and accompanies it with a mimicry of our versions of the Jazz walk she has the 30 of us in splits.
Speaking of which, I mean a split, have you ever done one? Not gorged on a banana split, split on someone or been in splits of laughter. Not those ones ok? A split in a dance!
It is incredibly entrancing watching someone do a full 180 degrees on the floor. But when you are kind of slowly instructed to stretch your legs asunder and sit astride the floor aspiring to a similar few hundred degrees, 'entrancing' quite tranforms into 'nerve racking'.
Pretty teacher made us do one today. She made us hold the position for a few seconds -- that seemed to last eternity. Right then the one thought running through my head was 'I am going to be split wide apart right now, god help!'
My hindsight says that at that precise moment had I chanced to see myself in the mirrors there, I would have been found in a dead faint in exactly that position. Which would have been kind of awkward. I am therefore trying to thank god for small mercies.
Go through a split will you? You can then visualise the traumatised lot that walked out of that huge dance studio tonight.
One of them, by the way, has since applauded herself a few times.
When my lithe little teacher from the Jazz dance classes (I have just joined) raps out those words and accompanies it with a mimicry of our versions of the Jazz walk she has the 30 of us in splits.
Speaking of which, I mean a split, have you ever done one? Not gorged on a banana split, split on someone or been in splits of laughter. Not those ones ok? A split in a dance!
It is incredibly entrancing watching someone do a full 180 degrees on the floor. But when you are kind of slowly instructed to stretch your legs asunder and sit astride the floor aspiring to a similar few hundred degrees, 'entrancing' quite tranforms into 'nerve racking'.
Pretty teacher made us do one today. She made us hold the position for a few seconds -- that seemed to last eternity. Right then the one thought running through my head was 'I am going to be split wide apart right now, god help!'
My hindsight says that at that precise moment had I chanced to see myself in the mirrors there, I would have been found in a dead faint in exactly that position. Which would have been kind of awkward. I am therefore trying to thank god for small mercies.
Go through a split will you? You can then visualise the traumatised lot that walked out of that huge dance studio tonight.
One of them, by the way, has since applauded herself a few times.
11.7.08
Let's try and fly away
One of those days. When I feel like running away to a beach town. I can even picture myself.
I am in Palolem lying on a hammock and reading a book. As I feel a hint of a hunger pang, I find myself loping off towards Hi-Tide, a shack where they serve cheap and yet delicious food. I order myself a crusty cheese burrito and a juicy chicken steak. I sit there for hours and let my eyes soak in the shimmering sea. Wash it down with a breezer or two. And then climb up the rickety stairs of my hut, sit on its verandah and doze off while letting the breeze caress my hair. Of course I wake up in some time to the sound of the occasional crashing wave (ok, ok, so Palolem doesn't have that many crashing waves, but make an exception for me, ok!).
I paddle around in the waves for some time. I come upon a firang guy playing some sort of a drum from Germany. People gather around him and stare for long minutes. I video record him (he's cute too) and set off walking down the beach. I come upon another firang man juggling with a baton. Do I video record him also? Yes, of course. I have time on my hands. Time to idle, jump, swim, paddle, canoe, eat, drink.
SIGH
The painful reality. I am sitting at home with a swollen jaw. It's difficult to even clamp the jaws shut after this wisdom tooth surgery. Even now I feel like running away from it all -- the funny doctor who took the teeth out, no, literally dug it out, kept calling me 'beta' even though he himself was young, berated me for having a 'small' mouth that didn't open wide enough, so much so that apparently his needle bent for the first time in his career, him calling me 'good girl' patronisingly. Then this other doctor who was actually supposed to do it -- a rather well groomed and good looking man but without an iota of empathy in him -- berating me for not taking my antibiotics and treating me like I was an item (I guess he had some reason. I forgot my X rays both days that I visited him). The helper who patted me on the head when he handed out an ice pack. Harrrumphh to them all.
I am feeling super cranky and each time I look at the mirror I want to bawl at the sight of this super swollen jaw.
I am in Palolem lying on a hammock and reading a book. As I feel a hint of a hunger pang, I find myself loping off towards Hi-Tide, a shack where they serve cheap and yet delicious food. I order myself a crusty cheese burrito and a juicy chicken steak. I sit there for hours and let my eyes soak in the shimmering sea. Wash it down with a breezer or two. And then climb up the rickety stairs of my hut, sit on its verandah and doze off while letting the breeze caress my hair. Of course I wake up in some time to the sound of the occasional crashing wave (ok, ok, so Palolem doesn't have that many crashing waves, but make an exception for me, ok!).
I paddle around in the waves for some time. I come upon a firang guy playing some sort of a drum from Germany. People gather around him and stare for long minutes. I video record him (he's cute too) and set off walking down the beach. I come upon another firang man juggling with a baton. Do I video record him also? Yes, of course. I have time on my hands. Time to idle, jump, swim, paddle, canoe, eat, drink.
SIGH
The painful reality. I am sitting at home with a swollen jaw. It's difficult to even clamp the jaws shut after this wisdom tooth surgery. Even now I feel like running away from it all -- the funny doctor who took the teeth out, no, literally dug it out, kept calling me 'beta' even though he himself was young, berated me for having a 'small' mouth that didn't open wide enough, so much so that apparently his needle bent for the first time in his career, him calling me 'good girl' patronisingly. Then this other doctor who was actually supposed to do it -- a rather well groomed and good looking man but without an iota of empathy in him -- berating me for not taking my antibiotics and treating me like I was an item (I guess he had some reason. I forgot my X rays both days that I visited him). The helper who patted me on the head when he handed out an ice pack. Harrrumphh to them all.
I am feeling super cranky and each time I look at the mirror I want to bawl at the sight of this super swollen jaw.
18.6.08
Tagged!
Now that I am finally over with filing a cover story I think I am dying to do something random. So here I go responding to Male AB's tag.
Ten random things about myself
*I am a very, very lazy creature. When I was staying with S and E, my former flatmates, I had competition though. Serious competition. If anyone wanted anything done or even wanted to say something to one another, you could hear us shouting to each other from our respective beds. I miss them.
*I love doing different things. Since I was a wee thing I have been trying my hand at singing, drawing, dancing, swimming, yoga, tennis. Every time I would join something new, my brother would say -- AB goes swimming, AB goes dancing...I have covered pretty much in the way of entertainment. I am on my way to more -- having given up on Salsa and Jive for lack of a good partner -- I am thinking of joining Jazz classes now besides enrolling for Japanese classes and rejoining guitar and brushing up on my tennis lessons.
*I love getting drunk and then dancing my two feet out. I have been doing a lot of that of late. It rocks. My best memory of drunk dancing though was at Paradiso in Goa. Where I took off my high heels and danced on bare feet throughout the night with cute French stranger. Oh, it makes my toes curl!
*On certain weekends, I love nothing more than to sit at home. Order myself a lot of food, switch on the telly and then settle in front of it surrounded with a mountain of goodies. No amount of persuasion can make me step out on those days.
*I heart reading. When I was in school, I would read books, not my study books, in every possible place. I would even carry them to the bathroom with me and my mother would often wonder aloud as to what her daughter would do for two hours inside. The fault was hers really. She never let me read in peace in my room. She would always pounce on me and confiscate whatever I was reading.
*At one point, I wanted to become a detective. It was derived from my love for reading in a way. I mean not just reading Nancy Drews, The Three Investigators and the rest, but more from trying to recover those confiscated books from my mother’s secret hideouts.
*I have always liked walking. What I enjoy most is walking through woods, importantly not the bear and snake infested kinds.
*Dreaming up new ventures. I do a lot of that. One was to own a shack in Goa. To which extent I did all my research but somewhere along the way realized that I was way short of capital. Another idea, which I think is viable even now, is to sell churros and hot chocolate at Khan Market. Walk around in a maid’s dress with apron and all and sell them churros.
*I love packing a bag and setting off for somewhere. Which is why sometimes I wish I earned gallons of money. Otherwise I am content with what I have at the moment.
*I don't believe in religion. I think it has given a lot of grief to a lot of people. Including my own family. I want to wish it away.
Nine things I wish I wasn’t/didn’t
*Mull. You can say I am a thinker though not like in the good sense. I once met this old astrologer-holy man at my neighbour's when I was very young. He looked like Father Christmas. There was a mutual fondness there. He had told my mother that your daughter likes to think a lot. Sometimes unnecessarily. I think he was so right. I think about so many things and most of all of things that could have been.
*A bottomless pit. There are days on which I am akin to one. I even put my colleague AM, a big big eater, to shame. He has warned me that I might be suffering from an eating disorder.
*I still read Mills & Boons. In a way I am pretty sheepish about it. But I think I can read them even when I am 80!
*I can be very dense at times. I slip into my own world and you have to jolt me back.
*Keep shut. When I get bugged with someone, even though it is my closest friend, I clam up. I get all sentimental and I cannot for the life of me express myself. Really, why is it so difficult for the other person to understand what I am going through?
*Procrastinate.
*Dine on chilly pepper popcorn every night.
*Fight. I need to curb my fighting instincts. I have suffered considerably. Hell, I even got slapped once.
*Behave badly with my parents. I don’t know why I do that. No, actually I do. My mother can drive me up the wall and over it with her admonishing. Every single day. Several times a day. Her favourite topics – her daughter remaining single at the age of 27, the same growing thinner by the day and her son who got married to a girl from another religion. My father happens to bears the brunt of my temper because I get to speak to him after my mother is over with her talks.
Eight things I’m wondering right now
*Will I get to gym today?
*Should I go for the khao suey at Kitchen or grilled chicken in piri piri sauce at Big Chill for dinner?
*What to gift my friend who is taking me out for her birthday dinner.
*Why do people bother to walk into my life when all they want to do is walk out.
*Why don’t I steer clear of such people? It’s like being a moth to the flame.
*Why I hate my job at times when it does give me free time like this to play Text Twirl on Facebook and generally respond to tags.
*What kind of questions is headed way from my editor.
*Why Rupa has sent a colleague bright yellow toffee boxes with Chetan Bhagat’s face on it. And guess what’s in it? Mango Bites and Melodys!
Seven things that cross my mind a lot
*Will I ever get the fairytale I promised myself when I was young?
*Will I ever get over certain people?
*How do I live out the next few days? (I am hugely broke)
Six things Id like to do before I die.
*Live life the way I want to. Umm…maybe I am already doing that!
*Get married on a beach in Cyprus.
*Bungee jump.
*Get to solve a murder case.
*Let my tongue hang in a tub of dark chocolate.
*Own a pretty, little bungalow with bay windows facing the sea and wake up every morning to the sound of the waves crashing against boulders.
Five turn on’s
*Knowing when to let silence speak out.
*You know your perfumes? I am sold on you.
*A fit body.
*An intelligent mind. Do not confuse it with an intellectual one though.
*Knowing how to deal with me when I am cranky.
Four Turn off’s
Oh the usual…
*Malodour
*Contrived accent.
*Lack of etiquette. Let me give you an instance. It just popped up in my mind as I thought of etiquette. I was once out on a date when the guy happened to talk to the waiter like he was a piece of nothing. That was the moment I mentally wished him far away from me.
*Meeting people who love themselves to the extent that the other person does not exist. I keep meeting them.
Three ways to win my heart
*Be patient with me.
*Buy me the usual girly things – dark chocolate, flowers, perfumes… I am easy to please!
*Treat people with the respect that is due to them.
Two smileys that describe me
:D The mischievous me
:-) The coy me
One confession
I cannot stand nincompoops who are in places where they are not fit to be in.
This was fun. If you like it, consider yourself tagged.
Ten random things about myself
*I am a very, very lazy creature. When I was staying with S and E, my former flatmates, I had competition though. Serious competition. If anyone wanted anything done or even wanted to say something to one another, you could hear us shouting to each other from our respective beds. I miss them.
*I love doing different things. Since I was a wee thing I have been trying my hand at singing, drawing, dancing, swimming, yoga, tennis. Every time I would join something new, my brother would say -- AB goes swimming, AB goes dancing...I have covered pretty much in the way of entertainment. I am on my way to more -- having given up on Salsa and Jive for lack of a good partner -- I am thinking of joining Jazz classes now besides enrolling for Japanese classes and rejoining guitar and brushing up on my tennis lessons.
*I love getting drunk and then dancing my two feet out. I have been doing a lot of that of late. It rocks. My best memory of drunk dancing though was at Paradiso in Goa. Where I took off my high heels and danced on bare feet throughout the night with cute French stranger. Oh, it makes my toes curl!
*On certain weekends, I love nothing more than to sit at home. Order myself a lot of food, switch on the telly and then settle in front of it surrounded with a mountain of goodies. No amount of persuasion can make me step out on those days.
*I heart reading. When I was in school, I would read books, not my study books, in every possible place. I would even carry them to the bathroom with me and my mother would often wonder aloud as to what her daughter would do for two hours inside. The fault was hers really. She never let me read in peace in my room. She would always pounce on me and confiscate whatever I was reading.
*At one point, I wanted to become a detective. It was derived from my love for reading in a way. I mean not just reading Nancy Drews, The Three Investigators and the rest, but more from trying to recover those confiscated books from my mother’s secret hideouts.
*I have always liked walking. What I enjoy most is walking through woods, importantly not the bear and snake infested kinds.
*Dreaming up new ventures. I do a lot of that. One was to own a shack in Goa. To which extent I did all my research but somewhere along the way realized that I was way short of capital. Another idea, which I think is viable even now, is to sell churros and hot chocolate at Khan Market. Walk around in a maid’s dress with apron and all and sell them churros.
*I love packing a bag and setting off for somewhere. Which is why sometimes I wish I earned gallons of money. Otherwise I am content with what I have at the moment.
*I don't believe in religion. I think it has given a lot of grief to a lot of people. Including my own family. I want to wish it away.
Nine things I wish I wasn’t/didn’t
*Mull. You can say I am a thinker though not like in the good sense. I once met this old astrologer-holy man at my neighbour's when I was very young. He looked like Father Christmas. There was a mutual fondness there. He had told my mother that your daughter likes to think a lot. Sometimes unnecessarily. I think he was so right. I think about so many things and most of all of things that could have been.
*A bottomless pit. There are days on which I am akin to one. I even put my colleague AM, a big big eater, to shame. He has warned me that I might be suffering from an eating disorder.
*I still read Mills & Boons. In a way I am pretty sheepish about it. But I think I can read them even when I am 80!
*I can be very dense at times. I slip into my own world and you have to jolt me back.
*Keep shut. When I get bugged with someone, even though it is my closest friend, I clam up. I get all sentimental and I cannot for the life of me express myself. Really, why is it so difficult for the other person to understand what I am going through?
*Procrastinate.
*Dine on chilly pepper popcorn every night.
*Fight. I need to curb my fighting instincts. I have suffered considerably. Hell, I even got slapped once.
*Behave badly with my parents. I don’t know why I do that. No, actually I do. My mother can drive me up the wall and over it with her admonishing. Every single day. Several times a day. Her favourite topics – her daughter remaining single at the age of 27, the same growing thinner by the day and her son who got married to a girl from another religion. My father happens to bears the brunt of my temper because I get to speak to him after my mother is over with her talks.
Eight things I’m wondering right now
*Will I get to gym today?
*Should I go for the khao suey at Kitchen or grilled chicken in piri piri sauce at Big Chill for dinner?
*What to gift my friend who is taking me out for her birthday dinner.
*Why do people bother to walk into my life when all they want to do is walk out.
*Why don’t I steer clear of such people? It’s like being a moth to the flame.
*Why I hate my job at times when it does give me free time like this to play Text Twirl on Facebook and generally respond to tags.
*What kind of questions is headed way from my editor.
*Why Rupa has sent a colleague bright yellow toffee boxes with Chetan Bhagat’s face on it. And guess what’s in it? Mango Bites and Melodys!
Seven things that cross my mind a lot
*Will I ever get the fairytale I promised myself when I was young?
*Will I ever get over certain people?
*How do I live out the next few days? (I am hugely broke)
Six things Id like to do before I die.
*Live life the way I want to. Umm…maybe I am already doing that!
*Get married on a beach in Cyprus.
*Bungee jump.
*Get to solve a murder case.
*Let my tongue hang in a tub of dark chocolate.
*Own a pretty, little bungalow with bay windows facing the sea and wake up every morning to the sound of the waves crashing against boulders.
Five turn on’s
*Knowing when to let silence speak out.
*You know your perfumes? I am sold on you.
*A fit body.
*An intelligent mind. Do not confuse it with an intellectual one though.
*Knowing how to deal with me when I am cranky.
Four Turn off’s
Oh the usual…
*Malodour
*Contrived accent.
*Lack of etiquette. Let me give you an instance. It just popped up in my mind as I thought of etiquette. I was once out on a date when the guy happened to talk to the waiter like he was a piece of nothing. That was the moment I mentally wished him far away from me.
*Meeting people who love themselves to the extent that the other person does not exist. I keep meeting them.
Three ways to win my heart
*Be patient with me.
*Buy me the usual girly things – dark chocolate, flowers, perfumes… I am easy to please!
*Treat people with the respect that is due to them.
Two smileys that describe me
:D The mischievous me
:-) The coy me
One confession
I cannot stand nincompoops who are in places where they are not fit to be in.
This was fun. If you like it, consider yourself tagged.
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