Life Jing-a-lala

(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

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.......

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!

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

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!
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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!
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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? :)
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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....
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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…
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Cannot believe Deepika Padukone is seeing Yuvraj Singh. He's so ghaati!
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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!
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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!
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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
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The crumb has now rolled down to the V key now....man....this is annoying.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

.......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

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

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

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

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!

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

(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

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