Tuesday, May 29, 2007

And the World Goes Swishing By

When did the Flintstones exist? 100BC? 200BC? 500BC? Make it 2007. Till yesterday that is…..till yesterday when I stopped being the Flintstones….till yesterday when I stopped living in stone age…till yesterday when I got broad band!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so half your eyes will pop out. No I don’t mean half your eye……I mean half of you reading this will pop your eyes out…pop your eyes out??? Mrs Beddow (My “speech and drama” teacher........Ya ya beat that......a compulsory course in my "convent" school……..Ha!) would have given me a straight F if she were to hear my English now……

Anyway, coming back to what I was saying. I got broadband! I stopped plugging myself to the telephone line, hearing the dial tone purr, redialing for a 52.0 kbps connection…….sometimes settling for a 28.8kbps connection….and then spending half an hour loading my email!!! Yesterday it only took me only 5 mins and then I didn't know what to do with the net! It was kind of scary how you’d click go and the page would open phatak!! I leapt out my chair a couple of times by the speed of the thing but finally braved it the third time onwards!

So oh well…I got broadband and this is the first post from my broadband connection so pls let the congratulations pour in! Trust me, it was a mammoth task! Convincing me that is.

And broadbands’s given me something to write about as life becomes even duller with the boy soooooooo far away and my friends having disowned me for disowning them when I found boy....

The only time in the past few days when I’ve wanted to blog was when I got this awesome call from Airtel.
“Madam, we have an amazing scheme. We’re giving you a free sim with your sim card”
“OK. But what will I do with 2 connections?”
Silence. “That I don’t know Madam”

I respect call centers. I appreciate the work people do there. But how can every database in the country have my sex wrong??? I get at least one of these calls everyday
“I want to speak to Mister_____”
“Speaking”
Silence. “Are you Mister_____”
“Do I sound like a mister____?”
Silence. Tick tock tick tock. Bell rings. “Oh. Sorry. You’re Miss _____”
Like duh!!!

Ok got to go now. My mom and aunt have decided to play the role of the Miss Universe judges or something and are commenting non stop on how terrible all the women look. So I need to find solace in stuffing my face with dinner. (On a side note have eaten half a pack of Hide n seek, one lemon tart and one motichoor laddu in the past half hour and am nursing a stomach ache. News you can’t use)

PS- Just in case Make my trip.com starts boasting of getting 2 billion hits in a day…don’t pay attention. It’s just me looking for cheap Chennai tickets every 5 mins………

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Gold is Old!

Mum dragged me for some family friend’s nephew’s wedding (phew!) last week. It was one of those grand affairs where the farm house was converted into some 5 star hotel and the entire area was lined with mouth watering food counters and 3 different types of prawns were served as starters!! (The pepsi was a bit flat but I’d let that pass…)

Anyway, after much stuffing ourselves, we got into the car and my mum says “The bride looked a bit old didn’t she?” I stared at her for 2 mins before I said “Given that your own daughter will soon be 27 and can’t see marriage on the horizon for another 5 years to come, I don’t think you should be commenting on anyone else!” And instead of comforting me she gave out a loud laugh and said “That’s true”

Let’s put things in perspective. It isn’t that my mum hasn’t been having nightmares about giving away her daughter as some wrinkled 40 year old bride. She’s been trying her best to hook me up with lots of “eligible”, “muslim” boys but her efforts to set me up fail miserably compared to my efforts (read tantrums) to keep such efforts at bay! So last week when I finally refused to meet her friend with not 1 but 2 eligible sons she finally gave up! “That’s it! Now you marry whoever you want!” Mission accomplished!

Life was all happy till yesterday when a friend of mine called out of the blue. Let me give you a background of this friend. She’s someone who got married at the right age of 24 and had a baby at the right age of 25. So she called me now at the age of 26 and said “Hey!” Giggle. “Hey, what’s up?” Giggle. “How come you giggling so much? All ok?” Giggle. “Oh gosh have you called me to tell me you’re pregnant again?” “Actually Zee, I have already had my second baby” And the world came crashing down!

The first rude shock hit me when at the age of 19 one of my friends announced her engagement! And then another friend got married and another and before I knew it everyone I touched got married (Midas me!). The second slap was the baby boom when people started popping them out like they’re in fashion or something!

I actually thought I had hit rock bottom when my friend’s baby wished me “Happy Birthday maasi” on my 25th birthday and my friend proudly announced that her child was now attending proper school! But now with my friends moving on to the next stage of life of handling full fledged 2 kid families, that’s it! I’m not only over the hill, soon I’ll be under it!

It doesn’t help that half my head is turning white and I’ve spent a significant part of my evening plucking out the greys from my head (my friends were screaming on the phone that I didn’t have to tell them I was doing that and they could do without such intimate details of my life) ….And it surely doesn’t help that my boy looks so young that when he goes to Buzz they ask him for age proof and even when he shows it to them, they tell him he’s lying!!!! This in comparison to me who has looked like I’m 30 ever since my 17th birthday!!! Hmph hmph!

So after a week of feeling extremely old, here I am blogging away at 3 in the morning with my mom telling me that the reason I’m graying is because I don’t sleep on time! That’s all the explanation I need!

Am off to bed now….to dream of my youthful years and to count the number of black strands left on my head!

PS- the title….my name means gold…go figure!

PPS- My boy moved to Chennai this week. :( I miss him…….

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Car Craze, Late night Dates and Infuriating Vet Visits

Have you ever driven behind a bullock cart overtaking a bullock cart? Well neither have I but I sure feel like I am when I’m stuck behind this car driving at the speed of 10 overtaking this other car driving at the speed of 10 and I’m trying very hard to catch the last parking spot at my office complex! Hmph!

After 2 years of not being able to take my driving anymore, my car gave up and decided to revolt by conking off the car speakers. Well one of them works. The other one shuts up whenever it fancies and can only be brought back to life only if I drive into a pothole! Of course, not hard to find on MG road, have been experting the art of driving into every pothole in sight to bring back music into my life!!!Bullseye!!!

Anyway, have been home most of the week as the boy was busy and my friends have disowned me for never meeting up with them (Sorrrrrryyyyyyy!!). But on Saturday night the boy did call up and said “Can finally get out. Pick you up at 12.” Twelve??? Ok so I’m, not a Cindrella who needs to get home by 12 but I’m definitely someone who CAN’T leave the house at midnight!!!

After much convincing my mum and promising her that I would sneak out without disturbing my grandparents and uncle downstairs, I tiptoed my way down the stairs. And just when I reached the landing my phone shrilled.
“Yes yes I’m coming” I whispered furiously
“Get a bottle of water”.
Tiptoed right back up. Finally let myself out of the house only to find the gate locked and the guard merrily in lala land!
“Hey” No response. He’s sprawled out on the chair.
“Hey guard” Louder. No response.
Clicked my heels loudly on the driveway to wake him up. No response.
I start whacking the bottle on the side of the car. “Hey wake up!” No response. Finally poked him 5 times with the bottle and he stirs.
“Why are you sleeping? What have we kept you here for?” Turn around. And my uncle’s at the door! Awesome! Gave him an angelic smile, hoped he thought I was returning rather than going and finally dashed out of the gate!

Anyway, life finds newer ways to laugh at you. Just took my dog to the vet…which always is an experience in itself. People walk up to you and say “Hey what breed is he?”. “Mongrel”. “A who?”

Yup, one of those days again but today this annoying woman cut the line and decided to chat up the vet! While I was comforting my poor doggy to sit down and relax she was asking the most arbit questions like “So do mosquitoes bite dogs” “When will my dog’s nose disappear”(whatever that means). And when she ran out of conversation she decided to read out aloud, in slow motion, the entire prescription the vet had just written!!! And insisted on perfecting her pronunciation of dog medical terms!!! Double Argh!

But hang on! That’s not all. In that entire wait, I entertained myself by checking out the posters of dogs up for sale till I saw a dog with the same name as mine! MINE!! Not my nick name. My real, official, seriously serious name!!!! And my name isn’t even one of those “tommy” “shiny” “goldy” kind of dog names!! It’s a normal, meaningful, human name!! Hmph!
On that note, I think I need to stop writing and go find the stupid dog owner who thinks he can get away with this!