Keep Talking

Bride to be part 2

2011-03-28T13:54:00.002+05:30

Note for all amateur shoppers:

While shopping at designer malls....don't! The number mentioned on the label is not the bar code. It's the price!!!

Shop Un-holic

2011-03-26T19:53:00.002+05:30

It really doesn't help hating shopping when that's the only thing you're supposed to do for the next 3 months.

If I see one more lehenga, one more sari, suit, dupatta, border, embroidery, zari...I'm going to scream! It's like learning about the entire fashion industry in one day! And realising you don't have the knack for colours, designs and you can't afford not to care anymore!

I thought I was supposed to enjoy this phase of my life!!!

If only I didn't have to shop.....

These are a few of my....

2010-07-20T12:20:00.003+05:30

Happiness at work is this:

See the size of a ppt file
Compress the pictures
Save the file
See the size of the file again

Miraculous how 3.5 MB turns to 1.6 MB.

Gives me a sense of achievement!

Am I superwoman or what?

1500 worth of crap!

2010-05-23T17:55:00.002+05:30

Mom and I were just going through some old papers and found a bill. Rs 1500. Description. "Crap".

We've bought a lot of crap I'm sure, but never has a bill actually said "Crap"- so in your face!

Turned out to be a bill for a Crepe Sari!!

Sigh......

Smarty Pants!

2010-01-18T20:45:00.003+05:30

The annual Goa trip's being planned. This time there're some 20 of us heading out and the planning has been going on for a month. Approximately 150 mails have been exchanged with some as arbit as "why has aj sent a blank mail", "maar daala", "what does your tattoo say"- that being the only content in a series of mails where we're trying to get a headcount, budget count, room count and a vote on north goa vs south goa!

The 151st mail today in the middle of a very busy working day to our mailing list of 36 said
"This thing is sitting outside my office window.... quite a distraction"

My reply:

"Why? Is it singing Hotel California?"

I am now most definitely the most hilarious person I know!

Old Age

2009-11-03T16:09:00.004+05:30

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?

2009-10-16T23:48:00.002+05:30

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

2009-10-01T23:06:00.004+05:30

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

2009-09-12T21:26:00.002+05:30

....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

2009-08-30T14:45:00.001+05:30

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

2009-08-01T12:14:00.001+05:30

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!

2009-07-27T16:37:00.002+05:30

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!

2009-07-04T16:01:00.003+05:30

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!

2009-06-10T21:13:00.002+05:30

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?

2009-06-04T22:21:00.002+05:30

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!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-10T15:26:00.003+05:30

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.....

2009-04-07T20:55:00.005+05:30

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

2009-04-03T10:50:00.006+05:30

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!

2009-03-30T14:34:00.003+05:30

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!

2009-02-27T11:19:00.002+05:30

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

The Most Expensive Jam Ever!

2009-01-30T21:00:00.002+05:30

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!

2009-01-16T21:06:00.009+05:30

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!

Quite the Cooker I am!

2008-12-08T12:57:00.004+05:30

Now a lot of factors drove me to cooking. There was mum who constantly pestered me to learn to cook so that I can be self sufficient. There were horrified friends who became horrified when they learnt I cannot make an omelet. There was S who told me to check out her blog for pics of what she's made post baking classes....(fancy twisty dinner rolls, chocolate chip cookies, cakes, the works...). And then there was this terrible urge for honey chilli potatoes one evening when I got home for work.

You see, I love honey chilli potatoes. I cannot get enough of them. Right from the ones at Red Hot Cafe which are all honey, no chilli to Golden Dragon which are so hard you have to sacrifice a tooth every time you bite them......but if I'm having Chinese I have to start it off with honey chilli potatoes! I've caused enough embarrassment to some friends when we're out "fine dining" and everyone is ordering prawn ala la-di-da and crispy spinach ta-lu-ta-da and I promptly ask for my honey chilli potatoes total aka saki ishtyle!

Having given you that valuable insight about me, here I was craving for the potatoes and was too lazy to get out or order in. So I take the recipe from my sister and get working in the kitchen.

The first thing I learnt was that potatoes are just dug out from the farms and sold to innocent consumers without washing or processing them first! I had no idea there was so much mud around each potato. It's like they've all battled a sandstorm before making their way to Mum's vegetable basket!

The second thing I learnt was how disgusting the term potato "eye" is! I mean call it potato holes, potato depression but why call it the eye? It feels quite disgusting just saying it- I'm scooping out the potato eyes! Grosssssssssss!

The third thing I learnt is that a lot of plates, saucers, pans, cups are needed to get any cooking done. There was a pile of dishes crying for attention and the maid was away too....sigh.....

The fourth thing I learnt was that honey chilli potatoes needs chilli which is something I remembered just before I was going to scoop the dish out in serving bowls. The result were slightly overcooked/burnt potatoes.

The fifth and the final thing I learnt was never trust an expert's time estimate when you're setting out to do this yourself. My sister said it would be ready in half an hour. I took 45 mins just to peel the goddamn potatoes, 20 mins to cut the other ingredients, 30 mins to fry the potatoes and 30 mins to get the salt-honey-chilli combination right!!!!

But post that, I'm all set for a career in the food business! I'm going to start my own honey chilli potatoes and tea joint since those are the only things I can make. I would've liked to add roti to that list but the one time I did make them, they were so elastic my jaw started to hurt and I slept off hungry (and that's saying a lot!)

Make way for the new chef on the block! Or as someone recently put it....make way for the new cooker on the block!

Bombay

2008-11-29T17:55:00.003+05:30

Cannot believe the horror in Bombay.
Cannot believe how unaffected some people were in office.
Cannot believe how no radio channel carries news.
Felt unreal to be discussing marketing when there was a war going on.
So relieved that all my friends and family safe.
So horrifying to know many of us can't say that.
So proud of the NSG, the army, the police.
Cannot believe the insensitivity of some news channel to air ads. So completely out of place.
Hats off to journalists who risked their lives and who possibly risk their lives everyday to bring us news.
Cannot believe how anyone can be so cruel.
Hope no one ever faces that horror- of being held hostage, of waiting for someone to get out alive....
It's all so real.....

Scary Hairy

2008-11-12T18:19:00.005+05:30

Disclaimer: Gross Blog ahead! Proceed at own risk!

Today I read the newspaper. And of course that is an event in itself as I read the newspaper once in 6 months but the actual reason for blogging this is to say how I read the newspaper. I read it while I was driving....while the person in the backseat of the car in front of me was reading it! This shows two things. One I have great eyesight! (Clap clap clap clap!) And two, that the traffic if one leaves home post 9 is supersonically slow! (Can I use a phrase like that? Supersonically slow? Isn't supersonic = fast?). Well whatever. I thought it was a cool thing to blog about and so I am!

This was obviously not the gross bit of the blog. That starts here....

A lot's been going on this month. A wild rush of friends and family in the festive season, my cousins pouring in from London, my aunt here for a week......in all these things the one thing I've completely not found the time for is..........(Warning! People belonging to the male gender stop NOW!) .............. is the time to go beautify self in the parlour! Now that I've started I might as well tell you the entire story. My regular parlour had my favourite parlour ladies who would tell me all about their children and their hometowns and want to know everything that's happening in my life. Then one fine day the parlour shut down! And I had to move to this prim and proper upmarket one with a lot of fancy parlour ladies who obviously think I'm some Martian or something cause they keep recommending I do something to my face, my hair, my life......One of them even said "Sar pe toh baal hain nahin haath pe hain!" Hmph hmph!

Anyway, back to current situation. My laziness coupled with hectic social schedule has quite resulted in a mini rainforest growing on my arms! Initially I was happily trotting around with this horror sight and ignored my image in the mirror. But when I saw people hold their breath when they caught a glimpse of my arms (not very descretely hidden in my half sleeves!!!) and when I saw little thought bubbles popping up over their heads which went something like "oh my god- what is she thinking!" .....that's when I realised it's really a national calamity! In fact, I went for a client meeting today and I don't think that deal's coming for this very reason! Ok so I exaggerate.......or do I?

You really become very conscious of your looks when you know something is wrong. I for one have been hiding my arms behind my back everytime I'm talking to someone at close quarters...and this is happening subconsciously mind you! And when I meet strangers I keep thinking no matter what smart stuff I'll say, they'll think who's this tacky person and never take me seriously.

Looks really go to define a person huh! I remember this episode someone narrated to me when she was hanging out with a bunch of her friends and came across this hot guy. They were in their school days and so randomly went up to him and asked him for some directions. The smart looking guy turns around and says "I don't idea"!!!!! Oh well.....

I have to go now because this blog is blurring and I can't make out what the hell I'm ranting away about at 12:30 in the morning. At my age, this really is the wee hours you know!

But before I go....to all the menfolk who decided to continue reading :P

Jerusalem Bells are Ringing...Roman Cavalry Choirs are Singing

2008-11-06T15:32:00.005+05:30

Have fallen in love with Coldplay's Viva La Vida! Have been listening to it all day on loop!!!! How long has this song been around and why didn't I spot it earlier? I love 102.6 FM for introducing it to me! Muah!

PS- the video is a bit arbit!

Fat or Fiction?.............Fat!!!

2008-11-03T13:06:00.004+05:30

The only way I could've returned to blogging would've been thanks to my fat. So it's back with a vengance!!! And this time it's coupled with age! Wowie!!!!!! Lucky me!

Let me start by refreshing your memory of that bright and chirpy morning a few months back when the sun was out and the birds were twittering and I was driving to office. I'd decided to fill petrol that morning and the woman at the station called me ........Aunty! The sun hid its face behind dark, gloomy clouds, the birds flew away in shock and 15 more strands of grey hair immediately plopped out of my scalp! It took me many months to recover from that.

A 115 chocolates later, night before last, we were attending Shool's cocktails. We came across a gentleman who deals in ships. Unable to make any intelligent conversation with him, we started downing wine like nobody's business only to end the conversation with the boy blurting out- "So since you're in the shipping industry, do you know how to swim?". Not quite expecting this, the gentleman took our leave never to see us again. We would've felt rather insulted by this avoidance but having had an entire wineyard by now, we decided to trot off to Turquoise Cottage.

Dressed in ethnic suits full with dupattas draped around us and suit clad boys by our side, we tried to blend in with the jeans, tank top crowd! Only to find the bar closing a few minutes after we'd arrived. How chic are we!

So out we walked and stood outside the complex bidding our good byes when this car came haltingly to the group next to ours. Obviously drunk youth were having a bit of fun...or eve teasing or something. Then they pulled up to us and this guy calls out "Let it be yaar. Yeh toh Family hai!". There was stunned silence followed by hurt laughter. Why oh why had we started looking like such Uncles and Aunties that we didn't get......errr....eve teased? Or whatever!

Now that was the age story. Let's move on to the fat story!

I decided to finally drag myself for a haircut. The last one I had was 6 months ago and my hair hasn't grown more than 2 inches. Not only that, it is now greying and falling like Hansel and Gretal dropped crumbles on the way. You know Zee's been here because she's left a handful of hair on the chair. You know Zee's hugged you because she's left a hundred locks on your shirt. Uncle Sam gets a new wig thanks to the hair Zee left behind on her pillow this morning! You get the picture.....But still a haircut was much needed!

So I trace out my hairdresser and I'm sitting in the chair in front of what looks like a funny mirror given how fat was pouring out of me!
"Hello Ma'am. What do you want to get done?"
"Anything actually. But not too short. I've become fat." Better to say it yourself than people pointing it out!
"Become fat or becoming fat?" He's almost about to congratulate me for some reason. Looks at me expectantly to say something.
"Err...no. I've become fat. Hopefully not becoming fatter" Puzzle puzzle....
And then the dimbulb lightens up! He thought I'm pregnant! Like OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's it!!! I need to do something about myself....about my life....about my hair...about my clothes....about getting a new hairdresser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS- For whoever sees Shool's wedding pictures, the camera adds 20 pounds ok!

Tagged

2008-09-30T12:30:00.003+05:30

Hmmm....just turned to flick my hair and found a gigantic tag sticking out of the new shirt I'm wearing. People must think I'm mad.....have been galavanting around the office for over 4 hrs like this!

Since these embarrassing things are happening to me again, looks like blogging beckons me back!

Blogging....Dead

2008-08-21T14:33:00.001+05:30

Just not a blogger anymore........

And not happy about it! :( :(

Politics and more.....

2008-07-23T14:43:00.003+05:30

Am not someone who keeps up with politics and am usually just impressed with myself if I can guess the vice president's name correctly. Shameful I know.....

But yesterday with all the hype built around the confidence motion, I actually got hooked on to it and watched the drama unfold at least the last couple of hours of the vote!!!

It's amazing how out of place all the celebs like Govinda and Sidhu looked in the whole situation...and it felt so good to see young faces in the lot! My mum even told me how many ministers had come out of jail just for this voting. What a country huh! Totally love it!

Aaj Tak was having a ball with all this drama. Their headlines read "Aage kya hoga Rama Re" when the counting was in progress (I for one seem to have heard that song after a zillion years!) and then "Singh is King" when Manmohan Singh won!!! Good God!!! Who is their....scriptwriter!!!

On a side note....Rahul Gandhi is so cute! :) :) :)

Jaane tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

2008-07-16T21:23:00.003+05:30

Surprisingly did not know jaane tu jaane na was an old hindi song!!!! And definitely not one worth naming an entire movie after! I mean, dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge...yes...kashmir ki kali...yes....but this song I hadn't even heard of! And strangely have been humming it all day!!!

People kept saying how the movie takes you back to your college days but it didn't for me. In fact I ended up feeling very, very old! :( I mean, the cast visibly looked younger than me, dressed younger than me and used lingo...which was well, different! Thinking back, there were no real college movies when I was....errr...younger! Shady Akshay Kumar-Ayesha Jhulka movies with funny hairdos and embarrassing fitted jeans don't count (Akshay Kumar wasn't as cool as he is now...Singh is King Singh is King..) and Dil Chahta Hai wasn't quite college....hmmm...

Anyway, next topic! When I thought of writing this post I thought I would call it Tale of Two Cities. That's cause I've just returned from Pune and Chennai.

And now Tale of Two Cities reminds me of school, when the book was included as a part of our course and there was this description of Madam Defarge- a massive lady picking her teeth! What I remember was how this classmate was asked to describe Madam Defarge as a part of some test and she said that Madam Defarge was large and her tooth had fallen out so she was picking it up!!!!!!! Angrezi I tell you!

And now back to the college topic, I spoke to two friends of mine from college today....after ages!!!!!! One of them is married and the other married one called to give us "good news"!!! So I put us all on conference and we spent a good 20 mins just giggling!!! We discussed how one of my closest friends has just had her second baby and how another friend who was the baby of the group also now has a baby of his own....And here was me...........and let's leave it at that!!!

Ok back to the tale of two cities (arrrrrghhhhhhh! All my thoughts are so mixed up!!)....had a blast! Met Candyman and though he's taken his car to Pune, he knows no routes at all!!!!! But it was a fun evening topped with great food and a very cold auto ride when he finally gave up trying to figure out routes!!!

And then I went to Chennai (almost like my second home now!) and spent 2 days packed with activities...like helping the boy get a new phone (I can finally hear him without having to push my cell to the bottom of my eardrums....err....there must be a bottom to the ear drums??) and then we went to Fisherman's Cove and OH MY GOD it is so sooooooooo gorgeous! Of course I spent a good part of that evening telling him I felt the water was receding and how a Tsunami was round the corner and then later how the waves are now too close to us and we'd get washed away (ok...there was some 100 miles of sand between us and the sea...ocean....bay??? Whatever!). (PS- I hate punctuations! Esp in and around brackets!)

And then I travelled Business Class!!!!!!!!! Yabadabadoooooooo!!! They have larger seats (of course), ask you what you'd like to eat from a fancy menu beforehand (the grilled chicken was yummmmmm) and even ask you whether they can lay the table for you (which basically means laying out a napkin and placing the tray on it but what the hell)!! So I felt all happy and important!! I must confess I was rather queasy before the flight but knowing this business class experience would be once in a lifetime and this queasiness would mean I would have to forego the yummy food, I popped in 2 domstals and was all set for the journey!!! I didn't even clutch the seat too hard in fright when the plane took off!

Ok now that I'm done pouring out my excitement, I'm off. Boy am I in a good mood!!!! :)

Jaane tuuuuuuuuu ya jaane naaaaaaaaaaaaa.............

Had to do this!

2008-07-11T13:26:00.003+05:30

Sitting in Pune Airport!!! Blogging!!! There's a joy to be able to connect wirelessly!!!!
A plane just flew past the window! And now they're announcing boarding so toodles!

Down with Viral and All that Jazz!

2008-07-06T16:08:00.002+05:30

It's like class 9 all over again. Every infection that does the rounds in Delhi, somehow feels incomplete unless it attacks me! That's what happened in class 9 when I did rounds of viral, conjunctivitis, chicken pox....and by the time the plague hit Delhi, my family was all set to welcome it into our home. It didn't help my dog developed a fascination for rats that year....he'd been around so many cats he probably began to feel like one!

Anyway, it's the same now....some 14 years later....after a round of flu, back sprain, it's the turn of a viral now though much needed to get time off on a working Saturday! The only problem being that even though you do get the weekend off, you pretty much waste it popping in pills and getting ice-sponged. I must confess my first most thought was that if I fainted (I was running a 104 temperature!), I'd better not hurl any abuses at anyone and scandalise my mum!

Well in any case, the viral was a dampner on what seemed to be a pretty good going on Mission Revival of Zee Social embarked a couple of weeks ago! I've caught 2 plays (both simply hilarious), 2 evenings of board games, 1 evening of karaoke croaking (in the safety of someone's home) and ....drum rolls please.... I even went dancing!!!! R, we missed you very, very, very much!!!!!!

It's like the world hasn't changed in the 1 and a half yrs I've been off partying. Girls in skimpy clothes (really...I only thought that was in the movies!), boys trying to get a date and all the oldies (read us) pretending to like the hip hop music and then trying not to yell too hard on finally hearing something familiar- Madonna Like a Prayer?? Ok so it wasn't so bad...

But there came the virus....putting a full stop on my mission...and I'm back to vegetating in front of the TV watching Hero no 1 on one channel and watching Jaane tu na trailors on every other channel!!! Btw, Aamir Khan in QSQT really reminds me of my boy...I sure hope as hell I don't remind me of Juhi Chawla (what was with those disgusting coloured lehngas??)

Anyway, got to run now. A friend of mine on a chat window's telling me she went for a Jagjit Singh concert and loved it...I'm telling her I find him highly depressing....and now she's telling me his voice is magical.....so I'm off to gag and take her trip about it!

What the!

2008-06-23T11:17:00.002+05:30

Went to get petrol filled this morning from an all-women run petrol pump.

The lady says "Can you move forward Auntyji?"

Plan of action:
- lose weight (again!)
- dye my hair (like timmy said last week- "Your age is showing. It's time to dye"....which sounded more like "Your age is showing. It's time to die"....crap!)
- start using ponds anti aging or something
- find a new petrol station!!!!

Hmph! I hate Mondays!

Where have all the bloggers gone!!!

2008-06-16T21:35:00.002+05:30

No really! Where is everyone! Just because I happened to be missing from the blogosphere doesn't mean all of you decide to disappear too! At least I have legitimate reasons to be missing. First, you have to understand being in an internet company totally zaps the fun of coming online in the evenings to blog cause you spend the day just reading stuff on the net all day (and no, for all of you who think my job is as cool as just surfing the net all day, save your envy for someone more worthy of it!). Second, I've been suffering from what they've diagnosed as a lack of life. If someone's day comprises of watching TV and sleeping, I'm not sure where I'd get the dope to blog about. Even my mum who usually frowns when I tell her I'm going out for a second evening in a row has now told me to get out more often and do something about my social life. So I've decided to start by rejuvenating my blog life!!

Ok so let's start with my biggest self revelation this week. All my life I have wanted to become a housewife. No, not get married types but you know, just live off someone else's money, stay home and watch TV all day. But for the first time last week, I was left home alone and realised running a house on your own isn't cakewalk!

It all starts with you having to wake up much earlier than usual because the dog needs to be put out for a walk. My dog is one hell of a lazy dog. You can blow a trumpet in his ear and he wouldn't move an eyebrow (yes he has a 3-haired eyebrow!) but he does have a lot of energy at 6am!

By the time he returns and you can get back to sleep the maid wants to come in and cook for you. You tell her you'll just order in but she wants to do the dishes from last night and heat the milk and make you breakfast and the thought of breakfast does tilt the scales in her favour and you let her in. Little do you know that she decides to start her own orchestra with the pots and pans and the walls of your pillows don't create the sound proof effect you need for a good half hour sleep!

It takes you double the usual time to get out of the house cause you check the switches, the doors, the dog and bump into the guard who always has some bill awaiting payment. I always dismiss them saying- let my mummy come back- leaving them to think I'm some sort of pauper in her absence.

I think planting that doubt of not being of any financial use when my mum is away also helped keep the robbers at bay! Aaj Tak and other such entertainment news channels ensured that I spent every single night anticipating one of the 3 pouncing up on me- a thief, a murderer or a ghost! (Yes, trust me. These news channels also run programs on how some vampires and ghosts were spotted somewhere!!)

I slept (whatever little I could) with the lights and TV on for a week and usually just on my back cause turning sideways would either keep the window or the main door out of view! Only when the sun starting streaming in did I get some shut eye only to be woken up by the dog and the maid both spoken about fondly in the paras above!

I did manage to get some company during the week of my family's absence though. The giggly girl gang came in full force carrying chocolate cake and diet coke! We spent a much fun afternoon snooping on facebook and getting scandalised at old schoolmates' lack of clothes!

And another day I got a couple of B-school friends who like me vegetated in front of the TV and then decided to play a game of trivial pursuit! Trivial pursuit is a game of general knowledge. Vestige Blackberry Dhar went into clinical depression when he didn't know Akbar was the founder of Din-e-Ilahi (or however you spell it) and HR Superwoman proufoundly told us that what part a tadpole lost along with its tail once it grew up was an "important" question. Important for who and why is something I didn't debate cause general knowledge is definitely not my forte!

Anyway the family is back now and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep! So good night folks! Till I find more dope to blog upon....

Enough is Enough!!!

2008-06-16T10:14:00.001+05:30

I have to have to blog today! I'm going to put an end to this F-all laziness!

Make Way for the Queen!

2008-05-10T18:54:00.005+05:30

The much overdue post!

Karmic Madan has returned from the "high"land- Amsterdam- and is now a changed man. He loves India..... finally.......calls dilapidated chawls in Bombay Parisian beauties, almost hugs cabbies who give him directions and has told me I was a maharani in my previous life! I always knew it! The love for laziness, the love for comfort, the love for snobbery....I'm so cut out to be a princess! Though honestly I think it's the long Cleopatra nose that gave it away but whatever the signs were, at least now there're 2 people who believe I'm royal. (For all smart alecs who want to now say that they already thought I was a royal....... pain....you are all royal pains yourselves! Hmph! Yup, need to definitely disable anonymous comments for this one!)

There's so much to write about for a change....which means I make a mess of the post but am going to start anyway....

Ok, so first things first. Let the sympathies roll in. I'm recovering from a bad sprain in the back. The strain of a sprain is really quite a bothersome pain! (And the rain in Spain is mainly in the plains but that is sheer poetry!). Am much better now thank you!

Now for the meat of the post. Jokey Kumar got hitched. Highlights follow...

- Lost on Mumbai roads: Karmic Madan, Vestige Blackberry Dhar and Zee, the three non Mumbaites decide to borrow Alkesh (our friend's proudly named car) to reach a place 5 mins away. In the process....

.....we jump a red light and were hailed by a cop. Foreign returned Madan for some reason found this extremely exciting, given that he hasn't been challaaned by an Indian cop in a while and has obviously missed it! So he got off the car and greeted the cop with an enthusiastic "Hello Sir!!"...much in a star struck tone as I would use if I were to meet Shah Rukh Khan. The fully shocked cop decided to dismiss this strange bunch of people after a Rs 100 fine only to hear Madan say fondly, "I love Indian cops. See, he's so honest. No bribe also!"

....then we lost the way! After many cabbies had a hearty laugh at us, we circled the same roads billions of times and drove past all the slums in Mumbai, we met Mr Nice Cabbie who not only showed us the way but also stopped when he was going his way and gave us simple, straightforward directions to where we were headed. Karmic Madan thanked this gentleman profusely (almost touched his feet!!)...rolled up his window, and started driving only to say, "The issue is, I was so overwhelmed by his kindness, I didn't hear a word of the directions he gave us!" Hence a 5 mins drive ended in a 45 drive around Prabhadevi!

....we dropped beanpole at a shop to buy felt pens and decided to take a drive around the corner as stopping wasn't allowed, lost the way and then forgot where we'd dropped off beanpole in the first place!

- Performers we're not: We were tricked into a performance by the groom's family at the sangeet. We spent so much time preparing props for the play that we had no time to figure out the script and so when the group was 2 drinks down we stood in the lobby of the venue and discussed who was to do what. What ensued was the most disastrous performance in the history of performances and polite relatives came and said they wanted a repeat. Hmm....maybe they weren't so polite after all and were laughing at us! Hmph Hmph!

- Rockstar Zee: After the much disastrous performance, I decide to drown my sorrows in a sea of Billo Rani and other bollywood numbers and hit the dancefloor for a couple of hours. The groom's mum on her way out says "Zee, Beta, you're a rockstar!" Yes, it was a comment which would've made my evening but when I caught my reflection in the mirror, I realised it was not due to my dancing skills but rather my hair- a cross between rockstar Lenny Kravitz and Jim Morrison having a bad bad baaaaaaaaaad hair day! Head and Shoulders anti dandruff shampoo works on the Centershock principle!

- The Tulled out groom: We got the groom drunk. This is a man who staggers when you give him one small vodka. 3 shots were downed that day. He touched the feet of every 20 yr old who entered the venue, was caught trying to walk a straight line by many elderly, glaring relatives and spent a good 2 hours predicting everyone's future. For some strange reason he only commented on my past!!! Hmmm....

- Shiny disco, disco, disco...: At the wedding, I took the sole responsibility of providing lighting in the hall. My bright (an understatement), sequined sari earned me my nickname for life - shiny disco ball- and had people scurrying for their dark glasses everytime I neared them. LC decided to turn off the flash in her camera. Smart decision.

- Pheras, phinally! The 2:30am pheras saw a bunch of extremely sleepy people seated in a corner holding marigold flowers placing bets on who would get the groom's nose. We were too sleepy to figure out who won.

I would blog more but my dinner beckons. Not before I tell you how I spilled an entire bottle of water on my laptop in office! The result of this was a non working B key (the water made a B-line for the B!!!) and I realised how little we use the alphabet B unless it's to hurl abuses at someone- in hindi or english.....try it!

Hmmm....

2008-04-17T10:21:00.002+05:30

I've realised the pictures I look best in are the ones which are blurred...

Does that mean I'm ugly?

Broken

2008-04-08T10:04:00.005+05:30

Its like the angels above have unleashed their fury! I was clearly the laughing stock of all in and around CP today.....again....because...take a guess....I broke my shoe! AGAIN! No let me not edit the details.

You see, after the last shoe breaking episode, there was yet another shoe breaking episode, thankfully this time in office and so I walked around with a stapled strap the entire day. That was one week ago. And today, a third episode broke!!!

I wore a new pair of shoes this morning, which belong to my mum, and was complaining about how the strap is hurting me. These shoes are extremely fashionable you see. Two straps criss cross each other and then end up in a third strap which is buckled around the ankle (only a woman can describe a goddamn shoe in so much detail!). So half way down the walk to office, one strap gave way. I was inches away from the cobbler but some sort of strange pride took over me and I decided not to let him laugh at my expense again. Visions of him saying "You're the same madam who was walking barefoot last week? Can't you find yourself good quality shoes you cheapskate" and then the guards guffawing and pointing to my broken shoe, snapped (pun intended) me back to reality and I decided to give him a miss. After all, the office building was only 10 steps away.

5 steps down, the other strap decides to die out on me as well. With all my pride I walk into the building with the sole flying all over the place and making embarrassing clip clop sounds in the quiet lift lobby. A hundred faces turn to look at the noisemaker. 75 of them snicker immediately. 25 look down in disgust at my state. Gathering all my pride I walk into the lift and clamber into my office and am currently sitting barefoot with my feet on my chair!

Oh well, at least I have a chair today. Being a start up, we have limited seating now in our office. But I realised only yesterday how limited is limited when we had 4 visitors in our office and to accommodate them, our chairs were pulled into the meeting room....leaving me sitting on a floor for part of the day and seeing me perched on my table for the remaining! Exaggerating? Wish I was...

Am actually looking forward to the office shifting to Gurgaon now (even though the new office is more like in Jaipur than in Gurgaon!) but at least I'll have a chair to sit on! The scary part is that being a start up, I was one of the people who's expertise was called upon to decide on what furniture and what flooring and what board colours should be used in the office....my expertise because I fit the "young, female" criteria (I quote them ok!)....So here I was looking at what seemed to be the same shade of green though they swore it wasn't....I finally pointed my finger at the 3rd green in the bunch because....well because 3 sounds like a good number??? For those who don't know it, I have absolutely no sense of colour or design and my room is a dumpyard (trust me!) minus one discarded mattress which has a discarded saree wrapped around it!

Anyway, before I sign out....found out yesterday that someone from the blogger world, who's blog I follow off and on, is coming in as my boss! This is one hell of a small world....and not a happy one at that!

Update: 24 hours later: Wednesday morning in office: Broke my shoe AGAIN!!!!!!

Plea to God now: Heel the world, make it a better place

Blurring Lines....

2008-03-26T14:07:00.001+05:30

(At my philosophical best)

Blurring lines....
....between the rich and the poor
….between the far and near
….between bravery and fear

Blurring lines….
....between day and night
....between wrong and right
….between tiffs and fights

Blurring lines....
....between the ugly and cute
....between funny and rude
....between cool and crude

Blurring lines....
....between a relationship and a date
....between love and hate
….between ill luck and fate

Blurring lines....
….between icing and cream
….between stars and light beams
....between reality and dreams…….

Yes, truly random thoughts…observations…and a result of an acute stomach infection!!!

Blurring lines....
....between the rich and the poor
Drove past a hindi medium school yesterday...and nothing about the kids there said they came from less privileged families....they were well dressed, no oiled braids, no untidy shoes, body language as cool as anyone elses…..
My maid now has a maid at home, has a son who works for an MNC, spends that Rs 25 on a caller tune I’m stingy to spend on…

Blurring lines....
....between day and night
I feel more alive when the sun goes down...the city wakes up…you sleep through the day and make plans to party through the night….

Blurring lines....
….between the far and near
Get from Delhi to Bombay in the same time it takes to drive through the traffic choked route from office to home…

Blurring lines....
....between funny and rude
When do things stop being funny? When do you know when someone has pushed the joke a bit too far? When do you know when you’re on the verge of being rude?

Blurring lines....
....between a relationship and a date
How many relationships end up just being a date? How many relationships are treated like mere dates?

Blurring lines....
….between stars and light beams
Walk into one of the grandeur wedding places…the fairy lights glistening from the trees….who looks up to the stars for their beauty anymore?

Blurring lines....
....between the ugly and cute
Definitions change…dark was not cute when you were little, fair is not cute when you grow up….short was not cute when you were a teenager, short is more approachable now…those who were ugly as kids are suddenly centerstage at parties….those who were cute in yearbooks suddenly look haggard old wannabes

Blurring lines…..As a matter of perspective….as how you want to see it……….

(No I’m not low! I’m just philosophical! I’m bored. I'm jobless. I’m hoping it’s not jaundice!)

Too much “shoe” sha!

2008-03-13T12:06:00.005+05:30

Note: Post written last night (beanpole...last night, not yesterday night...wren and martin would be proud!)

I sit in office at 12:37am. Having worked 5 years, I have never done this late a night! Ok so a lot of you may feel I’m damn lucky and all but hey…I have a philosophy in life..that I come before my profession!

So what changed it today? Luck I guess…dirty, rotten, filthy luck!

It started with me waking up a whooping 20 mins past my usual waking time. That sent me into a fit! It meant 20 mins to get ready if I didn’t want to dish out 100 bucks for getting into work late (yup there’s a fine and all now)

Rushed to discover 3 pieces of news I could’ve done without…..that there’s no water to bathe with, that my mum decided to step on my only clip and that there’s no petrol in my car! But check out my optimism…I thought the day could still improve and did decide to make it to work!

Now the countdown kind of begun….9:30 is the time I need to reach office if I need to avoid the fine. There’s a 15 min walk before that from the parking to the office. So in my mad frenzy, I surprisingly reached a whooping 5 mins early to the parking- 9:10! Was I really doubting my luck? Ha!

And I began sprinting to office, decided I didn’t have the patience to wait for the pedestrian light to turn green so I should take the longer route to avoid wasting time…and what was with the gentleman in front of me giving me no space to walk and walking at a speed that would give a snail a complex???? “Overtake” said the devil inside me

That's when the leap happened, the space spotten where I could ease my foot between the building and the man and overtake the slow coach! The foot went forward, the shoe stretched and the string….broke!

I notice the shoe has been an integral part of my blog. Be it the time when the woman dug her heel in my injured toe or the wedding when the broken heel got stuck in the carpet and I went flying towards the bride’s mother....

The point being…here I was holding a broken shoe in my hand, my office building not even in site and the ultra clean streets of CP which I have spoken about earlier laughed at my despondency! So with shoes in hand, this executive dressed in an ironed office shirt and trousers, sporting her laptop, walked barefoot in the midst of a crowded road, everyone curiously staring wondering why anyone would step out of their shoes in the middle of all this muck!

The cobbler was happy with the popularity I brought him….what with all the guards and passerbys and all and sundry coming by to laugh at the poor girl who stood on one foot trying to maintain her balance.....Thanking him profusely, I began my walk as gracefully as I could back to my office in my newly mended shoe only to find the miracle worker had dug a nail too many to make the walk a rather painful 5 mins!

If the morning started as such, take a guess on how the day went cause at midnight, the last thing I want to do is get into details no one wants to read. And let me clarify, the reason I'm writing this post and not working is because my colleague is jazzing up the presentation which was meant for day after but has now been preponed to tomorrow!!!

Come Saturday

2008-03-01T12:28:00.004+05:30

Saturdays were once a joyous occasion.........

It all started with one Saturday in 1980... (no point in hiding my age...it's out there on my profile and s even smsed saying "zee, i just saw your age on your blog profile and realised how old we all are"...a not so good mood followed...).....when I chose to make my entry by being born. What timing I tell you! The weekend's just started, the first few faces you see are in a good mood, no one's wearing office neckties and people can spend time cooing at your cute face cause no boss is waiting for them to show up!

During my growing up years, Joyous Saturdays took the form of days which started at noon (even if you woke up by 10 it was uncool to be out of bed before 12 lest people mistook you for a variety that don't value their sleep), it was spent far far away from books- it was a crime to touch your weekend homework before Sunday night- and it involved watching Mary Poppins on the VCR post some tracking of course cause it surely wasn't the first time I was seeing it you know!

Ok so for a short period of time in school, Saturdays did face a slight downside in popularity when my maths tutor decided that "Suchhurdays" was a better day to get cracking at those trig questions cause "all I needed was a little fresh mind". He soon learnt otherwise.....

Then worklife began and the importance of Saturdays increased manifolds! Friday evenings spent in a fury to avoid working over the weekend and the drive back home on Friday evenings demanded the window to be rolled down, music to be loud and phonecalls to plan the big day!

Saturdays spent watching VH1 Classics, showing songs you've grown up to, feeling depressed that your songs were now Classics and then getting your act together and going partying to feel young! The same old people, the same old jokes, the same old music, the same old clothes (for me)...net net a perfect evening!

Saturdays then turned into the one day when the boy couldn't give the I-live-too-far excuse to come see me!

And now, 27 years from that first joyous Saturday, here I am rotting in an office when the outside temperature is 30 degrees and the inside temperature is 50 degrees cause they don't want to switch on the air conditioning! And no boyfriend in town. And no dhinchak parties to go to. And no Mary Poppins DVD to entertain me when I get home. And the only song that's coming to my mind is that horrible Whigfield...Classic indeed!!

Attn: Women in High Heels

2008-02-27T15:24:00.002+05:30

Please note where your feet at going.

Are you wearing heels today? Are they stillettos (confession: I had to google the spelling) that are unnaturally sharp and pointy? Are you too engrossed in conversation to even notice the poor girl with the injured, band-aided toe standing behind you? Here's a piece of advice. Look where you step! It should preferably not be on the injured girl's band-aided toe!!!! And do NOT under any circumstance ask "Oh, did I hurt you?"! Take a guess smart alec!

Life Jing-a-lala

2008-02-20T16:34:00.012+05:30

(Caution to the theorist kind of species. This post has several mentions of the forbidden B word. Please read at own risk)

Today I am thoroughly bored. And have an acute craving for chocolate. After almost fainting with desire to eat one piece of dairy milk.... after going down a rickety office lift surrounded by people who don't believe in the art of bathing in winters....after walking to a dilapidated paan shop heaped with dirty plastic bags so that you had to go round the counter to even spot the seller... after handing out Rs 1o to buy a dairy milk who's expiry date I was afraid to read...after plonking it all in my mouth and savouring it for full 40 seconds...here I am craving for chocolate....again! And hence blogging to distract myself

Adarsh tagged me. A book tag. Only last week did I discover books again when my broadband cord broke, my boyfriend ran off to make Guwhati a fairer place (he looks after a fairness cream brand) and when I had had enough of gleaming sari wrapped daughters in law with sindoor running down till their noses in, ironically, a family planning sign (the inverted triangle) on TV. That's when I stretched out and hit my hand against a book of a non comical non Archie nature and read City of Djinns.

To the uninitatied, it's a travel book cum history book on Delhi and delves into stories and architecture and the history of Delhi. So thoroughly fascinating that most of the romantic midnight conversations with boy went "Do you know what that Shahjahan did?....." followed by a rather animated "zzzzzzzzz" from the other end of the line!

Anyway, getting back to the tag, one City of Djinns won't give me enough dope to put together a tag on just that so I take the liberty to convert this to a TV show tag! (Theorist, you can read on safely from here)

A show that made you laugh: MASH. When exams dawned, it only struck you when mom would ask you to spend MASH time on books!

A show that made you cry: Bold and the Beautiful. Why oh why would they air it and consume precious TV time!

A show that scared you: The extraordinary. Ok, so I never got past the titles...

A show that disgusted you: Bold and the Beautiful. What the...

A show you loved in elementary school: Errr...given the vast choice at that point of time...Krishi Darshan????

A show you loved in college: I kind of discovered boys by then after being released from an all girls school so wasn't really wasting time on TV

A show that challenged your identity: Indian Idol. Matlab ki am I not already the ultimate Indian Idol??? Singing barred....

Your favorite science fiction show: Ekta Kapoor serials of course. No one ever ages or dies.

Your favourite biography show: Tom and Jerry...........You mean they don't exist?

Your favorite fantasy show: Nigella's feasts. Do you have any idea how many hours are spent dreaming of those chocolate cakes she makes with a whiff of her hand?

I know you're dying for many more precious insights about me but get a hold on yourselves. There's only so much you can blog from work you know. If I'm kicked out, who'll pay the Tata Sky bills?

Geographically Yours

2008-02-07T10:41:00.000+05:30

Darjeeling. Tea estates. Mountains. Greenery. On the list of places to see before I die. Darjeeling. Darjeeling in.......errrr.......????

Sundays are lovely. They start with a stream of cook shows on ndtv, travel and living, times now, zee tv, star plus..........ok so you get the point. I am a cook show addict. It's out in the open. My cool reputation has been damaged for life. But ok ok. I confess. I love cook shows!

No I don't cook. I have experience in tea making though a certain someone says culinary skills are not my forte (hmph hmph) but beyond putting a Betty Crocker cake mix into the oven or cooking Maggi post reading the instructions, I admit my cooking quite puts a full stop there. Yet there's something about watching cooking shows.........You can smell the spices, feel the smooth chocolate, hear the sizzle.....it's one of the most fulfilling, mouth watering experiences ever!

And now having made that point about my passion for cookery shows, last Sunday I was planted in front of the TV watching a tea special show based in Darjeeling while on the phone with boy and I sighed and said "Wow! Darjeeling. I've always wanted to go to Assam"
"How's it related?"
"What do you mean it's not related?"
"Darjeeling isn't in Assam"
"Oh...really? Arunachal then?"
"What?"
"Sikkim? Manipur?"
"West Bengal."
"What rubbish!"
Call made to general "knowledged" brother in law. Answer confirmed. With sister in the background "Isn't Darjeeling a state?"

Now you don't get it. I pride myself in knowing a lot about geography. I know all the capitals of the states of India and.........err....I know all the capitals of the states of India! So it really was a blow to my geographical ego. And I decided to see how badly off I was by asking my giggly girl gang.

Me: "So where is Darjeeling"
G1: "Assam"
G2: "Assam"
Me: "Ha ha!"
G1: "Ok, Manipur"
Me: "Ha ha ha ha!" Check me out being miss know-it-all
G2: "Ha ha! West Bengal" Second time lucky
G3: "What rubbish! Not West Bengal!" Silence. "West Bengal?"

I am much relieved by this lack of general knowledge. But what takes the cake is....
Friend 1: "Let's go for the Rio fest this year!"
Friend 2: "Ya man! And let's go to Brazil too!"

I'm glad I did commerce.....

Sigh.......

2008-01-21T13:24:00.000+05:30

Monday morning.

Extremely cold.

Fight with blanket.

Dragged self to office.

Open mail.

From: The business head
Subject: You are late
Body: This is unacceptable behaviour. Regards

Sigh...........

Oh Yuck!

2008-01-17T12:25:00.000+05:30

I'm not one of those finicky environmentalists who tell their best friends that they refuse to be friends because they threw the wrapper on the road. Ok so I may tsk tsk at littering but that's because of a poem I learnt in class 3 which creatively went

"Hoot hoot
Don't pollute
Hoot hoot
Don't pollute
Save the planet earth"

Before I go further with this post, I must comment on the creativity of this poem. Why is an owl of all the creatures great and small telling us not to pollute! Could the poet not find any other word that rhymes with hoot? Boot, root, soot, dude?????

Anyway, the reason for this post is this. I have a 1 km walk from my car to my office. Yes yes, I've badgered you with that information for a while now. And the walk entails one of the filthiest walks around CP! (For the uninitated, CP is a connaught place...and if you don't know what that is...get a life....really!)

Early in the morning, when the rest of the city is clean and pure, the trees are bathed in dew and you exit from your freshly washed car, the last thing you want to do is spend your morning meandering through the corridors of CP avoiding....all sorts of muck!

So dogs...err....doing their stuff isn't something you can help but why do so many people insist on spitting just about everywhere! I just don't get it! I never feel like suddenly in the midst of a conversation opening up my mouth and spitting! Then why does anyone else? Is it because they don't keep the right company and need to gag at their conversations with these people? Do they just produce more saliva than the rest of the world and so need to dispose it every few minutes? Or do they find the sight of spit so revolting that they spit upon it themselves!!!

Or why do they need to lose control of their bladders when they see a tree? Or flick their empty gutkha packets like Rajnikant and then don't even attempt to catch it? Many more gross images are flooding my mind now.....and making me sick!

Had to unload.....

Back with a more cheerful post soon

Horrible 6 day week this one...

Random Thoughts

2008-01-06T20:57:00.000+05:30

The first of the giggly girls got married last month. Never thought Al Dudette, the bride, who was born to get her pictures clicked would actually reach a point when she would shoo away the photographers! It’s almost like me saying I’ve had enough to eat!
***************

Performed on Sawariya for Al Dudette’s wedding. 4 months of salsaing and not a bit of it showed in any of my movements! Blamed it on our ageing 27 year old brains to not remember any of our steps once on stage. Even the scurrying off the stage post our performance wasn't graceful enough!
***************

Saw a very sweet scene last week on my walk to office....an old man walked out of the Bank of Baroda, holding up what seemed to be his updated passbook and smiling to himself. Pension day? :)
***************

Attended a wedding of an Indian boy marrying a firangi girl. Since the girl's family is far removed from the joota churai concept, we see the groom’s sister’s snickering in a corner with the bride’s shoes tucked under their arms!!! Very convenient to reverse the ritual and earn in dollars too! Needless to say the poor foreigner family got suckered....
***************

Important lesson learnt in life. Never eat and type at the same time. A crumble would roll onto the keyboard and possibly get suck under the T key and you can spend a good 10 mins trying to type out the t’s in the blog. Man, T must be the most commonly used alphabet or something…
***************

Cannot believe Deepika Padukone is seeing Yuvraj Singh. He's so ghaati!
***************

I need to buy a white jacket. Went out last night and all the page 3 varieties seemed to be sporting one. I felt very out of place in my oversize blue sweater which went for a wash last in 1875 or something!
***************

Met some Aunty who was bragging about her granddaughter and aweing at the kind of wit and intelligence kids nowadays show. To make her point, she tells my mom "Aajkal ke bacche toh bade computerized ho gaye hain" (Kids of today are highly computerised!). Cheers to pathbreaking English!
***************

Cried for 2.5 hours watching Tare Zameen Par. Would've cried all of the 3 hours but thanks to my punctual boy we arrived 1/2 hour late for the movie
***************

The crumb has now rolled down to the V key now....man....this is annoying.....

Just Had to Blog on 1st Jan Post!!!

2008-01-01T14:53:00.000+05:30

I woke up this morning quite on a roll! I cracked a series of some 10-12 really bad jokes so decided to capitalise on the tide and blog today but now sitting in front of the comp I feel terribly dry of humour. That coupled with the fact that I'd rather have my fingers inside my blanket rather than in the biting cold on my keyboard.

Anyway, Happy New Year!!! It was a good new yrs eve...no fog, no one around me threw up, good food, good place and of course the boy was here! And the first day of the year goes well too! I'm wrapped up in my blanket, lazying around, with nothing to do and nowhere to go...just me and the tv...and a terrible craving for gooey chocolate cake! :(

Phew! Ok phone call made to mum asking her to pick up the Rs 70 Dairy Milk Bar...so life's all good again!

Hmm....I wonder what I want to do in the coming year. In school we had this thing of putting down our new years resolutions on a leaf....turning over a new leaf...and for years I thought the saying was "turning into a new leaf"....quite like I thought the song was "Chaudhary ka chand ho" instead of "Chaudhavi ka chand ko"....but more on my IQ later...

This year....
.....I resolve to spend more time at home with my family
.....I resolve to spend more time working in office than on facebook and not be too excited about finding new undone quizzes on facebook
.....I resolve to reach office on time at least 4 days a week
.....I resolve to blog more often
.....I resolve to watch at least one movie a fortnight
.....I resolve not to talk as much on the cellphone and then blame my stupidity on what the mobile waves are doing to my brain

And now I've got a phone call that's disrupted my thought process so........arghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Happy New Year! Cheers!

Encore Vagueness

2007-12-03T17:32:00.000+05:30

Some people get a chance to go to all these glamourous places, in glamourous airlines, in glamourous suits, stay in glamourous 5 star hotels and generally lead a glamourous life. However, mere mortals like me travel economy, plead with people to put me up in their homes, come out of the aircraft with disheveled hair as if I’ve never traveled in a plane before and so don’t quite seem to be living the glamourous life! Logically, if I’m the one roughing it out more, shouldn’t I be the one earning the more money? Reason fails me……

After another bout of travel where the pilot announced the outside temperature is minus 55 degrees in the sky…. (I mean what is the point of the statement I don’t understand! Am I supposed to feel safe? Cause I definitely don’t…I keep thinking if I have to jump out of the aircraft I’ll reach the earth as an ice lolly!) ….here I am back in office in no mood to work and after taking multiple self awareness quizzes on facebook, I thought I might as well do some writing. Now the question is…on what…

The easiest topic of course which I can rant on about is the whole marriage season and how friends continue to fall prey and my mum continues to provide the background score of “you-are-still-my-responsibility” kind of music (yep…face the music types) but I’ve already blogged about it in the past so let me stay away from it

The other topic that comes to mind is about waking up every morning to a chorus of “you have no time for me” from the family members cause I’ve spent my Saturday working (ya like I enjoyed it or something) and plan to spend my Sunday with friends from out of town. But let me not recount the you’re-the-useless-sibling thing since I’m still recovering from it

The third thing I can talk about is the biting winters which seem to be setting in and how it kills me to get out of the blanket in the morning and head out to work. It doesn’t help when they shift the goddamn office parking to the middle of CP and you have a whooping 10 min walk from the parking to the office and being the sportswoman I am, it takes a lot of huffing and puffing to make it before the boss spots your tardiness and you lose precious crumb points (the brownie points were lost long ago…it’s the crumbs that keep us going now).

And as much as I love the winters cause the lizards hibernate and everything is misty and romantic and Christmas and New yrs plans take up most of your mindspace, I also abhor it when you step out in flimsy sarees as it’s uncool to sport a shawl at the various weddings one is attending……… which takes us back to topic 1 …..and since I am attending those multiple weddings I’m unable to spend time at home ……..which takes me to topic 2 …..and since life has now successfully come a full circle, let me go back to doing some of those facebook quizzes!!!

It's about NOTHING

2007-11-24T14:40:00.000+05:30

Seinfeld became popular for being a show about nothing. So this post is going to be just that.....nothing!!

I never thought I could dry up of things to write about. The loud, talkative punju in me...completely acquired, none genetic....made me believe that I would never lose an opportunity to keep talking!! And here I am at a loss of story....yet itching to blog....So here's a round up of my life in the last couple of weeks.

I've been traveling all over the place....Bombay, Pune, Chennai...the works! And here are snippets of thoughts from time spent on the move....

Flying not a piece of cake
Despite the many miles I have gathered at the expense of my erstwhile employers, I still get the jitters when I see a plane. I still need to shut my eyes and grab my seat and pray when the plane takes off...and I also let out an expletive at the pilot when he doesn't brake within 5 seconds of the plane landing. Also, the diet goes for a toss because you want to eat up everything they serve you on flight cause
a. You're cheap and think you've paid for it.
b. It helps you kill time on the scary flight and keeps your mind off the turbulence
c. You keep thinking the flight will crash any minute and you don't want to die on an empty stomach!

OSO
Got to see OSO in Pune. For those who've had the luxury of watching a movie from front row corner seats will know that it's not the best way to watch a movie you've been dying to watch. For starters, you see the entire movie through what seems to be a funny mirror. Everyone looks stretched or fat and highly distorted. So beautiful Deepika Padukone looks like a giraffe, Kiron Kher looks like she has 3 hips and SRK struts around with a 12 pack!! Liked the movie anyhow. I'm a sucker for slapstick and obvious jokes make me feel smart! Hmmmm....

Bridget Jones I'm not
And on the flight, I borrowed another chick flick novel from my colleague and while these books make for pleasurable reading, I no longer relate to them because
a. All stories revolve around women who are single and have some hot man falling in love with them. Don't remember the last time someone wrote about someone in a happy relationship
b. All stories are either about this "slightly large" woman like Bridget or these skinny model type executives. Now for the first kind, I look back longingly at my "slightly large" days and a "large pumpkin" is a more befitting description for me. And I don't feel like a smart executive cause feeling dumb is an understatement of what I actually feel at work!
c. Every female protagonist has a bunch of female friends and one gay friend who all fancy her prospective boyfriend. I have no gay friends and I'm not sure what I'd do around a gay friend in the first place! And I definitely don't want anyone fancying my boyfriend! Hmph!
d. They always have a smoking or drinking problem. Where have all the good girls gone??

Anyway, I've had enough of this nonsensical post so I'm going to go give my beautification another unsuccessful shot. The parlour lady beckons to tell me how much weight I've put on now....

Till then.....

The Theory of "Relative"ity

2007-11-07T11:26:00.000+05:30

Are you seriously not sick of watching the Sawariya and Om Shanti Om ads? Aren't you sick of watching Ranbir Kapoor prancing about in a lousy towel while Sonam Kapoor is running around with a tent trailing behind her?And isn't SRK's dard-e-disco already giving you a dard-e-sar (read headache)?

Well whatever it is, winter in Delhi seems to have taken a leaf out of the whole teaser game and has been giving us a glimpse of herself since the past one month without actually settling in. That is, till yesterday when I started shivering and got under my blanket and snoozed off....only to be woken up at 8 and to be told that we have a family function to attend!!!

Now family functions are entertaining. You have all extended family, all their children and grandchildren and lots of chaos. The elders spend most the evening trying to showcase their illnesses and there is general joy in being the illest of them all. Most of the young girls flaunt their newly lost weight and spend their evening checking out every other girl who walks in. Most of the young guys.....I'm not sure what they do cause being a young girl I'm not usually allowed to partake in whatever conversations they like to have minus young girls. And the toddlers spend their time doing cartwheels right in the middle of the hall!

So yesterday we went off for a second cousin's daughter's.....errr....birth celebration?? And were engulfed by many ailing aunts with eye trouble and uncles with knee trouble!

Entertainment at such gatherings is never really a problem. Be it one of the aunts who would come up to my mum and says "Aapa, when you were complimenting my earrings, was I wearing one or two?" A much pleasurable treasure hunt followed

Or be it the aunt who refused to touch the Gulab Jamuns becauce they were too hot. Finally told her the gulab jamuns had cooled down and she had a go at it. And then when someone asked her how they were she says dismissively, "They're nice but they're not hot"!!! Try pleasing her huh!

Good byes at such gatherings also take ages to get over with. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry, the minute we're done with the hello's we start saying the good byes.....

Anyway, am completing this post from my office (my employer must love me) so before someone figures out I have this blog....adious amigos!

P for Shy

2007-10-21T12:24:00.000+05:30

I have discovered that I'm shy..........I'll go take a walk round the park while you stop laughing
...
...
...
...

Ok. That should've been enough. So I'm shy. I've seen signs of it all my life now. All those stage shows I've never auditioned for cause I'm shy of facing the audience. The alternate theory is that I did act as the "ice cream man" in my class 2 play where I was traumatised by the whooping beard and mustache they drew on my face and that ended my acting career. Very creative dialogue mine was..."Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream for sale. Orange bar. Chocolate Ice. Softies for sale" I think that ended my singing career too

Sign 2 is how I'm shy of talking in public, ie, office meetings. I guess being stupid doesn't quite help this cause and my biggest fear is that people would discover this truth about me so I'm shy to expose it

Sign 3 is how 90% of the people who meet me for the first time think I'm a supreme snobbish bitch. Cause I'm too shy to make conversation with them. So yesterday I went to this card party and I swear I prayed, almost out loud, that some big vulture would swoop me up and fly me away...

What the hell is with me? I'm 27, educated, need to make presentations by way of profession and here I am all tongue tied in the middle of a party, stammering, stuttering and studying the marble flooring.....

So that just about establishes it. I'm shy. Cotton fills my mouth. Colour floods my cheeks. And my heart goes for a trip to Mars. But strangely all this falls to bits when I'm surrounded by my mad friends. Who have this catalysing effect on me and my mouth automatically opens up to let out a hard core punju-tam accent and I don't stop till someone grabs my neck and says "ENOUGH". And now my friends are all set to start visiting next month and I'm doing everything I can to get my vocal cords in shape. Ohhhhh I'm so excited!!! I love this time of the year! Come on over people! Time to grab a gab!

Oh and what's with the title?

The niece calls up yesterday and my mom decides to humour her...
"Nani, my friend is coming"
"Really? Who?"
"Tia"
"Mia??"
"Tia"
"Jia?"
"Tia Nani Tia Tia"
"Ria?"
"Tia! B for Bird. B for Tia"

Hence...P for pencil....P for shy....

Oh and since we're on the subject of the niece, today she saw the Ravans in the park and tells her mom "Oh look. There are 2 Rakhi Sawants". What made her think Ravan and Rakhi Sawant were the same thing I'm not sure but insightful little girl she huh?

I suck at poetry!

2007-10-18T22:33:00.000+05:30

I thought I'd write a juicy post
On how I'm turning into a ghost
With no time to self but yet almost
I'm finding time for me to unload

But here I am staring at the screen
Getting no such words that mean
What I should post in this box so clean
Except that 6 day working sucks (what the hell if it doesn't rhyme! it's true!)

I never thought I'd see a day
When my blog would be in such dismay
That I can't write oh please do say
Is it just meant to be this way

So many things I want to write
On dirty loos and driving fights
On issues I'm waiting to ignite
On climbing up a 10 storey flight

Yet words fail me and I know not
What to call this disease I've got
Or is it my brain this job is making rot
That a post I cannot even give a shot

If you think this poem is a mock
It truly sucks and doesn't rock
Let me say I can't recover from this shock
That I my dears have a writer's block

Shucks!

Teething trouble

2007-10-04T20:14:00.000+05:30

I cannot believe I've actually joined a company named after an insect!!!! So it's a start up. So I had nothing to do with the brand name. But when I heard the name, I kind of gagged and wished I were dead! DON'T ask me what it is. Just trust me that it's named after an insect (sob sob sob sob)

Problem no 2 of course is the physical proximity with the heavens above (read 10th floor). And it doesn't help when the guard confirms in the affirmitive that the lifts are known to break down and be stuck for hours.

Problem 3 is that I have no clue what a peepal tree looks like. So yesterday when I was looking for parking, I asked the attendant where my office parking was. His answer was next to the "peepal" tree. I turned around and saw like a forest of trees and couldn't distinguish one from the other. I pointed in some vague direction and said "That one?" "Peepal peepal". Not a people's person is he!!! Didn't want to do a bimbo act so didn't pursue the topic. Went ahead and asked the other attendant. "Next to the peepal tree". Now am googling peepal images!

Problem 4 is that my office hasn't given me a parking sticker. So if I even do manage parking it's costing me 100 bucks a day. So the entire salary jump basically benefits the government parking pockets and I'm still taking home the same money

Problem 5 is that the new office believes in a 6 day working though officially is a 5 day week. They fix up daily meetings at 6pm and start at a god forsaken 9am. If you know me, you'll know I'm not a morning person in the mornings and not an evening person in the evenings. Hence am grumpy through the day

But you know what....I'm just a big fat (and becoming fatter) crib so ignore my whining...... Had to let the steam out....

Shit! They're making me travel this weekend! :'(

The new office...

2007-10-03T01:33:00.000+05:30

.......is on the 10th floor! Keeping with my previous post, the only thing that comes to mind is "Oh Shit!"

Will blog as soon as I find a way to beat the claustrophobia...........

PS- Anyone want to help me with parking in CP???

Lift Me Up

2007-09-20T19:42:00.000+05:30

I got a couple of tags to do. But when I came to this question- "If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?", I drew up such a long list that blogger shut down! So have decided to hold on till I feel less hungry (NOT read as never!)

So tomorrow's my last day in this job and I will no longer be a chip off the old block (very cool pun for all who know where I work). Have spent the day writing good bye mails today which I'm very excited about sending out tomorrow. Though what is disappointing is that people nowadays are so well connected that before you can break the news to them, they already know.

I have this quirk to be the first one to break news-good or bad. Hence was known as the gossip queen of campus. There is a certain joy of knowing a piece of fresh gossip which only convent educated girls like me know! There's something about seeing people's mouth drop open when you say "Have you heard...." or the tingle in your tummy when you're listening to a piece of gossip and already mentally making a note of who all to disseminate to after putting down the phone!!

There was a time my reputation was so amazing that people would say "Zee, just wanted everyone to know I'm engaged and thought what better way to get the news to the rest of the world than to tell you." I took my job very seriously and within 5 mins would make sure all relevant people have received every juicy detail!!! Sigh.....those were the days! Now people are too busy to generate gossip for me and so I spend my time blogging....

Coming back to the title of this post which as you may have noticed has had nothing to do with this post so far. The reason I wanted to blog was because I have spent a significant time of my 2 yrs in this job praying for my life. A whooping 5 mins everyday when I got into the lift going up and another 5 mins while coming down!

I'm not on the 60th floor. In fact a 15th of that to be precise. Yet laziness runs in my bones so I never take the stairs. Hence the degree of interaction with the lift is amazing

I'm not claustrophobic but God knows I break into a sweat everytime I step into the tin room. Someone had done a case study on how a lift company was able to satisfy customers better because they'd put mirrors outside so that people wouldn't be bored waiting for the lift to come and so the time the lift took seemed shorter. Apparently, my lift people read the case study and smartly decided to place the mirrors inside the lifts so that you can kill time while the lift kills you softly climbing up the floors at snail speed!

Once inside, don't panic. There's clanking and banging and the lift shakes enough to measure 50 on the Richter scale (just hold the side panel or each other if someone else is risking their life with you) and you can practically picture a skinny little guy huffing and puffing trying to pull the lift up. (No wise cracks you guys! It's not due to my weight! Hmph!)

And today, the switches inside stopped working. So you just need to get inside and wish that it stops at your floor. So while getting out to my car on zero, I went from the 4th floor, to -2, to -1 and wola! Straight to 1! Before I was faced the embarrassment of walking out again on the 4th floor, I decided to get off and use the staircase! Forced exercise I tell you! Someone out there is plotting against me!

The one last thing on lifts.....why does everyone stare at your footwear????? Esp when your sandal is broken.......

3 cubed

2007-09-15T15:38:00.000+05:30

It was a decent start I must admit. As in, I got about a dozen calls back to back at the strike of 12....my niece handed me a self made card with tons of sticky glue and shiny stars.....the boy had handed me a bad full of gifts.... so all was well. Till life decided to say "Are you actually feeling good about turning 27?" And so it began.......

I walked into my bedroom chattering away on the phone when I spotted it...the slimy, ugly, pugly lizard on the cupboard door. What ensued in the first hour of me turning 27 was me standing on the bed and screaming for someone to shoo off the L thing.

If you don't know what the L thing means to me, you don't know me at all. To put it in brief, I have come this close to writing in to Godfrey Phillips for handing me a bravery award for surviving 2 years surrounded by the sumo wrestler L things in Bhubaneswar (which according to some people is near Nepal!!!!But let's not start on the lack of geographical knowledge topic cause for years I thought there was a beach in Calcutta thanks to the Vivek Oberoi Kareena Kapoor song from Yuva shot on the beach!)

Back to the birthday. I spent most of the part getting shouted at by my mom that my room is still a pig sty and if I don't clean it in 2 hours, my friends cannot come home for dinner. So I spent my ENTIRE day cleaning up my room.

Add to this that my maid fell ill. And mum in all her flurry of making kebabs and the rest for the friends' dinner made daal chawal for lunch. This when I was getting a free day from my diet after 3 weeks!!!!!!

And then we'd ordered the most delicious cake which I'd been looking forward to all day and it turned up with walnuts in it (And I HATE walnuts!)

No...it gets worse. Then the electricity went off during dinner. The electricity never goes off this side of town!! So everyone was huddled under the one fan that works with the inverter power and played a guessing game with what they were putting on their plate!

Ok I'm going to stop before I feel more miserable. There were a lot of things that went right too though.....like the lizard hasn't been spotted again in 3 days now, the electricity came back in 1/2 hr, i didn't overeat cause the cake didn't merit it, the dal chawal were rather tasty, I got lots of present and my boy was here after 2 months..... And that I'd got 41 calls from friends by 11am. Lost count after that....

So I guess all's well that ends.......well.....

PS- Thanks everyone for pouring in the wishes on my previous post! That counts as an upside too :)

Tomorrow

2007-09-12T12:27:00.000+05:30

Top 3 things to look forward to tomorrow
1. Presents
2. Day off from diet- Translation: Digging into the chocolate brownie cake
3. Phone calls from people who don't call anymore

Top 3 Things to NOT look forward to tomorrow
1. Lack of presents cause I'm too old for them
2. Cake burning down due to the fire caused by the candles
3. Phone calls from people who laugh at me and say "HAHAHAHA!!! You're 27!!!!"

Crap!

I Saw the Sign

2007-09-05T20:38:00.000+05:30

People's style of signing off on official mails got me thinking today (I am obviously very jobless...reason below...and so things like this get me thinking...if at all...) of how silly signing off can be. Most of the times when people sign off as "Cheers" I have this vision of them raising a toast. So it's even funnier when the body of the mail is full of scorn and it ends in "Cheers". That's like saying "Here's to your inefficiency! Bottoms up!"

It's even funnier when agencies sign off saying "Warm Regards". You get these scary visions of them giving you a hug! Ok to be fair I signed off that way too for years in an attempt to copy my client savvy boss till someone told me there's no such thing as "warm" regards. It's "best" regards. That of course is better than this colleague of mine, who in her trainee days was often told to reply on behalf of the boss...that is, till the boss discovered she'd been sending mails to clients saying "We will be reverting shortly. Love XYZ"!!

Anyway, been having a blast at work having quit my job last week. It's funny how everyone was curious to know where I was moving to when I quit my previous job. This time the response is "So are you getting married" or "Are you going to continue working?" It makes me feel a. Really old...like it's time for retirement or something and b. Totally incompetent that people cannot believe someone else would get conned into hiring me!! Hmph!

Made my last official out of town trip to...no points for guessing...Chennai. And without fail, yet once again, for the nth time, the office had sent a cab bearing my name prefixed with a "Mr."!For crying out loud! I've decided to sign off from now onwards giving them my name, sex and vital stats if need be!!

So getting back to office...been chilling out... reaching office at 10, leaving at 6 sharp and spending the hours in between listening to the radio and sending personal emails! Exit mode rocks!!! Today in particular I went to office in a chariot of flowers...like literally. Our neighbour's shrubbery has decided to shed on our side....to be more precise, on my car! So in a flower laden car I set out for office with petals flying to the left and leaves flying to the right, with petals streaming down the windshield when I braked and petals flying off when I used the wiper....and all was well till I saw the cows were eyeing my car rather longingly!!(I swear I heard a couple of them saying "foooooooooooooood") Hence now planning to go down and free my poor eve teased car off greener pastures...

Till next time.....signing off
Zee
Female

Shakespeare.....Take a Hike!

2007-08-28T15:45:00.000+05:30

The thought was triggered off by Nutty who said she wanted to be a writer. I'm thinking, most people who blog now must've aspired to become writers huh? Well at least I did when I was a kid. Unfortunately in hindsight, I'm glad no publisher came upon my manuscripts else I would've been banned from the literary world for life!!

It is quite fun reading through those registers and registers of stories though! There are some common threads.

*Each one starts off with a lot of passion....and usually ends in some bland, useless ending for the heck of ending it....and in a different ink from the one it had started off in.

*It has the most innovative names of characters. I must confess that some of them sound like spells from JK Rowling creations. Hmmm....maybe I should charge some royalty

*And they have arbit drawings of box shaped women in red mini skirts! (I think it's an expression of aspiration...I'm sure I wanted to wear one all my life....and then was blessed by this awesomely gigantic box shaped figure which can't sport a skirt- mini or long!)

Anyway, got me thinking if I were to write some books now, these are the titles they would bear

- How to find the slowest lane in peak hour and non peak hour traffic

- 101 reasons why Monday is not a good day to start a diet (Also available in the same series- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and definitely not Sunday!)

- Do Good Onto Others- By ensuring every time you open your mouth, it's only to make others look brighter in comparison

- Relatives and Where to Lose Them

- 20,000 People to avoid when at Marriageable age

- Who Moved my Remote Control

- Exercising the Right to Not exercise

- Chocolate- A Users guide to happiness....and Flab

- What Women Want- The one word summary of which reads, "Everything"

Try not to get killed in the stampede to get a copy of my books!

The Tale of a Tormented Tummy

2007-08-14T21:38:00.001+05:30

(Warning: If this post strikes you as being unfunny...let me tell you...there's nothing funny about being on a diet!!!)

You never know how much people eat around you till you're forbidden to eat it yourself. Quite like you never know how many couples there are till you're single. Or how clean everyone's cars are till yours is unwashed. Or how clean everyone else's arms are till yours are unwaxed!!!

Getting back to the first bit, the diet which lasted one full week was the toughest time of my life. Tougher than fasting when you know you can have a go at anything you like at the end of the day. The visions of salad and onion soup have scarred me for life!!

Add to this that I was invited to Radisson the other day for free coffee (and awesome munchies) and all I had was a glass of watermelon juice!!! Saying no to free food was a blow to the tummy..... It growled in protest!

My friend was over the other day and was talking about his wedding when he said "When I send you my wedding card, I'll just write Zee + 1. Oh wait...that'll mean you only...hahahahahaha!" For a tiny second I did take offence to that and swore to continue the diet. Till of course friend two, rechristened devil in disguise, brought chocolate mousse (free again!) and placed it under my nose. So no, didn't break the diet then but did decide to have a go at it 2 days hence!

Food deprivation also made me crack this joke with Beanpole yesterday
-Why must you never trust an unfit person
- Because he's not fit as a fiddle
Get it? Not fit --> Not fiddle -->In-fiddle-->In-fidel -->Non trustworthy....DUH!!

Beanpole made me promise I wouldn't even mention that he was the unfortunate one to hear this joke first. I break that promise cause even on a full tummy, I find it damn funny! The boy's reaction was "So who bore the brunt of this?" Tsk tsk!

That reminds me, the boy was here couple of weeks ago (yipieeeeeeee) and will be back next month again (yip yip yipeeeeee) and we were passing past Priya complex. Priya complex, for the unitiated, is Delhi's fashion house...it's actually just a movie hall place where women come dressed as if they're going to star in the movie rather than just sit through it! So the boy is humming something and I just turn to look at him and he says "I wasn't even looking at her you liar!" Aha!!! He's still trying to come up with a story to cover up that one!!!

Anyway, am off the diet now...for a few days...till I muster up the courage to give up chocolates and chicken again.....maybe now the sense of humour will return.....sighhhhhhhhhhhh

PS- This blog is a Must Read. Really funny!

Fatti-licious

2007-08-04T23:19:00.000+05:30

Fatty Zee sat on a chair
Fatty Zee in deep despair
The Chair sunk down
It dug the ground
Fatty Zee got a dirty glare

The above is not a story. It's true. Today I was sitting outside at CCD and during the course of the half an hour there I could feel myself sinking lower and lower into the ground. First I blamed it my bad posture. Then I thought it was a broken chair. Then I realised my weight had pushed the chair so deep into the earth that there was a hole enough for a family of snakes to seep out at the same time!!! The idea of seeing snakes appear was not a pleasant one so I came back home.

Then my mom turned up with a picture of some "eligible muslim boy". She just doesn't give up!. And since I don't either, I turned him down saying he's fat. She gave me the look to say you aren't a toothpick either you know. Then returned 10 mins wearing her glasses and said "If I put on my specs, he doesn't look fat anymore". You have to give it to her. She doesn't give up without a fight!

Thankfully the niece is over and she's been distracting my mom so I didn't hear of it again. The niece goes
"Nani, I'm getting a dog. A Daschund"
"Really? What will you name him?"
"He already has a name. Daschund"

Anyway, the exercise cycle will be used tomorrow. It was taken out last week and after getting an asthma attack thanks to the dust that had settled on it, I did put it to use for fifteen mins. Unfortunately, I felt nothing in those 15 mins. I think I cycled at the speed of 10, read the paper, hummed a song and got a few droplets of sweat at the nape of my neck. The net take out was to place the cycle right under the fan the next time....which of course hasn't happened since.

My anthem on weekends has been to go on a diet starting Monday and since today is the weekend I vow so again. Bring on the boiled veggies I say

Perfect Mornings......vs Mine

2007-07-26T00:32:00.000+05:30

I wake up to the rustling of leaves and birds chirping....
I wake up to the hammering in the wall thanks to the construction work going on next door...

....to lazily stretch out and feel the fresh air....
...to jump out of bed........Shit I'm late again!

I open my cupboard to breathe in the freshly starched clothes
"Mom! Is there anything clean I can wear?"

I sink into the bath tub to treat myself to an aromatic lazy bath
The shower gel's run out. The shampoo's run out......Oh crap! The water's run out!

...and gently massage my face with a creamy moisturiser...
...Another F-ing pimple! Dammit!

I sink my teeth into a soft croissant with oozing butter teasing my tongue
"Is this bread toasted?". "No". "Why is it so hard?". "It's 3 days old". Silence. "Can I have some butter?". "No. It's fattening for you"

I let the aroma of coffee take over my senses
I gag on my cup of milk

And I walk down to my sparkling car
That's bird shit on my bonnet again

And head out for a smooth, pleasant drive to office
"*&%%#* you're the one who can't see where you're going"

I walk into office to pleasant greetings
"Out of my way!" "You're late again!"

I turn on my sleek laptop in my cabin
I leap over cardboard boxes to reach my side of the cubicle and turn on my dilapidated desktop...

....to find a picture of a loved one smiling at me
....to find this picture I'd put up on my desktop in one of my smart alec moods....which doesn't seem quite smart anymore!!!

Why do I do this to myself? Sigh...........

Tag of War

2007-07-18T00:10:00.000+05:30

Got tagged by Bullshee. At least it put my brain cells to some sort of work. So here's 8 things/people I'm grateful to

1. My family...for finding inventive ways of waking me up in time for office everyday. Whether it's my mom waking me up with horror stories of how we're not getting water in our area AGAIN or my dog who wants my cheek to check how wet his nose feels today or my sister who teaches my niece to exercise lung power by yelling "Khala....Wake up!!!"...I thank you all

2. The toothbrush.....for just existing and ensuring that I do have a social life after all

3. Alcoholic shots....for being the only reason any one has ever told me I look beautiful

4. The car....if it wasn't for you, I would've walked to E block market which is precisely 20 meters from my gate and actually shed some of the excess weight....wouldn't want a situation when I'm actually thin would we?

5. My company's IT system...Thanks for ensuring I can sleep another 30 mins after reaching office by ensuring I get the slowest comp in the world which takes long enough to flash my mailbox

6. LC and Timster....for teaching me the art of being able to hold a one way conversation for a min of 40 min and allowing the other person to pipe in a "hmmm" exactly twice in the midst of this exercise. (I have been at the receiving end many many times)

7. Ekta Kapoor....For truly being appreciative of my eyesight and giving me reason to turn off the television

8. Mandy Miller....For introducing me to the world of Harry Potter....and then giving it up herself!

9. Om Book store....For selling books at twice the price available everywhere else and then laughing at my expense (pun intended)

10. Benetton....For repeatedly encouraging me to lose weight by making sure they make nothing in my size

Ok so overshot that by 2 but I am like this only! Passing on the tag to Nutty, Kolly, Ruchi and anyone else who's name ends in a phonetic "ee"

Have just returned from a weekend in Pondicherry. So worth blogging (if only a post dedicated to the annoying driver we took) but too late in the night to do it now....so till next time....

A mouthful

2007-07-05T21:24:00.000+05:30

RT forwarded this and Bo suggested I share it with the blog world........and I agree!!! Very very shareable!

Food-lighten Me

2007-06-30T17:40:00.000+05:30

(Type of post: Non funny. Self discovery types!)

I must admit this one's been inspired by Bullshee's latest post! But here's my interpretation of the title!

1. I'm Food-a-holic. That I'm choc-aholic has been established for many years now but off late I've decided it's time to face up to the fact that food is the first love of my life! People says there's nothing like the look on my face when I bite into a sumptiously, sinful, chocolate dessert (the mouth's watering already!). What brings this passion to life is the incident of when I'd joined my company. They went around the room asking people to introduce themselves. "I'm ABC and I like sports." "I'm XYZ and I like to paint". "I'm Zee and I like to eat". Yup, the words flew out innocently without a second thought! After a stunned minute of silence where the unanimous thought seemed to be "Groan! Have we really recruited this dimwit?", someone politely said "Err...then this is the right place to be. We are a snacks company after all"

2. Now the 2nd interpretation of the title. I need to desperately food- lighten myself. I eat too much. I have this tendancy to put all the fattening stuff on the menu onto my plate and then feel much obliged to leave no need for anyone to clean up. Now I'm much above my college weight, battling with my trousers every single morning and too lazy to move my butt and exercise. Before I know it I'll be a dead elephant! Actually, more immediately, I don't want people pointing out to me at my friend's wedding and saying "Us moti wali dost ke kapde to dekho"

3. My Sunday mornings are marked by viewership of all the cooking shows on various channels!! Kylie Kwong, Angela's Kitchen, Khana Khazana, the Foodie are as much a part of my household as are Kyunki Saans, Saat Phere (Ruchi, this one esp for you) and My Family (Recently discovered most hilarious show on BBC entertainment, weekdays 8:30pm- channel 205 on Tata Sky- Life Jinga-lala types). Back to the topic, I was food-lightened by the fact that the format of cook shows have changed. From cooking in the kitchen to traveling the world and learning the history, living the life and cooking the food. This is what I want to do! This is exactly what I want to do with my life....

Pottering Around

2007-06-25T21:23:00.000+05:30

Mr Potter is back!!! It's visible in the by the way he receives mentions in various blogs. It's visible in the "Book now and get blah blah free" posters in the malls. It's visible in the way I mention him at least twice in every conversation with my boy these days. It's visible in the way I'm re-reading all my Harry Potters to gear up for the movie release and the final book release. It's visible in the way I'm planning my work life so that I can take the Monday post the release off to be able to finish off my book (assuming 3 days locked up in my room are enough!). It's visible in the way I sneak a peak at my pre-booked voucher every couple of days for the 21st July book release!!!!

I cannot contain my excitement! I've already gone and seen all the youtube trailors of the movie. I've joined the orkut community for the 7th book and was extremely upset that I had forgotten who Aberforth Dumbledore is and so decided to revise my books before the final one.

I'm 26, people my age have children who are old enough to read these books but here I am biting my nails in excitement! There's nothing like the magic she can brew up!

The other day, my friend on hearing I'm reading the book told me she wished she were a witch. Fairly arbit statement to make. But then she clarified she meant the teenage witch varieties!! It's so cool huh how witches, the one thing we used to be petrified of as kids, are suddenly aspirational for kids (and adults like me) nowadays. To be able to do magic is cool....... unlike Joan of Arc who was burnt cause they thought she were a witch........

Hmmm....tangential thoughts. Just thought I'd write anyway.......since it's been so long.........

Got myself a reliance phone after a whooping 7.5K bill.........of course reliance customer care SUCKS!!!!!!! I went to get a connection and the customer care guy just stood there gaping dreamily at his girlfriend and I had to rap the table at least 10 times to catch his attention. And I've had to return to the store every couple of days regarding some strange connection problem or the other! And they're unhelpful!!! I HATE THEM!!!! Phew! Good to get it out of my system then!

Anyway, am off now. Awesome Sridevi Jeetinder movie on that I can't resist!!!!

Shaadi ke Laddu

2007-06-09T17:16:00.000+05:30

Why do Delhites fall in love during the summers??? Because their hearts melt away in the freaking heat!!! It’s 45 degrees celsius .. and I can feel myself melting away slowly like the evil witch in the Wizard of Oz (try and resist from making a comment that I look like the evil witch as well…….please…)

Ok now shift focus from the Delhi heat to the giggly girl gang….my group of 6 eternally single school friends……

I had this post ready to be put up any minute….but the theorist (a GGG member) broke the news to the world (errr…..the world being the massive 20 people who read this blog….10 of who are arm twisted into it) .... that it’s 1 down….. 5 to go…. Yup, the inevitable has happened. The first of the giggly girls was struck by the summer…her heart melted….she fell in love…and yesterday broke the news that she’s all set to tie the knot…

So Al dude, as the theorist calls him ……though I would’ve liked to call him the man from Far Far Away (Shrek 3 hangover!!!) had I put up the post first (hmph!) romantically proposed to Al Giggly (also christened by theorist in her post) and despite our constant training of “none of us can get married else the rest of us are in deep shit”….love got the better of her and she agreed!

So the phone calls poured in during peak office hours, excitement, drama, weight loss program discussions and once we’d closed topics like “hey do you have anything I can fit into for the wedding??”……. it hit us! Our families are going to be wild!

Lovely cousin was in town for the last couple of days. So she took it upon herself to break the news to my mom…..albeit without me asking her to do so!!! Hmph! So when I got home and tenderly approached the topic, what I got was “That’s excellent. The right thing to do. I’m glad she’s found someone. When will you settle down? Meet some nice boys? Before you know it, the entire GGG will be engaged, fats will be engaged, beanpole will be engaged…..” . Ok so I rolled on the floor laughing at the last 2 bits but when I recovered I reached out to my phone and realized the others had been smart and not told their families. LC, you’re in for a lot of trouble!!

Yes, this post will sound like another one of those wedding bells and wedding blues posts I keep putting up but this one had totally to be posted……to let Al dude know that the giggly girl gang truly welcomes the newest member and allows him to sweep our friend off her feet! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! :) :)

(The rate at which it’s going, I should be changing the name of this blog from "keep talking" to “keep getting married”!)

Monday Morning Balles!

2007-06-04T14:33:00.000+05:30

Balle Balle happened as Gujjars declared Delhi Bandh. So unlike my friends who got the day off last month in celebration of 150 years of the 1857 revolt (yes yes HSBC and the likes were actually shut), it was my turn to loll around in bed and laugh at them while they trotted to work. Working in Gurgaon does have its one off advantages! The over dramatic news sent my mom panicking and I was asked to stay put under my blanket and not to go out fight the traffic, and the mob, and the Delhi heat.......so I happily obliged!

Ok so 6 hours later, now at 3pm, I'm bored stiff and it no longer seems like a great idea after all. There's nothing on TV. I've read some 40 blogs. Stuffed myself till I can't breathe. Slept enough to give Rip Van Winkle a complex. And the book I'm reading is it a point where the plot is just not moving. And that explains why I’m blogging about nothing at all…

The social life is back. Caught Pirates and Shrek 3 over the weekend. Neither too great. And went to attend my alumni meet! Ended up meeting the 5 people I meet up with in any case...... But it was kind of nice to see that people still looked like they've walked out of a surprise quiz, that they still look disheveled like they've woken up from an afternoon nap albeit in slightly better clothes, that they play exactly the same music they did in the arbit parties back on campus, and that you still disliked the same people you did years ago.

It was nice sitting around though and sharing the same old stories about the psychotic batchmates or the batty professors. The bulky hostel secretary who said his hobby was candle making....the bathroom singer who you could hear all the way from the academic block while he took a bath in the boys hostel....the woman who thought pink pajamas were the innest thing (and it may have been till she wore it!!)...the boy who hung the broomstick from people's doors and got chased down corridors after that....the first floor vs ground floor slipper throwing matches where you were often caught in the line of fire....and the delight at seeing the current batch knowing the steps your batch had started off to the tamil "gemini gemini" and declaring it the college anthem.....how that came about I’m not sure...but it was a pleasant surprise anyway.....

Told the boy it would be the first alumni meet where we don't exchange phone numbers and never call post that.............

Oh well, enough reminiscing. Have another couple of hours to kill till its time for Wonder Years.......and that would call for more reminiscing.......

Maybe I should change the name of the post to Reminiscing........hmmmmm.........

And the World Goes Swishing By

2007-05-29T21:19:00.000+05:30

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………

Gold is Old!

2007-05-13T03:06:00.000+05:30

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…….

Car Craze, Late night Dates and Infuriating Vet Visits

2007-05-02T19:25:00.000+05:30

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!

Zee Classic.....the channel i mean.......

2007-04-28T19:34:00.001+05:30

Tata Sky has removed Zee Classic from their list of channels. My mum reminds me at least thrice every day to call them up and tell them to bring back the channel. I haven’t been doing it cause we get to see saner TV programmes

Anyway, found this half written blog on Zee Classic which I never came around to putting up……..hence as an ode…here goes!

(Written while suffering from Big Boss end depression)
Life has been rather dull post Big Boss. TV viewing has become rather cumbersome with absolutely nothing to watch nowadays. I’m now spending hours just looking at the Tata Sky menu trying to figure out something worth watching on any one of those 100 (claimed) channels!!!! Of course mom is having a ball cause she’s discovered the joys of Zee Classic and with no other channel to justify my viewership, I’ve given in and am spending a lot of my time watching Mala Sinha and Nargis running around trees…..not with each other of course….

In the course of many of these colour deprived movie viewing, I reached the conclusion that ….
The heroines are drunk in the movies. This is reflected in the fact that they can never run a straight line….and need to spread out their arms while running to retain their balance
The heroines ate too much chocolate. This is reflected in the good year tyres tied around their waist (Experience speaketh!) and in the tooth aches they suffered. Everytime the man told her he liked her, she places one hand on her cheek, makes this pained expression ….. before running in a not so straight line as mentioned above
They suffered from sever asthmatic problems. Chests heaved below the tons of artificial jewellery and rolls of dupattas around them…again at being asked out (errr……asked out?? Ok, at being told they will be loved)
They had nasty skin problems….or would have it now anyway. This is because they seem to have been bathed in white powder before the shot is shot
The men in a weak attempt to differentiate themselves from the fairer sex (usually tough to see through the dollops of make up and lipstick) sported the ugliest mustaches!!!! Refer Rehman

On a separate note, caught my ALL time favourite movie Jo jeeta wohi sikander on air (I know each and every dialogue by heart….esp the curly you b****** scene….) and for the first time in watching the movie for the 100th time, I felt Pooja Bedi’s actions in the movie were justified. Aamir Khan lied to her for God’s sake! I’m also a bit ashamed to admit that the vamp’s actions are making sense to me……… Hmmmm…

Ok am off now…….. putting this up now…..cause I haven’t blogged in days…… so oh well, will be back soon!

Of Fat and Photography….

2007-04-07T15:19:00.000+05:30

There are 2 types of long weekends I hate. One, the types that come after a week of socializing such that when the actual weekend turns up you’re left gasping for breath while fitting into your jeans. Two, the types where your boy decides to take off to the interiors of some strange district on work and you’re left with nothing to look forward to for 3 days!!! Hmph!!

This week, I learnt, the cool haircut was a bad, bad idea after all. After the first wash, it looks like Lenny Kravitz himself would die at the sight of it! Hence have quickly purchased a bunch of colourful hairbands to keep the disaster in check. (Separately, the boy insists hair bands are also called “alice band”. Has anyone ever heard of that term? Please tell so that I can put the argument to rest). Just when I was sighing in relief that all’s under control, one of the giggly girls told me yesterday that if I pull my hair back as much, my hairline will start receding!!! Hmph! Am back to flaunting my bad hair life.

So back to photography as is the title of this post, the giggly girl gang met up for a birthday this week. And as always we decided to get into a bunch of budday snaps, so much so that at the end of the evening, we were blinded by the flashlight and never want to see a digital camera for the rest of our live….or till the next birthday!

The session started with someone saying let's take a picture for posterity and we launched into a series of permutations and combinations of where each one of us should position ourselves (who we should stand behind to hide our fat or who can stand sideways to look thinner) and then we got into a series of “no delete that…I’m looking too fat”. So after a whooping 100 million pictures, we finally got one with which everyone was satisfied….till we realize that someone had her eyes shut!!! And so the drill began all over again! In fact, a couple of years back, I think I exhausted the digicam battery by making them take retakes coz I looked horrible in each and every snap!!!

The other day I went out with the boy’s friends and since we didn't have a camera with us, they decided to use my terrible camera phone to start clicking and what came out was a bunch of pictures of the table, of glasses, of elbows on the table or just these blurred people talking to each other. Lesson learnt. Never allow the person who’s 4 beers down to try his hand at photography! It took me one full day editing the colours and zoom to get the pictures back in shape!!!

And more on photography, the Rishikesh (not Hrishikesh as was misspelt in previous post….there you go rt…) pictures were finally shared. There must have been 4 cameras on the trip, everyone took the same set of photographs and not one of them made me look good! Hmph! In fact, one of the experienced photographers took these awesome portraits of everyone and then there was me, full of freckles, full of pimples and a whoopingly apparent upper lip!!! After much dismay, photoshop was put to good use and blemishes were got rid off and the sweet soul who did this for me was thanked profusely!!! Phew!!

On a separate note, my boy called up the other day in much panic. “Zee I dreamt you had decided to start advocating the use of the purdah system among muslim women”. Given the young, conservative, muslim girl I am…..NOT…the possibility of that happening is as close as me piggybacking a man eating lion! So I sort of fell off the chair laughing and I must admit that the boy was much relieved!!

Ok am off now. Mum wants to take me shopping somewhere (Ugh). Till then……Say cheese!

The City Girl and Mother Nature

2007-03-30T12:57:00.000+05:30

Before I start, this hit counter is damn cool man! And addictive! I keep going to my blog page and seeing oh wow! One more hit. Then it hit me (I’m the queen of puns) that I’m the one who’s been visiting my page and running up the hits! Hmph!

Got a haircut this weekend. Thought it looked very cool. But am not sure how to read reactions like this
“Hey haircut!”
“Yeah ”
Silence.
Now what was that reaction about? I mean really cool that you noticed my haircut but I didn’t quite get to hear a “nice” after that! So do you like it? Or is it so bad that you notice it but are polite enough to keep your opinion to yourself? Hmph anyway!

But that wasn’t quite the highlight of the week. The highlight was my Hrishikesh rafting trip, rechristened as the Zee-is-a-scary-poo trip!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever known how scared I am in life till this trip happened. I suffer from a disease called severe morbid thought provoker syndrome which I diagnosed at every step during the trip!
1. Fright of the bus toppling over when we went up the ghat road
2. Fright of me toppling over while trekking down to reach the camp
3. Fright of toppling into the river and getting washed away forever while rafting
4. Fright of crocodiles jumping through the water and chewing up my arm (Ok so this wasn’t such a big fright but I must confess the thought did cross my mind a couple of times)
5. Fright, that in the darkness of the night, the ghosts would decide to take a liking towards me for some vague reason, and decide to haunt me for life! Ok actually, I did think of the reasons too….that I was their lost lover from my previous life….that I was humming a song which they liked… that I was missing my boy and if their love story didn’t succeed they hate everyone who is not single (the downsides of not being single sigh sigh!)…..that I was the only one who was actually scared of them (this would be the pure evil ghosts who get sadistic pleasure of scaring poor little girls who are already scared of ghosts!)….and so on

But, on a serious note, there is nothing like the feeling of sitting by the river and just staring into space as the water sweetly gurgles by, the sun gently lightens up the hill tops, the soft, silky sand runs between your toes and the sensuous breeze strokes your face……..

And then there’s the feeling of sitting in the raft and you cursing yourself for being overweight and thinking you are the sole person to blame if the raft capsizes
……….the feeling of killing your arms while paddling through the water and cursing yourself that the first time you ever exercise in life is when your life depends on it!!
…….the feeling of the icy cold water numbing your body when you decide to jump off the raft in a moment of bravery later classified as a moment of stupidity, without knowing how to swim and you spend the next 1o secs gasping for breath and asking them to pull you out …….and get out to people laughing at you….you were wearing a life jacket, you know, you dweeb!!!
...........the feeling of the wave gushing over your face, you choking from the shower, yet enjoying the struggle, and the feeling of being able to conquer a rapid without the boat capsizing
…….the feeling of being soaked from head to toe in icy cold water and yet all you want to do is throw your head back and laugh……..

And the feeling of returning to the camp dirty as hell…. of avoiding the shower cause I’m shower phobic (long story…..next time)….of using the bio friendly loos and hating every minute of it….of nursing bruises and body ache and promising yourself that you’ll never do it again…

But as the bus descends the hills and you take one last look at the camp, you break that promise and the minute you’re back in signal area, you sms your friends fixing up a trip with them on the next long weekend you guys can take off……

Holi Spirit...Amen!

2007-03-25T22:22:00.000+05:30

What’s the most beautiful sound you’ve heard? Raindrops against your windowpane? The sweet sound of the waves brushing against the shore? The soft breeze playing with your hair? The sensuous bite into a bar of chocolate? Or even the alarm bell going off after a boring class? Here’s what I think is the most beautiful sound in the world…..my own voice!!!! (hahahaha you thought this was going to be a philosophical post huh? Who are we kidding? It’s me!!!!)

So the point of that was that I can’t stop talking. And I’ve heard that a LOT today. Yet I haven’t been “talking” enough on this blog!!!! And that’s cause the boy is currently, unfortunately at the receiving end of my tendency to offload details of every bit of my day and that, my dear people, saved you from the torture of me discussing trivial matters like my colleagues pink toenails with you!!!

But today I’ve decided to give him a break and unleash my ranting on this post….and as always I have these millions of things I want to write about but they’re totally unrelated topics so I don’t know how to start. I guess a good way to start would be to complete the holi post I was writing a few weeks back!!!

Ok so before I start off with my holi post I must tell you what a psycho I’ve become. The other day had gone down for my daily brownie (give us today…our daily brownie…and forgive the pounds…) and was flipping through a magazine on life underwater and saw this glistening prawn like fish and instead of thinking “Oh how pretty” I immediately thought “Oh how yummy”. Yes I’m a food freak. No longer just a freak. I’m a specialist in food freakiness!!!

Back to holi. Woke up to 9 “wish your life is filled with colour” (Check out the honesty man! I could’ve said 100 smses yet I honestly said 9…reflective of my true popularity! Sighhhhhhhh). Holi, btw, is no longer characterized by obvious bollywood nos such as “holi ke rang sab mil jaate hain” or the silsila song….but now songs like “do me a favour let’s play holi…” take over and u want to kill anu mallik for it…and “hum pe yeh kisne hara rang daala” and u want to kill vestige for thinking that one up….

But anyway, candyman had called us excitedly and said “friend’s friend’s party….very page 3….belly dancers and all….do u want to come?” Now why belly dancers would be incentive for me to go I don’t know but I decided to tag along anyway just to see what a page 3 party could mean

Spent a good 20 mins trying to figure out what to wear. Hang on…let me make things clear. It’s not cause my wardrobe is full of fancy clothes which I don’t want to spoil with colours….it’s cause my wardrobe is overflowing with clothes one worse than the others that I don’t know which ones to start destroying first. So finally decided to put on some ill fitting (just like the rest of my clothes) trousers and a T that reached my knees.

Then began my hunt for hair oil. I haven’t oiled my hair in years now…for 2 reasons. One it reminds me of the time when I had long hair (way back in school) and of traumatic times when I would oil my hair to untangle it after a nasty hairwash. And two, cause I haven’t quite found a shampoo that completely washes away the oil (Why oh why would you be interested in knowing that). So anyway, finally found a parachute bottle and realized it was frozen. So I dug out these blobs of frozen oil and just placed it on my head. And then it took me hours to massage the blobs into my hair as it looked…err…. quite gross……

Finally turn up at this page 3 party thinking I would see some celebs but I had a tough time recognizing my own friends so gave up on trying to see through the shades of black and blue….and decided whoever was talking to me despite my bright, ugly pink face would be a friend of mine so just hung out with a bunch of extremely scary looking people with extremely shiny white teeth!!!

Anyway, I have to run now and I don’t want another half written post lying around so am putting this up anyway!
Current most hated song: Sajna di vaari vaari

The Warm Up Post

2007-03-07T02:32:00.000+05:30

Ok ok, so I did the disappearing act again! Don’t nag. The cynic and the vestige already gave me quite a mouthful on how I have disappeared from the…..err…. life horizon. Though I think they’ve only missed me when they’ve had to pay double the entry as stags and didn’t have the charming young lady (read me) to accompany them and share the expenses

So lots of things been happening. Read between the lines baby! :)

1. I have stopped partying. Sorry orange room/climax/buzz. I have discovered life beyond dancing to “ek gillassi do gillassi teen gillassi chaarrrrrr”….. So been getting home by midnight on Saturday nights like a good Cinderella woman.

2. The frequency of hanging out outside Barista and staring into space and cracking nonsensical jokes with the boys has reduced, the result of which is that I’m much more ladylike (I even wear dangling earrings!!! And have been known to blush off late!!!) Ok, I must confess that I still do abuse like a sailor (beanpole terminology) when unleashed on MG road every morning but old habits die hard

3. Been working like a dog!!! (Am not sure why people use that phrase. Dogs don’t work hard. Horses work and cattle work but what work do dogs do??). Past 2 weeks I reached office at 8 (which means waking up at some godforsaken hour…read 7am) and returning home after all K serials finish (yipieeeee) read 9:30pm. But it got me thinking of an employee policy which I implore HR managers to implement….that people be allowed to reach office in their night suits if they have to reach office at anytime before 9…….Ok on second thoughts, while writing this down, I realized I don’t quite fancy seeing a lot of my colleagues in their nightsuits….so drop the idea….

4. Have had no giggly girl outings. Hence been very plugged out of gossip, fashion and how fat I look.

5. Had an awesome holi (thanks candyman for the invite)!!! Went for a friend’s friend’s friend’s party (Awesome huh how we invite ourselves to such things shamelessly!) But this is just a warm up post so will dedicate the holi happenings in my next post in detail in the next couple of days

6. Attended yet another wedding. Felt yet older. Felt weepy seeing my friend dressed as a bride. Felt weepier cause I lost another friend who’s name I could quote to my mum whenever the that-that-cannot-be-named topic came up “ABC’s not married!!!!” It now leaves a grand total of 2 from a whooping 15 people I knew in college who are not yet married!

7. Lost my single status. :) Hot boy asked me out. Said yes. So am single no more!! Yipieeeeeeeeeee. Ok now try not to die of shock…..and no violent reactions please!

Till the next post….Meow pussycats!

Shit! It’s 2:30am!!!

PS- something is seriously wrong with me. I’m actually foot tapping to psychotic music like “Fergilicious def….fergilicious def…fergilicious def def def def def def…” Someone kill Fergi!!!!

Being Im"Pact"ful

2007-02-17T16:20:00.000+05:30

Be honest…did any of you know the funda of making a marriage pact with your buddy before you saw “My best friends wedding”? About securing your future in case you continue to be the loser you currently are while making this pact? About getting someone suckered to spending his/her miserable (actually to be miserable) life with you?? No, right? Yet now most of the people I know have such back ups....as do I

Now all is well if you have just that one back up in life. But the problem begins when you obviously lose complete confidence in yourself and make multiple pacts that in case the person who made a pact with you in his moment of kindness (actually more appropriately, madness) is taken, you should have others to fall back on. Of course, if you have zilch confidence in yourself, then you try and make pacts with every person of the opposite sex and are subjected to some nasty outbursts of laughter but let's not even get into that!!!!

Now zoom in angle 2. Angle 2 being that you obviously made these pacts when you were some 20/22….and laughingly said “when I’m 28 and still single, we’ll get married”. It seemed so far away. Now you’re 26....28 is just 2 years away....you have no potential spouse in sight and you break into a sweat thinking of all the pacts you need to now fulfill!! Ok so to be honest, the people who've made a pact with you are actually the ones who're nervous and subject you to things like this
“Zee, do you know how much pressure I am under now? I just have to marry the next girl my parents make me meet otherwise I’ll end up marrying you”
Some others feign amnesia. “No way did we make a pact!”
Or alter it to their convenience. “Zee it was your turning 30….not mine!!”

I did receive an sms a few days back saying “so do we get into a pact” and I’m thinking ok so 28 booked for A, 29 booked for B, 30 booked for C…..and it went all the way up till 42 (boy oh boy….the number of men who must be getting miniature heart attacks at the thought of it) but seems like he wasn’t quite interested in marrying me at my blossoming age of 42!!!

And nothing tops the story of this friend of mine who pacted (if that’s a word) with this girl to marry her if she’s single at 30 and with another girl when she’s 28 and the 28 year old is 2 years younger so little does the younger girl know that she’ll lose out by 24 days as the older girl turns 30 some 24 days before she younger one turns 28!!! Quite complex huh?

So here’s a word of advice to anyone who’s below in their early 20s and reading this post…..28 will be there before you know it….so don’t get into pacts unless you’re some 35 or something. And to everyone who’s above 25….what the hell….haven’t you got a pact in place already....losers!!

On a separate note, saw Eklavya yesterday. Don't know what was more annoying...the movie or the 4 year old boy sitting next to me who seemed to have developed a crush on me in 2 hours. Kept tapping my shoulder and giving me these toothy grins everytime I'd turn to look at him and would move forward to check out the guy I was with. And then he almost shoved popcorn in my face and told his mom "Aunty ko de raha hoon" (Not didi! Aunty!!!) And when they said "Rajaji ki jai" in the movie, the boy yelled out "Auntyji ki jai"!!! On second thoughts, he didn't quite develop a crush. Think he was making fun of me. Hmmmm.....

Mouth-Not-Shut.com

2007-02-10T15:32:00.000+05:30

My boss asked me "You don't have tea/coffee na?"
"No...not unless I'm really sleepy....so in case I'm ever having tea during a meeting, it means I'm bored and falling asleep"
Pause. Serious tone. "You shouldn't have told me that"

There are basically, a LOT of times like these, when I wish I knew when to shut up!! Maybe the reason why a lot of my friends tell me "Kitna bolti hai yaar", "Achha bas, shut up" or "Zee man, you're giving me a headache"... is because I don't quite talk through the day at work (nothing intelligent to say you see....so I just keep shut) and when the evening comes, I suffer from extreme verbal diarrhea...diarrheoa.. (or however the hell you spell it). None of my giggly girls would ever accuse me of talking too much though...let me assure you...cause they beat me hollow at it ...but it is a serious issue otherwise....especially when it comes to keeping secrets!!!!

You see, as a kid, if someone told me a secret (as evolved a secret as "I think Kevin Arnold is cute"...(remember him? Wonder years) ....) we'd cross out hearts never to spill the beans (I'm not sure why these qualified as secrets in the first place....not like our parents would lock us up just in case we ran off with him....what were we thinking man!!!). But the larger point being, I would run back home and write it in my diary and the secret would be offloaded

Now, life is slightly different. Now I'm this big fat lazy bum who finds it a herculean task to maintain her tax file (which I'm assuming is one of the most important files in the world) so maintaining a diary of "daily events" would be quite something. Though hey, it's tons and tons of fun looking back at your diaries when you were thirteen and laugh at the ridiculous problems you had in life.
"The character of Scott has changed in Neighbours (remember " Everybody needs good neighhhhhhhhbouuuuuuurrrrrsssssss").... How will I ever go on with my life? " Tears blot the words
"Jonty Rhodes has hurt his hand....what if he's not able to play the match" Tears again...
"I can't fit into my jeans anymore".... Ok so that, is a valid one!! And continues to exist!!!

So the point being, now I don't have a diary and I don't know how/who to offoad my secrets to..so it's even tougher to keep secrets at this point in life...so I make a trade off and never keep any about myself. My life is an open book no one is interested in even flipping through anyway (sigh sigh sigh sigh)

On a tangent, it's worse when you're told to keep a secret and another person is also told the same secret and asked to keep mum and you're both trying to hold a straight faced conversation when the secret teller is having a hearty laugh at your expense!!!

So next time you tell me a secret, and do go ahead and tell (coz that's what really spices up my inconsequential, unhappening life) despite this post....please be aware of the trauma I'm going through to keep it to myself......so YOU OWE ME ONE!!!

(Ooooh boy....arbit blog!)

Hic-kies

2007-01-26T20:20:00.000+05:30

Bold subject? In its own ways….But no…this is not a post on such interesting subjects (I know what you’re thinking…naughty naughty)….rather it’s on the certain things friends subject you to when they’re drunk …. Friends, henceforth, referred to, as Hic-kies in this post

1. You receive smses like this “Zm tak car mad horn non get yiel room”. After you employ the services of your smarter counterparts in interpreting that sms, you realize what you thought was “My car horn’s gone mad…not getting to my room” (whatever that means)... you realize what it actually says is “You take care of your mom get well soon”.

2. They call you up on ISD and sing versions never heard of, of songs which you swore by and after their version, swear by to never listen to again! You also get calls at the end of the month saying “What the hell…these telephone companies are billing me gigantic amounts for some reason. I’m going to sue them”. Stop serenading all the way from across continents and I assure you telephone companies will be kind

3. You’re way past your deadline, already in a car which is huffing and puffing to touch a 20km/hr speed and the Hic-kie in the passenger seat decides to pull up the handbrake every time u accelerate!! The result… no pick ups for the Hic-kie in passenger seat in the future, hoarse voices from shouting and then laughing at the Hic-kie and of course you get grounded for a month!

4. Some Hic-kies decide to think of their exes and weep just at the time when you have taken a break from thinking of your ex as an *&*^% (family blog…..errr…ok not quite)…and are actually missing him too! What follows is a series of howling and the only person who smiles through this episode is the bar owner as the Hic-kies drive up the bill!

5. Some Hic-kies also start seeing things and go to the extent of saying “Shit man, you’re actually looking good” and before you can pat your hair and break out into a modest smile they top it up with “Shit man, I must be really drunk”

So next time you’re a Hic-kie….what the heck! Encore! It’s really entertaining!

Check....no mate

2007-01-23T01:43:00.000+05:30

(101 reasons why I can't marry....assuming someone is willing to of course!)

Today my maid’s leave coincided with mine. So I couldn't feign exhaustion from office as I do usually at times like these and had to help out mum in the kitchen. While she did most of the cooking and cleaning, I shadily thought I’m contributing by pushing the dishes into the micro and pressing the 2 min button. That's when I realised I'm so not ready to get married

For starters I cannot run a house!!! I have no clue as to when bills are paid in my house, when bulbs are changed or when the maids come and go. I didn't even know the geyser didn't work in the kitchen till I got a frost bite trying to wash the utensils today

I can't cook. To put things in perspective, my friends are expert cooks. They can put together a 5 course meal within mins and have people smacking their fingers for more. I, on the other hand, still need to read the instructions on the back of a Maggi pack. (The font has decreased and it’s given in one corner now coz they believe the world knows it and doesn’t refer to it but I do I do! Feedback for you Nestle people!)

I can't keep the house clean. My room's a dumpyard of dusty books I've never read, dried up pens, floppies (remember those?), single socks, old bedcovers, broken chairs and a carpet where my dog eats his food. (My cupboard stays locked so I'm not even going to try and describe that!)

And then of course....there's the babies angle!! (I want to shoot myself for even thinking of this but check out the event below)

Couple of weeks back went with this couple friend to see another couple friend's new born (couple couple couple!!). I’m looking down at this bundle on the bed and I’m thinking uhhhh.....how is the mum ever going to catch a good night sleep again.... when the other girl with me says “Oh I wish I had one!” What? Are people around me seriously thinking of having babies? Like looking after babies day in and day out? I mean I have the most adorable 2 yr old niece in the whole wide world…the sunshine of my entire family including mine……but I still break out into a sweat if my sister asks me to babysit her for too long!

And with these thoughts fresh in my mind, one of them says "You know I'm going to be 26...time to have a family" and then they all turn to look at the only single person in the room, me, and say with deep concern "Zee, aren't you planning to get married?" "Er....no" "Then when will you have babies?" Oooh boy!!

You know, so many movies have this romantic scene where the guy looks into the woman’s eyes and says “I want to be the father of your child”…..I wonder how the audience would take it if the woman would say “oh shittttttttt.......I don't want a child right now...contact me 4 yrs from now..."

And to top it all, that same evening, one of my friends was practicing her numerology on me and says your numbers mean u have very "masculine energy"...which she said meant I was a tomboy (not a nice thing to say to a 26 yr old!) .

I was deeply offended by this masculine energy bit. My mum says I have no energy at all. She think I’m going to turn into a patta gobi anyday the amount I vegetate. I have this amazing ability to stare into space for hours and think of nothing at all. I’m not too sure what this says about me but….

Not the point. The point is I don't want to get married. In fact I don't even want my friends to get married cause they turn into these things that think you're psycho for not wanting to get married. And then spend their life tsking at your sad life (which btw, is not so sad after all you know)

I think my brain's rusting.......as are my blogs.....

Cause You're There For Me Too.......

2007-01-15T23:56:00.000+05:30

Happy New Year!!!

Writer's block. Subject block. Brain block. Hence no post for so long. So in case this post sucks (and I have a strong feeling it will), please excuse the rusted pen....errr....keyboard

So very little social life this year (ok I promised a friend to clarify that it's not true and I do actually have a social life coz someone is always sweet enough to allow me to tag along with them on saturday nights) but since the beginning of the year I haven't got to do much.

But that's not the point. To get myself back into the writing mode which some mad friends of mine insisted I do (personally think it's cause they get a nice hearty laugh by laughing at my miserable life) have decided to blog on just that.....the mad mad friends we have!

I've learnt...

1. Friends always make sure they don't notice the haircut you've spent a bomb on (Achha kuch karaya hai?)
2. And always make fun of your fashion sense (That's a t shirt? It looks like a confused choli)
3. Friends die of shock when you tell them hot boy said you're cute (You??? Did he say this before or after you sported that pimple?)
4. Friends spend half their lives trying to get your surname right (Your surname sounds like iIm gargling zee....insults insults!)
5. Friends spend a major part of their lives inducting you to the world of abuses and then pretend to be shocked when you use it (You're not such a young conservative muslim girl after all....)
6. Friends never let you forget the mistakes you've made (You actually dated that loser?)
7. Friends indulge you with the yummiest homemade chocolate desserts cause they know that's the way to cheer you up
8. Friends turn up at the doorway with a 1 kg bag of chocolates which give you tons of happiness (tons of pimples and tons of weight)
9. Friends come up with bright ass ideas to have ice cream in peak winters and convince you to do the same
10. Friends cover you with a blanket when you're curled up on the train berth
11. Friends always have a story worse than yours, a love life worse than yours, a problem worse than yours or so they make you believe when you start to feel low
12. Friends download the coolest music and pass it on to you without you even asking
13. And friends also have this uncanny way of knowing exactly what you want them to say when you're down and out, exactly when you need a hug, when you need a pat, when you need a laugh, when you want to be alone....

And you love each and every one of them despite all their quirky, mad ways!

Here's to my bunch!

Ps- is it normal for a 26 year old to get zits at the drop of a hat???

Much Ado About New Years Eve

2006-12-30T19:27:00.000+05:30

What a rocking week it’s been. Have friends, cousins pouring in from every corner and I have partied till I drop! Bumped into my first crush and he actually remembered my name (yipieeeeeee) and walked up to me rather than the usual me ogling at him and he giving me the “do I know you” look

But coming back to what a week it has been….Went to Buzz to get insulted. Went with a bunch of friends/cousins and I was the only one they gave entry without questioning my age but no one else was allowed in cause they looked underage! And they were all the same age!!!! Why can’t I look underage for a change? Am sick of being asked “So which of you is the older sister?” My sister is 8 years older than me so you know how I feel!!!

Also organised a surprise party for a friend of ours. Couldn’t find a venue. Sheepishly called up his mother and asked if we could invite ourselves over. Wanted to smuggle in a pepsi like rum punch but we added too much juice so ended up with a rather orange coloured pepsi bottle and quite shadily tried to pass it off as a de-pesticised cola. Didn’t help. We could see the mother making a mental note of not allowing us in next time. And then of course stupidly spoilt the surprise by taking off our shoes at the entrance so he came in with a rather forlorn expression on his face!!!

In between the many social sessions through the week, the one topic that seemed to put all of us in a rather solemn mood was that of new year’s eve. “What should we do?”

Now there are a whole bunch of us. Mostly single. Mostly losers. No invites to any parties. No money to afford hip pubs. No stylish clothes to fit into the hip crowd in case we do find ourselves in a hip pub! So we made a list of 20 things we could do…..which could be summarized into 3 royal ideas if you ask me
1. Stay home and have a romantic candlelight dinner with your pet
2. Gatecrash
3. Draw lots to figure out which one gets suckered into hosting a get together for a bunch of losers who would drink themselves silly about not having any invite to any parties

Not really a big deal for me. Have had rather colourful new yrs eves in the past.

I was one of the few who spent the glamourous millennium night in front of my idiot box feeling like a complete idiot watching Leo Di Cap turn into a human icicle while Kate sang a rather off tune version of twinkle twinkle little star!!!

And then there was this one time (I know 5 people who will read this phrase and laugh) , when I was stuck in the narrow lanes of Sainik farms at the strike of 12 till the sun peeked out through the fog coz the traffic refused to move! Was grounded for that entire year! And that’s just not a pleasant way to start the year

And of course last year took the cake. After spending a rather happening 10 mins with some extremely page 3 people who discussed how amitabh and abhishek were going to mallya’s party but srk was ditching (insider info this) we headed off to a more grounded friend’s place to spend a cosy (read loserlike) evening together.

Let me take a moment and describe what I was doing at the strike of 12. I was hanging from my friend’s balcony yelling happy new year to people on the streets (there weren't any) with a friend swinging on the clothesline philosophizing…… “Life is an excel sheet. You need to sort it”. Ideally I would have liked to ponder on it but another friend giggled in with a video camera and took a 10 min footage of the floor in pitch darkness.

So the moral of the story being, given that I’ve had fairly off beat new yrs eves so I’m not quite demanding as to how to spend my evening. So any plans would do

But you know what! I decided to not look like a polar bear for a change yesterday and braved the cold and came back with a rather nasty cold. My nose is running like a tap and I’m sneezing enough to feel like a chuk-chuking train. So guess I’m home tomorrow night…..

What a way to start the year…..

Wedding Bells....No no..Not mine!

2006-12-12T00:35:00.000+05:30

A friend of mine read my previous post and said "It was so bad I was feeling embarrassed to even read it".....Well guess what! This is going to be much worse! Cause this is a culmination of a very, very bad day (I banged my car, got stuck in a massive jam, missed half of nach baliye (tragic!!!) and the bed side lamp conked off). So I’m sitting in complete darkness and trying to figure out the keys on my keyboard!!! Read at your own risk!

Given that I’ve spent my whole weekend at a wedding, have decided to blog on just that. Here are the Must do’s for a wedding.

1. Get invited!!!
Even if means going to GT Karnal road! This is because when there are 15000 weddings in the city and you’re not even invited to one….it does not speak much of your popularity quotient!

2. Visit the parlour (Ya of course this only holds true if you're a woman! If you're a man who gets his eyebrows done.......get a life dude!!!)
You can't possibly go to a wedding looking like your own self (read social outcast having a bad hair....err....life) when everyone else looks straight out of cosmopolitan (sari clad with backless blouses....and you're in your grandmum's 1920's hide-it-all-the-fat blouse!!!). However, if your parlour lady is anything like mine, it is highly avoidable. "Aap to aur bhi mote ho gaye ho" is not the ideal thing to hear at the onset of such an event!

3. Acclimatize yourself
It's winters and foggy and you’ll probably spend the day whooshing out a lot of smoke, shiver and quiver and your only sense of relief is to watch the mandap fire…… when you've fought with your mum over not carrying that shawl just to be all fashionable, it’s advised to prepare yourself mentally to suffer. And to wake up with a massive cold and headache the next morning!

4. Buy a present within your budget
Do not embarrass yourself by walking into Tanishq and saying you would like something for 6K . And if you still stupidly do so, brace yourself for looks of disgust and pity from the shopkeepers. Attach yourself to the pity giver as he’s the only one who will be able to dish out some dust sized diamonds which you can gift wrap
Related advice: When some other friends who didn't have to undergo the torture of being illtreated by the shopkeeper, pass a snide comment like "Err...that's a pretty small stone isn't it".....Smack them!!!!

5. Trip
This is not as simple as it sounds. To some clumsy ones (read me) it comes most naturally, but the timing must be just right! Just when you’re standing in a group and no one can decide who should say bye to the bride’s mum first, you should decide to be Miss Confidence 2006 and start leading the way….find the perfect spot on the carpet where your broken heal can attach itself….make sure all your friends are looking at you... and then…..simply trip….topple over...whoosh...wham...thud!!! This not only ensures your popularity at the rest of the weddings as people point at you throughout and snigger, it also ensures that the rest of your friends have top class entertainment (at your expense) and they can take your trip (pun sooooooo intended) for the rest of your life!

One Question: Why me?

The Phone Again

2006-12-05T23:30:00.000+05:30

Changed the description of my blog to learning to laugh at life. Cause it's turning out to be a big joke all right!

Saturday nights mark the highlight of my week. This friend of mine who sells chewing gums to the paanwalas in UP (the jobs we have!) comes down every Saturday to party (the lives we lead!) and we tag along happily (the pseuds we are!) pretending to have a social life of our own.

We usually end up going to some dancing place (I hate lounges where you sit and stare at each other and some psycho trance music plays in the background) and dance for a good couple of hours out of sheer compulsion as there's no place to sit and you can't just stand in the middle of a dance floor, can you? Which in a way it's good cause it turns out to be great work out session for my everyday Garfieldish (read lazy) life. Wake up every Sunday morning with a terrible body ache and exchange messages like this
Friend: Man my body hurts. I think we're getting old. I also think we're very unfit
Me: Ya we should party more often to keep fit

So this Saturday I'm at Orange room (which btw kinda sucks coz a. it's like waaaaaaaaaaayyyyy too dark inside. b. it's waaaaaaaayyyy too crowded and c. everyone's always making out around u......and that's not a nice thing when u're single!!!).

So I'm there and I get an sms from a friend of mine who has insider info (ooooooo my happening friends!!) that Saif (ya ya THE Saif) is going to be at orange room. So I'm staring at the sms and drafting a reply when the DJ announces "Ladies and gentlemen, Saif is in our VIP lounge" . The crowd starts screaming and jumping and I look up to ogle at him when my friends start screaming at me "Your phone's in your hand! Take a video! Take a video!"

And then it happened. It was like time stood still....tick tick tick tick..... I'm trying to exit from the draft sms...tick tick tick tick...... and it's taking its own sweet time....tick tick tick tick....trying to switch to the camera mode.....tick tick tick tick....finally viewing him through the camera (and give up a chance to see him in person... stupid, stupid me) tick tick tick tick........and I cannot see a thing thru the stupid camera........tick tick tick tick......coz it's so freaking dark.......tick tick tick tick........so I turn on night mode.........tick tick tick tick.....which takes it's own sweet time....tick tick tick tick.....and I still can't see him.....tick tick tick tick........so I zoom in........tick tick tick tick........realise it's on still camera not video..........tick tick tick tick......try to switch.....tick tick tick tick......."Ladies and gentlemen Saif Ali Khan" and I finally look up from the freaking screen to see him wave and turn back!

Net net, wasted all my time trying to figure that stupid piece of technology in my hand!

I miss my 3310!

PS- Forgot to mention I get grounded every Sunday for overshooting my curfew. Sigh sigh!

Giggly girls on idle afternoons

2006-11-30T00:13:00.000+05:30

Oh man! I just visited some spooky website which is supposed to be some sort of psycho "alternate reality" something....which means I don't know whether it's real or fiction but I'm shit scared anyway! So the only way to distract myself was to write a blog! And as always I have no clue what I'm going to write about but let's see how it goes anyway!

Tought times coming my way. Got into a Kung Fu fight with my jeans a few days back. Tried very hard to pull them up but just couldn't. Kind of like the Seinfeld episode I caught where Kramer is trying to walk around in his skin fitted jeans. Decided I didn't want to do a Kramer especially given that my hair is quite getting there (Khosla ka Ghosla part 2... that's my hair.....except that I'm not a Khosla) so gave up and got into a skirt and then headed out for lunch with the school gang.

Let me introduce you to the afternoon with the school gang. We're a bunch of single 26 year old girls (girls, women....whatever) who believe in the 2 simple G's of life. Giggling and gossiping!

Typical outings with my school mates start with this line
"You've put on so much weight"
"Err.. Good to see you too"
"You've lost so much weight!"
"I lost 57 grams"

After we're done with the obesities (cool one huh?), we decide who will be the bali ka bakra and drive us to wherever we need to be driven (Thankfully, I'm never the bakra cause they're well aware of my parking skills and it would take me a couple of hours getting the tapes out of the way for anyone to get into my car).

Once in the car everyone pulls out their shades, plant them on their head (I think we're preventing our hair from tanning or something) and compare our new handbags.
"Gucchi"
"Same to you"

A typical conversations goes like this
"You know I was sitting at this restaurant where LMN (a painful character from school) was with ABC (Another painful character from school) and all they could talk about was Rani Mukherjee's jewellery in Paheli"
"Really? How pathetic is that!"
"Ya! Imagine, for 15 mins they went on and on about her jewellery and how good her clothes looked"
"Oh how utterly shady to discuss jewellery for 15 mins"
"Absurd indeed. Did you see the set she wore in that first scene"
"I liked the one at the dance"
45 mins spent in discussing a topic we thought was shady to discuss for 15 mins!

A typical meal goes like this
"We'd like a triple cheese pizza, fried chicken, brownie with chocolate ice cream.......and a diet coke"
And after the food arrives
"The pizza sucks"
"The chicken sucks"
"The brownie sucks"

We have a tough time fitting back into the car thanks to the food (though our wallets ALWAYS feel so much lighter) and then someone HAS to go shopping everytime! The rest of group open their guides on "how to lie through your teeth and pretend to have a social life outside the giggly gang" and try to wiggle their way out.

Net net (no still don't know how to end blogs) nothing tops those giggly girly afternoons! Long live all girl schools which breed the gossip monger in everyone!

PS- I know my giggly girls will read this....... it's all in good humour you know! :D

A day in the life of....... ya ya, me only!

2006-11-21T23:23:00.000+05:30

(Warning: This post has been written after many of my friends have been sent one line mails saying I AM SO BORED!!!!!!!! )

And the truth is, I am bored. I'm bored of my worklife. I'm bored of my non existent social life. I'm bored of reading. I'm bored of TV. And I'm bored of my freaking routine!!! I'm so bored I don't know what to blog about! So I'm subjecting whichever poor soul surpasses this blog to know what my day looks like (I know you're not interested but this is MY blog and I get to talk about whatever I want! Hmph!)

I wake up at 8:25 sharp (don't ask me why!) , spend a chaotic 35 mins getting my life and my physical being in order and am out of the house by 9. I spend the next 10 mins sitting in the car adjusting the seat, opening out the side view mirrors, looking for my lost sun glasses (I find them in a new place EVERYDAY!!), taking out my handsfree, tuning to 102.6 and get ready to bang into my gate while reversing (Of late, I have been able to reverse out in one go. I should be awarded a medal for this given that the first dent in my car was by banging into my gate)

I have a 45 min drive to work in the most annoying traffic and I'm just about the most dangerous driver around (yeah yeah it was me who banged your car on MG road) and the music now sucks again on the radio (.......on a separate yet highly relevant note, someone please sue Ronan Keating for attempting Iris......). The last 10 mins of the drive, mind you, go in sincere prayers that I get parking in my office complex. It seems to me that every family in Delhi has at least one person working in my office complex. I am willing to conduct a survey on this in case someone is willing to finance it...

I spend a good day vegetating in front of my computer screen and a bad day running around getting scr***** (It's a family blog!!!) (And am not writing more about my work life just in case my boss sees this blog and doesn't promote me)

And then begins my drive home.....I call up everyone on my list. (That handsfree phone is a BAD BAD idea. First the expensive phone, now the expensive bills. I have no salary left! Not like I had any before this goddamn (oops sorry...family blog and all) phone was bought but it just means lesser money to spend on edibles)

I get home at 8ish (could be good by your standards but by mine it sucks) and plonk myself in front of the TV. My mum subjects me to every possible saans bahu serial till 10 coz I refuse to go to the other room to watch Ross and Rachel. Post 10 is the only sunshine in my life (currently). Big Boss!!!! Am highly doubtful it's a real reality show........but CANNOT imagine being stuck in a houseful of strangers away from my family. The hostel was bad enough and that was when we had individual rooms! Girls are anyway so messy. Imagine having make up and towels lying around all over the place! ughhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Anyway, pl excuse this post. It's due to sheer boredom and lack of sleep (My bed has been creaking so much every time I toss and turn........and because it creaks I toss and turn........ so basically it's one vicious cycle ........either it's time to lose weight or to change my bed. I'm hoping it's the latter)

I most certainly lead the most boring life ever. Right down to the fact that I'm writing a boring blog now.

I wonder how Prince Williams day goes. Wake up whenever. Bathe whenever. Get out whenever. Pose for some pictures. Shake some hands. Hmmmm.......

I told you I don't know how to end blogs!

Ego Dampener

2006-11-12T22:41:00.000+05:30

(Is dampener a word???? Like dampen the ego???)

First of all, apologies! Ba apparently is not dead (Refer previous post)! To be honest, I saw the episode when she was on her deathbed and there were heavy rumours about it so I just assumed she was! So apologies to all those who did that little dance on hearing the good news and finally thought they could give Kyunki another shot (Ekta Kapoor should be paying me for returning a lot of viewers to that brain dead show). So sorry for getting your hopes up high! It's the rumours you should blame!

Have had quite a useless week........thinking about random issues which don't affect my life but am putting them down nonetheless! ha ha! And the only string I could build into relating these random issues was that all that thinking didn't do wonders to my ego. And here is how.....

It was SRK's bday. They interviewed his teachers and paanwaala and doodhwala to ask their anecdotes of him and everyone of them made him sound like an angel. Am just wondering, what if they had actually said
Teacher: "Arrey Shah rukh to bada hi buddhu student thha. Cheating kar kar ke to paas hua hai. Pata nahin kahan se star ban gaya". Or the Paanwala: "Bada hi berahem thha. Abhi tak 124.36 rupay udhaar hain. Aap hi sandesa pahucha do?" I'm positive if I were to ever become a celeb my teachers would say "Err....who was she?" or more appropriately "We are seriously surprised she's made it anywhere in life!" How come every star's mum and dad and teachers always know he's going to become a star? Anyway, that bit of thinking didn't do much to my ego

Then my cousins came down from London. And suddenly I realised how crappy my English really is. I always thought if I was (was, were??? err.......) to move to England I could very well do with my vocab and with my accent. Yet when I met them, all myths about my second language were shattered. It took me a full 3 hours to get a hang of their accent. And it's taken them 7 days to get used to mine. "Sorry?" Eggjactly!!! (No I'm not as bad as Javed Jaffery! Hmph!) Not only did I realise my accent is funny (and theirs funnier), I realised I couldn't say one sentence completely in English!!! Have spent a lot of time stuttering and fumbling over my words (I'm sure they think I need to go in for language therapy) cause I form this hinglish sentence in my head and spend 10 mins translating it before it comes out the way it should! It's been a life changing experience. And an ego dampening one as well!

On a separate note, saw Vivah. PLEASE DO NOT, DO NOT SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!! This is a serious health warning!!! No matter how brave you are, how many lovey dovey movies you have been subjected to..this one takes the cake!!!! This one takes the bakery! (Ooooooooh that was a bad one. Even I grimaced once I wrote it!)
I must tell you, I did NOT intend to see the movie. Those London cousins of mine wanted to watch it and I was the nice, polite sister who sat through 3 hours of that nonsense!!! To top it all, my cousins loved it!!!
They: "It was so Indian"
Me: "It was regressive"
They: "It was so sweet"
Me: "It was diabetic"
They: "It was so colourful"
Me: "It was garish"
They: "It was so touching"
Me: (Blank) "Are you like kidding me??? No i mean seriously???"
Net net, please do not waste your time on it!

Ok I'm done with my useless rambling. Hmm....maybe I should change my blog's name to keep rambling....I have to be the most arbit blogger in the history of bloggywood (heheheheh I'm the queen of bad jokes today) (and no, don't u dare put "as always" in your comments!!!)

I just never know how to end posts!!!! ..............Maybe I'll blog on just that next time!!! :)

Till then......

Technical No- How

2006-11-02T23:29:00.000+05:30

Ok 1....this is not a funny blog........it's just arbit rambling.........and 2......ya just had 1 point to make I guess......

Last week was super!!! I practically took the whole week off, lazed around in my pajamas 24X7, stuffed myself till I turned into a balloon (was already a beachball) and watched all the K serials (Tulsi is at her fattest best, everyone is currently on their 3rd round of marriages and Ba is finally dead.....I think......after living 350 years.....)

Anyway, towards the end of the week I realised I wanted to make myself useful and went to buy myself a new phone. I've owned a 3310 for years now....people have been hinting for a change since the time I bought it I think....they'd grimace at the sight of it, call it things like chappal, would never borrow my phone to make a call and some have even told me they're embarrassed of me carrying it!!! Of course none of my loving friends offered to buy me one......hmph......but the last straw came when one of the peons in my office told me
"Maam jab aap phone badlein to mujhe de deejiyega....main apne gaon bhejoonga"
"Gaon kyon?"
"Nahin mere paas to achha phone hai na. Gaon mein isse kaam chala lenge"

So finally decided it was time to move on (I love my 3310) and took my friend along for this techie shopping. You see, technology, of any kind, terrifies me!!! I remember getting these minature heart attacks everytime someone would also me to work on a telecom project in my previous job. And I remember hating a laptop for years cause I was just so comfortable with a normal PC. So I needed moral and technical support at such a crucial moment of my life and my poor friend was dragged along on the promise of a coffee afterwards (which of course never happened)

Just walking into the store with all these gadgets around made me feel like I'm in I-Robot or something. Not like I've seen the movie of course........I had all these TVs staring at me, these washing machines making eerie whirling noises and all these funky looking phones throwing attitude at me and my poor 3310. My 3310 squirmed into the palm of my hand and I quickly buried it in my bag! I took a deep breath and let my friend do the talking

So he asked about the specifications, the price, the features and I finally gave all the gadgets a dirty look and mustered up the courage to ask "Er, do you have it in any other colour?" and spent a full 10 mins out of our 15 min trip to the outlet deciding which colour to pick........as if my life depended on it really!!! (PS- there were only 2 colours to choose from- black or brown)

Anyway, walked out feeling like the proud owner of the new cellphone and have had a very tough week hence

A friend of mine called and I boasted "Man, your voice is mighty loud on this phone......" and then realised it was on loudspeaker! Need to get my eardrums checked now

I plugged in my handsfree and put the earplugs away intending to pick up the phone when it rings but didn't know I can't hear it ring if the handsfree is plugged in so am driving up my bill returning missed calls

I'm taking ages to type in an sms and am clicking all the wrong buttons....as a result saving a lot of half written messages in my drafts folder

And I have a lot of pictures of the floor, the slippers, my bedcover, zooming in on my toenail which my photographer 2 year old niece has clicked but I can't seem to erase them!!!

Also called for an emergency meeting with a friend of mine cause I set a wallpaper and didn't know how to remove it and could not take the stupid fish in the wallpaper stare at me a minute longer!

And finally today I called up my friend in Agra who was half dying trying to sell a chewing gum to a land where the paan rules to figure out how to put in a freaking reminder!!!

After 6 days of extreme struggle, have just come to live with the fact that I'm technologically daft!!

BTW, also bought my mom a new TV....but that's another story all together......

Added Later: My friend now informs me that my voice isn't clear on the new phone! That 10K down the drain!

The longest 10 mins

2006-10-27T00:12:00.000+05:30

Eid was announced rather abruptly on Tuesday…..was up till 3am dusting the house (it's like we had our very own sandstorm here ......and i came out looking like a poor santa who's wiggled his way through an unclean chimney!!!). Why it was so abruptly announced was because some idiot in Bihar saw the moon and some wierdo in Bangalore said he's seen the moon so we in Delhi are wondering where the f did the moon lose his way in showing up here!!!

Bro in law still trying to figure why, if eid is based on whether the moon is sighted or not, why the group of maulanas were sitting in a closed room figuring out where the moon is. Step outside you guys and you'll be able to spot it, or not spot it, in the sky! How tough is that!

Wonder what they talk about.....

"So the location of the moon sighted in Bihar is 24X358X226 and in Bangalore is 87X38X556 so given that logic Delhi would've also spotted the moon had we not wasted our time sitting in this closed room" Nah!

They're most probably saying "If we don't announce eid tomorrow we'll have to fast one more day. It's eid tomorrow. Amen!"

Ya so basically they announced it at midnight that it's eid on Tuesday. And lots of people came over. And there was this one point in the evening when I was screamed at for being a recluse and was asked to sit in with the guests who're coming in. So I politely walk into the room and seat myself in a corner.......experting the art of looking entertained by the conversation around me while revising my multiplication tables from class 2!! (Yes I was very bored!)

In the midst of the conversation my mum gets a call and she goes in, leaving me dumbstruck with these guests.

(Time starts now) I look at the floor, start playing with the bells attached to the end of my dupatta, smile at the couple and was glad to see them look as uncomfortable with me. The silence is killing.
Guest: So beta, what are you doing now?
Me: (After being asked this question for 3 years in a row without any change in my answer or expression): I’m working
Guest: Really? Same place?
Me: (Trying to figure out what he meant by that……a. The "really" meant I’m not capable of working? b. "Same place" had a touch of surprise .... Did they think I would be thrown out?) No, I switched jobs
Guest: (Surprise that someone has actually employed me after the mistake my first company made by employing me and pity at the new company) Where?
Me: XYZ
Guest: (Totally blank expression…) Huh?
Me: XYZ??
Guest: Err, what is that?
Me: We make ABC
Guest: (Sudden comprehension) Ohhhhhhhh (Makes a mental note to ever touch the product of the company again) So how are you liking it?
………..Now this is what I want to know! When people ask you, unless they’re your friends, how’s your work coming along, what do you tell them? Shit man! It sucks! I’d rather be a radio jockey but I’ve never seen the insides of a radio studio….. and the only reason I want to be a jockey is because I like music…I think…..Or Oh man, i luv my job. I luv thriving on consumer data and i luv SPSS (errr....like who cares???)
Me: (After much debate in my head) Good uncle
Guest: Excellent (Ok looks like I can't possibly continue this topic anymore)
Silence. Mother is still on the phone. I'm thinking of what to count next.
Me: (Cannot understand what in the world my mum is discussing with whoever has called for so long yet feeling socially responsible for carrying on this conversation) So how are the boys? (Why oh why did I have to say boys? Why not kids? I had no clue of the sex of their children…….. just that they did have some…..Oh God, please let them be the couple with boys)
Guest: They’re well (What kind of an answer is well?)
Silence. I count the number of flowers in the vase, the number of loops in the telephone wire, the number of lines on my index finger!!!
Me: (One last attempt) So which class are they in now?
Guest: Bada wala class 12 mein hai
Me: Oh really? That’s really grown up
Guest: Blank expression returns: You just met him 6 months back. Remember you adviced him on colleges?
Me: (Time to drown myself) Err…I’ll just go see where my Mom is…….(End of 10 mins)

BTW, saw the video of london london bridge on VH1 finally.......life has come a full circle.......this song just does not get off my back!!!

My world this week

2006-10-08T22:47:00.000+05:30

So much for my blog tagline being "I never shut up" when I actually shut up for some 2 weeks! No it's not coz I was recovering from the salsa thingie....it's coz I was suffering from writer's block.....stop laughing you guys.....it's a serious problem....... The way it works is this.... I have saved some 10 half written blogs and have just never had the patience to complete them..... So am making yet another attempt....and if you can see it, I was successful wasn't I duh!

So here the story of my life.....putting down 3 of the most relevent topics which have been blocking my mind this week!

Topic#1: The lack of money
I hate waking up to a message beep on Saturdays. No, don't get me wrong. I love receiving smses.....really do......but Saturday mornings means getting a Citibank Alert and the dismal state of my bank account sets my depressed mood for the weekend! And then I received my cellphone bill (I fainted and had to be woken up with the sms beep), my credit card bill (sending flowers to friends sure cheered them up but left me feeling very very poor) and then to top it all the indian postal system drops off mails which says sponsor food for the underfed in ethopia....... hello......I'm trying to sponsor an underfed Indian girl right here in India quite unsuccessfully! Give me a break please!!! I am surely living below poverty line with the kind of money I'm earning. Key take out: Does anyone know of anyone who will hire someone with zero skills yet pay her enough to pay off all bills? (PS am very worried that I spontaneously wrote a scary term like "key takeout"...... I've obviously been spending too much time at office.......which is seriously hazardous to my well being!) I need a well paying job people!

Topic#2: My weight problem
When I turned 25 last yr, people said it's all downhill from here. Well they were wrong weren't they. It's been going uphill on the weight front at geometrical progression ever since. Some sweet friends even tell me "Hey if this size doesn't fit you, you can exchange it for a larger one....after all you're a growing girl"....... and it's a large size she's gifted me anyway! I will not exchange it no matter what coz a. I'm v optimistic. I think someday I will lose weight (Just to paint a clearer picture I have 3 drawers full of undersized clothes I no longer fit into but like to believe I will fit into them someday) and b. coz my ego doesn't allow me to ask for a larger size to a large! So even if my lungs file a petition demanding some air, i will not exchange that kurti!!!! It's royally hanging in the closet...will soon to moved to one of the drawers

Topic#3: Stupid radio channels
This is like complete nonsense! Finally there was this one channel which was playing good, not ok, not decent but GOOD english music and even that switches to bhangra and the likes! As it is we were getting more than enough doses of "my london london bridge wanna go down" (why must she announce it 50 times a day I don't understand) and now we have another one of those. Jeez!!! So there goes the sunshine...am back to 102.6

Ok 3 completely unrelated topics but I had to let the steam out!! Now I'll have some mind space to write about less mundane matters like rakhi sawant and the sad state of affairs of my social life (No the two are not related..they're just less mundance issues! Get a life!)

Till then......

Saroj Khan Ki Seeti

2006-10-03T00:24:00.000+05:30

If you're very page 3 types then you won't know what the title is supposed to mean but if you're a TV addict like me and watch nach baliye you'd know what i'm talking about all right!

So it all started like this. Thanks to dark discos and drunk friends around, i began thinking i'm a pro at dancing. I mean, all i used to do was jiggle my butt and move my head to the beat and that somehow made me feel like i'm born to dance!

So i decided to enter the world of salsa. And it was really tough to join it in the first place anyway. You see i'm no slim and trim hot looking girl the guys in class would fall all over to dance with. So the thought of the instructor calling out "pair up" and me standing in one corner hoping someone would accept me as their partner scared the daylights out of me! And so began my quest for Mr dance partner! And I started asking all and sundry… “Errrr, do you want to learn salsa with me?” "Hey you look like you've done salsa. No? Well do you want to learn it with me?" I would even go up to the extent of lying to some of my most ungraceful friends and gush “Wow! You’re a super dancer! Do you want to join salsa with me?” The last straw i think was when I met my friend’s brother for the first time and said “Hey I’m Zarreen. Do you want to join salsa with me?” “Er, didi, I have my board exams this year. Maybe next yr” Never seen him since!

So one fine day i gave up and my friend and i are sitting around discussing our useless jobs (jobs per se may be fine but we both want to marry someone filthy rich and live off their money and would never like to work again) and he suddenly says “hey I’m really bored in life. Do you want to join salsa?” Could not stop smiling!

So us studly salsa dancers walked into class………class being literally a class!!! The dance classes aren't held in a studio, they were held in the class 6 classroom of one the schools here, no mirrors, no air conditioners and the works of a scary room to be in......including a blackboard and a bulletin board with the time table. Makings of the start of a nightmare for anyone

So 2 months into the thing and every single myth about me being this awesome dancer vanishes. My partner of course becomes the star performer and is at the receiving end of a lot of instructor attention (coz he's so good) and i'm the end of a lot of sighs and groans when we dance

You see the system is like this. You stand in a circle, complete the 2 mins step and change partners. And the expressions on people's faces are amazing. They'll be all perked up and dancing happily and as soon as i reach them, there's this sudden dead pan expression. The nicer ones smile and say hello and then look away pretending to help out a retard and the nasty onces keep screaming that you're stepping on their toe.

Unfortunately there's this bit when you have to dance with the instructor. And my instructor after 4 months of trying very hard gave up on me, quite fairly i admit. Now when it's my turn to dance with him, he just rolls his eyes, tries to make me twirl and i usually lose balance and go flying across the room. "Smaller steps! Smaller steps!" Dammit! Dancing with him is the worst part of my class...... i palpitate. I am so nervous i could eat my arm or cry and it's like the world has stopped dancing and all eyes are on me........ a living nightmare of 2.5 mins in a 1 hr class!

And the instructor's "good" is like saroj khan ki seeti. The person he says it to is elated for days if not weeks at the end.........and it's the hot topic of discussion after class. "He said good" "He said i was dancing well" and I'd share anecdotes of "Er, he said you're going all over the floor. You'll never have so much place to dance. Smaller steps smaller steps"

So anyway, finally last class, i started off in the circle and when i reached the instructor i broke my shoe! Ouch! He took a deep breath like he always did at my sight and i started dancin barefoot with my eyes shut. And when i opened my eyes he gave me a big thumbs up and a big grin. "Wonderful! Excellent! Oh I'm so happy" And i pranced about and he passed me on to my next partner with a big smile and i went leaping across the room!

Yup, I too got saroj khan ki seeti! :) And guess who's dancing barefoot everytime now! :)

Ok dunno why i blogged on that but i'm still high on finally being able to salsa!!!!

Rang De Basanti at the Oscars...

2006-09-26T23:43:00.000+05:30

Really really a cool movie after a long time...... as in a real youth movie (though i technicially don't qualify as youth as per my company's target definition) but i thought it was a good one after dil chahta hai....
DCH of course was it's own league, something u identify with ......this one a bit more dramatic but still so real, still so so cool!
What i like the most about the movie is not the story, not the patriotism (though all of that is nice and all), it's actually the realness of characters! Like u look at that characters and that's just so what ur friends would say, or what your friends would do, or just what your friends would wear!
And it's beautiful how everyone has a distinct character....the typical cool guy (someone each of us wud know) with the dark glasses and torn jacket, the funny guy who'll wear these bright coloured T shirts and have this silly smile on all the time, the serious guy, the mad girl who hangs out with the guys...... I luv the way each one of them have been just so brought to life....... maybe it's the script, maybe it's the casting, maybe it's the acting......They all look so real! In fact, at the risk of saying this, aamir khan's character was actually the most commercial ....... think the others were so down to earth and real that he was quite lost in it all....
Here are a couple of scenes I really loved...
- the closing scene when they just appear in the field and are walking off laughing....
- the scene in the song where aamir khan is thrown off by the giant and everyone jumps in to beat up the giant
- and the amazing india gate scene! That was just about the best shot scene ever!!
I'm not saying rang de basanti shud win the oscar or shudn't, but it was just a really, really good watch........

Arbit

2006-09-22T23:33:00.000+05:30

Quite feel like this today.......

"When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse......"
Cold Play, Fix You

I wish....

2006-09-19T23:37:00.000+05:30

I wish...

....That i could actually wake up in the morning feeling that my sleep is satiated
....That i could sink into a warm, aromatic bath on a cold winter day and have a gallery of nice smelling shower gels to choose from
....That all i would need to do is run a brush through my hair and it would come out looking like a fresh blow dry
....That i could work at my convenience, 3 days a week, 4 hours a day and get paid like the CEO of a multi national!
....That i could drive around in the poshest car and never have to worry about parking
....That the radio would only play music i like minus any adverts, minus any RJs
....That i could sock my annoying colleagues everytime they got on my nerves without losing my job
...That i could turn in submissions much before deadlines and yet not die in the process
...That i could be served creamy pasta for lunch everyday topped with a chocolate cake and ice cream dessert without ever putting on weight!
....That i could open my cupboard and find a trunk full of unread archies
....That i could walk into any branded clothes outlet and fit into their smallest size
...That i could travel the world with a whole bunch of friends....so i guess i wish all my friends would get as much leave as me and we'd have pots of money
....That i could have this lovely, caring boyfriend, who's a die hard romantic, makes interesting conversation, is hot hot hot and can disappear when i want to spend time with my friends
....That i could sit by the beach and watch the sunset with someone strumming the guitar in the background

Music

2006-09-03T11:20:00.001+05:30

So how do u start ur day? Bed tea? The newspaper? How many of us wake up and put on some music? Am assuming a lot of us....and it's the type of music we listen to that defines our day!
I don't quite have the luxury to reach out for the CD system and choose my music every morning (either i don't have the luxury or i'm plain lazy ), so i simply start my day by turning on the radio! And i mean the 102.6 types since that's the only one which plays good english music in the morning.....Can't imagine starting my day with kaala chashma!
To me, the perfect start to a day is when i wake up to music i luv so much, that i sing out loud with toothpaste in my mouth, or when I do a little dance while ironing my clothes, or when i sit in my car and don't mind the 1 hour drive to gurgaon, or when i can leave the wheel to air guitar while driving (and most of us who air guitar haven't touched a guitar in our life!)
You know the music is good when you're on your way to work and you're late yet u drive slowly and stay in the slowest moving lane just so that you can finish your favourite song..... or when you've had a horrid day and are dying to get home and sink into bed with the remote, if they decide to play U2, u decide to not turn into your lane and decide to take a round of the colony instead!
Music does so much to u....it takes u back in time when u'd heard the song with someone..or makes u laugh coz u remember someone singing the same song off tune..... or simply tranfers u mentally to the dance floor of some club u'd visited...
And no matter how hammered you get at work, if you've started ur day with music, you know that while ur boss is screaming his head off, u're still silently singing and dancing in your head to "That thing u do"