Old Age

Scene: Art of Living Class
Mood: Philosophical

Teacher: (Spiritually) "So, when did you come into this world?"

Me: (Idiotically)"Ummm...20 years ago. " Pause. "No wait, 27 years ago." Pause Pause. "No hang on. 29 years ago. Shit."

Yup....being 29 is now hitting me....sigh....

Sita Haran?

The last time I co-wrote a play was in final year B-school....and it was a complete random mish-mash of devdas-elton john being gay- saddam hussein - salman khan shooting the black buck- you get the picture!

Today in office, as part of the diwali celebrations, we needed to do a spoof/witty take on a given situation- and our situation was the Sita Haran.

So I got co-writing again. And I can't believe how much I enjoy writing these kind of things...how totally random they are...and how they don't even make me laugh after a third read!

Here's the gist of the story.... (Truly for hindi speaking, bollywood types only!)

Sita, Ram and Lakshman are in the jungle and have been sent for the filming of Iss Jungle se mujhe bachao.

Ram is given a task which he tosses Lakshman for but since Lakshman has the lucky coin from Sholay, Ram has to unwillingly go to the jungle. 2 mins later he is heard "Iss jungle se mujhe bachao" and Lakshman decides to go to his rescue. But before he leaves, Sita pleads him not to go because she's scared of cockroaches. Lakshman then draws the 'lakshman rekha' to keep the cockroaches away.

Through a wild card entry, enter twin sister Gita and Sanjeev Kumar singing Hawa ke saath saath. Sita and Gita meet and Sita offers to make tea. As she walks away Gita tells her to make the water is pure....because Gita trusts 'wonly Kent' (True hema malini style!)

In the mean while, enter Quick Gun Ravan who's ho-ho-ho gets Gita confused whether it's Santa Claus or Ravan. Ravan is here to kidnap Sita but is confused by Gita. He decides to take Gita nevertheless. Sanjeev Kumar of course fights in vain because Gabbar has cut his arms off. So in true Tamil movie style there's a fight scene with just the rolling of the hips and Ravan takes it all. So heabd ucts Gita and off they go..

Now seriously, we ran out of ideas for the ending and I don't expect you to come up with it. But if you do, then keep it to yourselves. Cause posting it would mean you're even more arbit than I am!

More Random Thoughts

Why I call this more random thoughts is because I've come up with random thoughts earlier as well....always....but these ones are seriously, seriously random. Like injurious to health type random. And that's cause I'm writing them after having driven on the worst roads in Delhi and think my brain fell into some pothole or something!

Before I start off with my own random thoughts, you guys have to read the most absolutely psychotic attempt at philosophy written by _____[{am not mentioning the name lest this shows up in an SEO result- (Do you not know what SEO means? Does that qualify you as internet illiterate? Get with it!)}- check out how I use various types of brackets- kind of reminds me of BODMAS from Math!!!- random thought #1 maybe?]. Anyway, it opens with something like this guy has had 25000 thoughts till date and has released a series of books on his thoughts. I'm pretty sure on an average any normal human being gets at least double the thoughts in a day! Then I wonder what gave this gentleman the right to publish his?

The answer my friends is humour value! Unintentional indeed! Some of them go like this
- If legs could rotate, wheels would not have been invented (Are you serious?)
- Have you noticed how few trees have flower but most have leaves?
- Life is more about depth than height

So anyway, inspired I start a series of seriously random thoughts myself....or just thoughts which have been crossing my mind of late!

Random thought # 2
(For random thought #1 refer above to random mention of BODMAS and significance of types of brackets)
I love hair wash day. I love early morning meetings on hair wash day. Because I can almost see my colleagues' jaw dropping in the transformation that happens from min 1 to min 7 of the meeting.
Min 1: Hair is wet. It looks poised and demure and settles around neatly on my head.
Min 2: The outer layer is drying up and begins the get a touch of fluffiness
Min 3: The inner layer is drying up and getting fluffy.
Min 4: It's all drying up and beginning to balloon up- like a nest!
Min 5: The next expands in size. Are there some birdies in there?
Min 6: Wo! The big bang is happening right in front of their eyes! The nest has been gobbled up and there's this massive bee hive resting on zee's head!
Min 7: Meeting adjourned because people need to get past the trauma of seeing my hair transform from delicate duckling to giant porcupine.
In Bombay, the transformation takes precisely 2.5 seconds.

Random thought #3
SMS: Did you get the baby elephant I sent you?
Surprised? These types of smses are perfectly normal for me. Of course I've received the baby elephant. In fact I've placed him right next to my ducks and horses on my farm! Am I rich? Yes I am. A 100,000 gold coins mind you. On Farmville. On Facebook.
I'm totally addicted to the game. I look forward to weekends so that I can plant the pretty blueberries and make more money. I talk less to my boyfriend because I need to concentrate on where to place my trees. I leave parties early (whenever I'm invited to them!) so that my crops don't die by the time I get home. I spend time daydreaming of the rearrangements I'll make on my farm to make it pretty.
Let's face it. It rocks! Get onto it!

Random Thought #4
I hate agency presentations I'm responsible for. In all my attempt to be encouraging with the agency, I keep nodding my head at every word. Today at the end of the 2 hour long presentation I could almost see my head popping out of its socket and roll across the floor. I think I need a spondalitis check up! (Head popping out of its socket? How gross am I!)

Random thought #5
Khatron ke khiladi level 2 rocks! Nauheed Cyrusi was super! I could never participate in fear factor. So is my fear to be on fear factor? Hmmmm...

Random thought #6
I have successfully lost 5 kilos! And put back on 2. But it's still one of the biggest losses since my chicken pox days- class 9. Yipieeeeeeee!

Seriously. The thoughts are getting shorter. And you're wasting your life reading them.
Till next time.

My last year in the twenties

....Starts tomorrow.

But Ha! I don't feel old at all! :)

Ok I do.... :(

No I don't....!

Ok I do..... :(

What the hell I don't!

It's going to be a rocking year! If only alternate Saturdays weren't working....

The Hazards of Ordering a Movie

Just called up the movie rental guy and said "Bhaiyya, Aapke paas life partner hai?"

Hmm...I hope he doesn't think I'm hitting on him!

Illiterate

So have just got out of a branding workshop….feeling rather disillusioned and silly.

We had a pre assignment to write a synopsis of stories that have inspired us- books we’ve read or movies we’ve seen. And here are some of the stories people played back- Fountainhead, Mahabharata, Gladiator and the Notebook. And here’s a confession. I haven’ read/seen any! (I have seen Mahabharata on TV though…but nothing anyone was talking about sounded familiar).

We also discussed James Bond and Romeo and Juliet. And guess what. I haven’t ever seen a James Bond movie and didn’t know Romeo died before Juliet did. (Seriously, how did that happen?)

My story summary was about ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’! I couldn’t think of any other that has left a lasting impact on my mind. Thankfully I wasn’t called on to narrate what I’d written. It started with “Arthur is this loser-like English man….” quite contrary to the other stories that started with “This is a story about bravery and courage!” Am I intellectually challenged?

The answer is yes. Here’s a piece to prove it!

The conference is taking place at a five star hotel. And here’s my second confession- I don’t remember the last time I stayed in one! Oh wait! I do remember. Never!

So I of course know what a swipe card key is. Except that I’m unable to swipe despite 3 attempts. My exasperated boss who wants to leave her luggage in my room helps. Then I don’t know how to take a plate out of some glass closet in the dining hall. And to top it all, apparently the locks in the loos are so fancy that I don’t know which way to turn them. My boss almost walked in. I was so embarrassed I was planning to spend the rest of my life inside the loo after that incident!

Having embarrassed myself enough for the day, have returned to my room and can safely say I spent the first 10 mins in pitch darkness- not out of choice. But decause in such a savvy hotel I expected to fit my card in some fancy slot to turn on the electricity….but they still have switches to do the needful. Ah!

Now I know what Tarzan felt like when he went to the city….

It's pouring!

And I'm sitting in my office with mixed feelings....one of complete joy- I love the rains! And two because there'll be a massive jam on the roads.....and it's a long drive home...sigh....

Looking out of the office windows now....there are two women walking on the terrace of their homes getting drenched....I wish I were them....and didn't have to work on this goddamn ppt!

Goodness!

For some random reason there's a sign on the wall of our office loo that reads "Plz don't touch it".

Please don't leave scandalous comments!

Who am I!

Like seriously, does nobody know me????

In one of those randomly boring days, I decided to create a Facebook quiz- How well do you know Zee? 19 of my friends took it. And the average score was like some 14%!!!! Including my boyfriend's! Which means only 1 correct answer out of 7!! That sucks!

And so this blog to tell you a bit of what you need to know to really know Zee!

1. At a party, what would I definitely be doing?
- Yapping away
- Piggin out
- Worrying about who's dropping me home
So my blog is 'Keep Talking' but I'm a very shy person ok! I don't yap away all evening. Or at least that's how I see it. And while pigging out is definitely a part of my personality, I wouldn't start the quiz with my food-a-holic-ism. (What a word!) I'm just worrying about how to get home! I swear get nightmares about this. That I'm out and it's 4am and I'm panicking that my mum is going to throw me out of the house. This is a serious issue. Hope all you home droppers appreciate it!

2. What would I secretly like to be for a day?
- Witch
- Traffic Policeman
- Lead actress in a K serial
Correct answer: A witch! I want to have the ability to be able to make people fly out of their cars if they overtake me, to trip people who're pissing me off and to turn off the air conditioning without getting up (yes, I don't have a fancy remote control AC as you may have noticed).
Most of my friends thought I'd like to be a lead actress in a K serial. Correction. I want to write a K serial, not act in it.

3. What did I want to be when I was little?
- Teacher
- Doctor
- Too lazy to do anything
Correct answer- doctor. I have this uncle who I adored as a child and wanted to be just like him.... minus the mustache. And he was a doctor. So there...

The only thing most people got right was the fact that my favourite part of the day is the evening snack! And they didn't know my favourite cuisine was continental!!

Can someone please pay closer attention to me?!!!!

Presence of Mind?

Someone did a tag cloud for my blog and the topic on which I write most frequently turned out to be- My Car! Which could be true cause I spend a good 2 hours in my car everyday.......

Anyway, keeping this short and sweet.

Everyday, I come across at least one person on the road who totally pisses me off. And yesterday was the same. I wanted to turn right and there was a car full of men who wanted to go straight but were in the wrong lane. And decided since it was a girl (yes I'm still a girl, not a woman and I intend to address myself that way for a long, long time to come), they laughed at me and went straight and had the audacity to turn back and give me a nice, big grin.

My anger came shooting up. My face was red, my lips were pursed and a perfectly menacing scowl was on my face. That was it! I was going to show them my middle finger! I lift my hand, abuse under my breath and lift my finger.......and then realise it's the wrong finger....the thumb.....I was giving that bunch of chauvanists a thumbs up sign!!!!!!!

There is a serious coordination issue with the hand and the brain.

Hence Proven. I'm slow!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the longest weekend ever since I joined this company.....a full 3 days off!!!! You have no idea what that means cause you're not the one who works alternate saturdays.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Drive.....

I love to drive. (Contrary to what my friends believe cause I'm forever asking them to fetch me!). I love my mornings drive to work everyday. I love swearing at everyone on the road. I love talking to people in the cars next to me knowing they can't hear me. (While most of my comments are on their driving skills, I must confess I do often also comment on their hair and their clothes and even ask questions like 'What did you have for breakfast boss'...all without them knowing of course!). I love listening to music. I love getting behind the wheel after a long holiday. The feeling is very liberating....the fact that you can get yourself to wherever you want to go. Having said this, I have the worst parking skills in the world, my car gets a new scratch every month and I don't have any aspirations of driving a Merc....In fact, I can't drive anything but my Santro!

So day before yesterday I was on my way to work as usual taking the Delhi-Gurgaon Highway. The office is 6 flyovers away. The office is 6 high speed flyovers away.

The traffic was smooth. Many offices were shut. The morning was lazy. I was done with 2 flyovers and on my way to the 3rd. A thought. What if I were to ever have an accident? Thought over.

I start my ascent on the 3rd flyover. Speed 70. (The limit is 90 so you can imagine the speed of the traffic). Am in the middle lane. There's a car parked on the left side of the bridge.

Suddenly a bike bangs into the car. Cannot see the man who was on the bike but his bike comes flying and lands up right in front of my car. I have a choice. Drive over the bike. Or swerve the car. I don't decide. I'm frozen. I'm on autopilot.

I swerve to the right. And then swerve to the left. And the car swerves to the right again....like a life of its own. I know my foot's on the brake. I know I'm holding the steering wheel with all my strength. I can hear screeching sounds. And they're coming from my car. I can feel the world spinning. I can see the road coming at me. I need to stop before I hit the divider. And inches away from the divider, I stop.

It's not over. I now realise I'm perpendicular to the traffic. And there are fast moving cars coming right at me. The only thing I can now do is raise my hand and hope it all stops. And it does....

I don't know if my car did a 360 spin. I don't know how I managed to stop. I don't even know if the traffic had stopped for me or for the bike. But I do know that my knees felt like jelly and I knew I had to have the courage to move on. Someone signals me to keep driving. I reverse. Get the car back straight. And move on. Like my near death experience didn't happen.

I wish I'd stopped and seen what happened to that man. I wish I'd helped. But all these thoughts came 15 mins later when I was in the safety of my office parking. Till then I was just completely numb....driving on complete autopilot....

The Joys of Meeting GG

And no I don’t mean GGG (my giggly girl gang) but just GG….

So the world’s becoming smaller…..or am I becoming bigger? Whatever….the world’s becoming smaller because suddenly now everyone knows everyone else! And my pile on abilities which I like to disguise as being friendly and social has enabled me to hang out with Tina’s friends when he isn't even in the same city! (Yes yes, Tina is a he. It's his favourite nick name! :) )

So in any case GG was coming to town and it was almost like Santa Claus was coming to town (minus the presents though….hmph hmph…hint hint!)...so we all decide to meet at TGIF. The reason we chose TGIF was because Sick had the world’s ugliest bruise on his knee and wanted to wear shorts so that no one missed out seeing it (the kindly soul!). He also had a blue cast on the other leg which AJ found very intriguing cause she didn’t know it came in colours other than white! She wanted a pink one for herself.

Flashback to how Sick managed to do this to self.

Feb ’09. A bunch of 13 people used collective creativity to cook up stories to tell their bosses why they wouldn’t be working for the next couple of days and took off to Goa. The agenda: three items missing from their last trip to Goa. Water sports. Trekking. Hiring scootys. And of course prawns and alcohol and beach and alcohol and alcohol and alcohol...

10 very adventurous people decided to get onto the banana ride, the water scooter, parasailing. 3 of us decided we didn’t like the way our skin looked so got ourselves a free sunburn. Actually, the beachbeds on which we plonked for the sunburns cost us 100 bucks so they weren’t really free......... I braved onto a water scooter ride finally. I’d like to believe it was me being brave and not me being cheap cause Aye wanted to give up the last ride but hey we’d already paid 200 bucks for it and I couldn't possibly waste it! So there I was on the scooter, smiling bravely at M, then turning to look at the sea, panicking, remembering I couldn’t swim, thinking of the various sharks which would bite my leg off and suddenly it accelerated straight into the sea! Exactly 5 seconds later I was screaming “Bhaiya! Scared! Back back back back!”

Trekking was fun. My heart was very excited to get some exercise at last and boomed its way till my breath ran out and my legs felt like jelly. Madan (the same one who insists I was a maharani in my previous life - what a great guy!) said he wanted to climb every hill in sight! So he did sound a bit like someone from Sound of Music but what the hell! That was when Sick tumbled down and sprained his ankle. Hence the cast.

Scootys were hired. M confidently decided to let me sit behind him and only when I’d started enjoying the ride he said….I’ve only ridden this twice before!!!! I would’ve spent more time panicking but then saw Kur who had obviously never ridden a scooty before! For someone who drives a car everyday, he forgot a lot of basics that day! Like U turn does not mean going straight. Like brakes are a good thing to use instead of banging into other scootys. Like giving way to the traffic if it’s honking and you're leading a host of SUVs cause you don't know how to stop on the side.
The other person who’d never ridden a scooty was Sick so he fell and bruised his knee.

Back to TGIF.

So here we were a bunch of 28 year olds happily chattering away of school days and college days when we were young and life was happy when suddenly we got tempted by the idea of a free happy birthday TGIF cake! At 28, one isn’t very excited about one’s birthday yet the idea of a free cake…….hmmmmmmmmm. AJ decided it was her birthday. We arm twisted the waiters into bringing us a free cake. They avoided us like the plague. We made loud birthday conversation everytime they passed by. And they waited for the entire crowd to leave before they got us some leftovers. We wiped the plate clean.

Then we bade GG tearful good byes and he called us crazy drunk people and left.

Ah the little joys in life!

The Joke's on.....me....again!

There's a terrible storm brewing. Zee steps out in the balcony to bring in the clothes. The dust and wind is blinding her. Thank god for all her weight she doesn't fly off with the clothes.

The construction next door is making funny sounds. The sheets are flapping away. Everything seems to be flying off. No sympathies from Zee. The construction hasn't let her sleep with the loud drill noises. The machines churning cement day in and day out. The constantly parked trucks outside her gate making her test her driving skills everyday trying to get the car out of the driveway!

Another loud flap flap and a thud thud and a bonk bonk.

Good god, she thinks. The building seems to be falling apart. *snicker snicker*

Gleefully she walked in and heard about it.

The building was falling apart all right. Right on top of her car!

Sigh.....I hate these stupid constructions! The roof's caved in and my little santro looks like a squashed potato! Arrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a boy!

The first of the giggly girls has become a mommy this morning! Congratulations Al Dude and Dudette!

The Most Expensive Jam Ever!

Have you ever had a jam worth Rs 3,000? Well, you're lucky. Cause I will be doing that soon!


How a 30 buck jam became a 3K one is a story so not worth telling. But to put it briefly, here I was carrying guava jelly jam in my handbag and the security at the airport asked me to take it out. With a sinking heart I pulled the jam out and was then told that this supreme sacrifice was not needed and I could just check my bag in. Silly me!


With a skip in my step I went back to the counter and checked it all in, including having a fragile sticker put on it and ran back to the security...only to be told my flight had taken off without me!!


What's more is that I was told the next flight out of Chennai was 7 hours later but since I'm creating such a scene I could buy myself a ticket on Indian Airlines for only 3K extra! And so I paid 3K for a bottle of jam!


Yes, I received many calls when I returned to Delhi most of which went...- hahahahahaha! You and your love for food!

But the larger question remains.....WHY ME??????????????????????

Matlab ki....all and sundry!

Before I start, since this is the first post for the year- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!
Ok Fine. So a bit late. But it's still Jan so it counts ok!

And now for all the junk! :D :D

Well to start with, I got this great haircut! A hundred people stopped me in the office corridors to say "Hey Zee. Nice haircut!".
I hadn't even finished basking in the glory when the hairwash happened and off came the blow dry!
"Oh my God Zee! What happened to your hair?"
Or worse.
"OH MY GOD! What have you done?"
Yes for some reason people believe I do these things to myself! I like to look like fluffy cat! Hmph!
*************

Have you noticed how integral Facebook has become to our lives?

It's no longer "Smile for the camera". It's "Smile for Facebook"

Everytime you look at a picture you evaluate it. Is this worth making my facebook profile picture? Is this ok for my aunt in Timbuktoo to see?

A significant part of your life is also being spent in palpitating about a childhood picture your schoolmate could tag you on and the world would know what a vague looking child you were!

And of course there's the small world phenomena. "Hey I know you. Aren't you A's friend? I've seen you on his list. I'm A's friend's girlfriend's friend's fiance. What a small world I tell you!"

But of course now nobody says good bye. They say- Are you on Facebook? And that's pretty cool actually! :)
*********

I hate socialising! Period.
*********

Me to the 4 yr old niece
"What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know what that means!"
*********************

Squeeky shoes suck! My nice brown shoes are warm and comfortable but I end up trying to tip toe through the day in office and even the tip toeing makes this horrible squeeky sound. Aaaaarghhhhh!

I can also see thought bubbles going up in office. "God! The heels are really revolting under all her weight!" (Now come on! You didn't think I could start the year without cribbing about my weight?)

And now an ode to my Squeeky shoes!
Squeeky shoes squeeky shoes
Why am I wearing you
Squeeky shoes Squeeky shoes
It's all your fault!
(PS 'squeeky' is a bloody tough word to type!)
*************

I've decided to write a book. Not for publishing and stuff but as a family heirloom....errr heirbook! The only issue is I've started about four of them but they're all in my head!
*************

And with that, I'm out. Farhan Akhtar is on air....and in my heart.....sigh!