September 28, 2006

TeeVee!

Have been lying around every evening watching TV, “connecting with my audience” as part of my after-work training-cum-entertainment programme. Must say the activity is much more fun that I remembered it to be. There is a lot to be said about the molten feeling of peeping through sleepy eyelids at the inane TV programme and then having just that bit of wakingness left in you that is needed to switch off the TV (first, unsuccessfully with the cellphone and then successfully with the remote control) and sink into deep sleep.

P.S. The astonishing number of hair oil and banian ads on TV seems surreal. There’s this whole parallel universe where people keep soiling their banians with the excessive oil dripping from their heads.

Unrelated: Am planning office uniform for myself: Oversized kurta (increasingly difficult to procure), contrast churidar, mismatched dupatta, Bata flat sandals, laptop bag (side/back) cellphone and badge maala, flowers in hair and silver earrings. Not bad, eh?

September 26, 2006

Bangalore 101

1. Idlis have the magical property of disappearing from your tummy an hour after you have eaten them. Two idlis do not a breakfast make. Supplement with something.

2. The speed of walking on the rugged terrain of the main road pavement is considerably enhanced by wearing flat shoes instead of heals, so factor this in if you are planning to avoid being the first one in office (loser!)

3. Apparently, if you want to wear jasmine in your hair in the morning, you need to buy it the night before, when people are actually selling it, and not in the morning, when your best shot is yanking some off the head of a lady running to catch a bus.

4. Paying five extra bucks for breakfast to have it sitting down is not a bad deal, since no enthu kid comes and wipes the drop of sambhar off your table seven nanoseconds after you spill it, making you feel guilty for existing. Also, you catch interesting conversation, and do not look odd as the only woman in a herd of men having stand-up breakfast.

5. All the food is vegetarian and cheap. 25 pence each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Awesome!

6. The autorickshaws are not half as mean as the Delhi ones, and it is quite appropriate to stick your tongue out at Bangaloreans who claim that they have terrible traffic jams each morning. They should try being in a vehicle on the Strand, or on Waterloo Bridge!

September 18, 2006

Not Officially Back To Blogging

That menacing electronic contraption they have for attracting and electrocuting flies? I want one for my thoughts.
Fzzzzzzzzzzzzt: Fear
Prrrrrrt Prrrrrrt: Guilt
Phsssssssssst: Anger

P.S.: If they put me in Eden, I’d sit around all day complaining the apples were out of bounds. Ungrateful wretch!

September 05, 2006

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

On September 21 last year, I was driven around Central London (with all my bags and baggage) in a pink and silver taxi by a very talkative Black youngster, who assured me that I would be happy and comfortable in London and would hate to leave when my year here was through. Tomorrow, I shall spend frenzied hours packing, all the while wondering at the magic of Central London, the simultaneous shortness and long-ness of a year, and the uncanny wisdom of Central London cabbies.

(If there are no updates for some time, it will be because I am coming to terms with the fact that my dates are up.)

London Aayi

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