To Whomever It May Concern

Every man’s wildest fantasy has come true for my husband: his wife has a throat infection and has completely lost her voice. But hey, I can crib online, can’t I?

Ok. WHAT will make these Times of India people acknowledge that I do not want to look at matrimony ads….does everyone get ONLY matrimony ads or is it only me????

If you’re near Cunningham Road in Bangalore, check out Reliance Timeout….it’s a beautiful store and in the art supplies section, one of the many people who have fainted with joy and are still lying there is me. Am sure there are more branches out there.

And finally, if you have a leaky nose and a tingly throat, stay away from Gongura pickle, Gajar-Gobhi-Shalgam pickle, cold apple juice, cold dahi, sambhar, rasam, mirchi, and Nandhinis Andhra Style Restaurant!!!!! The pain is driving me mad!

Thaarey-Mhaarey Sabke Zameen Par

Am alive. Just been vacationing in Delhi and being fed and pampered by two sets of parents. Came back and darling Sis had, under emotional blackmail et al, arranged for TZP tickets! As I huffed and puffed up to the theatre this morning, I realized I was ageing much faster than Aamir Khan...I am gonna catch up with him! Anyway, now it no longer matters, me being married and all....

So I alternately gaped and sobbed in the theatre, and now I am alternately gushing and sniffling. Go see Aamir ki fillum. Don't have a pee situation and miss some scenes like I did! Now I have to see it again! Hopefully it'll be tax free and I won't have to pay 250 bucks for a ticket! Atleast nobody stole my wallet this time!

All inspired, I came home itching to draw something and voila! I found a box of crayons in my old office backpack (no, I DO NOT use them at work!!!) So I sketched the first thing that came before me, and this thing person and I are gonna celebrate our first wedding anniversary tomorrow! Unbelievable!



Ok, I forgot to draw the legs of the table, but please note that the Mac has Leopard!!!! And the Bata Chappals are in the authentic colour! and the Earth has a sad face! Bah! Nobody appreciates art anymore!

Khoya Khoya! Chaand Among Other Things...

Your Honour..I insist that I had deduced that Khoya Khoya Chand sucked big time long before the movie ended and four helpful and affectionate ladies relieved me of my heavy wallet on the escalator at Forum this evening. No, believe me you honour!

I went for a free (office gave me PVR “Movie Money” for some assignment I’d been in) movie with the boy today, he having promised to be good and all, and crack only paneer paneer chaand and milaa milaa chaand kind of jokes (yeah! I know!), as I hummed along with the movie's lovely songs…But the movie sucks and I hated the Jodhaa Akbar trailer also.. I don’t think I wanna watch Shiney Ahuja’s face ever again…notice how the rest of him is not out of viewing bounds, and there’s lots of it in the movie…

Since there are no free lunches (or movies) I paid for this one not only by suffering the agony onscreen and the exaggerated snoring and out-of-turn laughing from seat B6, but also ended up paying the 400 bucks the movie would have cost me….three hesitant ladies jumped onto the Forum escalator a millisecond after me, their fourth friend having jumped on right ahead of me….and all of them together gave me the touchy feely treatment that carried me back to Delhi and its Blueline buses… Five minutes later I realized it was my money they loved, not me….we rushed back to the theatre and disturbed all the people watching Jab We Met (much better movie it looked like) in the theatre by flashing torches across the floor in the vain hope of having dropped the wallet there…. That was followed by the furious cancelling of debit (three! Sheesh!) and credit (one) cards. Also lost, perhaps forever, are the driving licence, the PAN card, the LSE alumni card (incidentally, did you know that the terrorist behind Daniel Pearl’s killing is an LSE alumnus?) the frequent flier cards (wotever) and the visiting cards of the sister at the fancy B-school and the husband at the geeky job (his photo too…..was cho chweet )

Have been treated with amazing love and kindness and cool headedness, taken out for dinner and hugged enough to be ok about losing the wallet…but I insist!!!!! Khoya Khoya Chand sucks!!!! Fifteen times we all got up to go as the screen turned black! There was a standing ovation when the credits finally rolled, and then a stampede at the exit gate! Sit and home and hum the songs people!

Tagged!

Today the superenthu Nepali watchman of our building stopped us and asked us if we could get him an ID card to wear around his neck. Never thought of it as a fashion statement! The boy expresses his disdain of the “patta” by carrying the card in his wallet, and I express it by using the red string from his I-card together with the black one given by my office, in an exaggerated “tags are weighing me down” gesture.

But in Bangalore, I think apart from residential building watchmen, everyone is wearing a tag! And the watchmen are not happy about this! The waiters who serve us our morning idli-coffee flaunt their IDs with panache. If the watchman bhaiyya did not freak me out regularly with his interrogation about "mera aadmi" and "humara computer", I’d surely have made him a makeshift badge....

Foolin Around With Da Mac

So we were listening to myujic with visualizations on iTunes Mac and it was making some sakkath sesky patterns (ishtyle: jelly)... so we got some screenshots and I pestered the boy to chipkao them in a fundoo pattern for me in his fotoshop and he kindly consented and then heavily regretted. Here is what I got made!




It's made from four screenshots... Om Shanti Om Baby!

Tulsi Mere Angan Ki

So our balcony parapet is shaped like an oblong flowerpot, and the crater is currently full of Ashoka leaves contributed by the overhead tree, and unevaporated rainwater from the last three months’ supply (no, heath office people, no malaria threat, I’ve been spraying stuff).

The challenge now is to try and plant something there before the next bout of rain, so that I do not have to deal with overflowing leaf soup garnished with squiggly mosquito puppies.

The problem is that I am no gardener, and plants around me die from the radiation I emit or something. Also, we are out for long spells, when we cannot water plants, and then Bangalore can be rainy for days on end, so the plant will suffer alternate shocks of drought and flooding…

What CAN I put there that will thrive and continue to give me joy no matter how badly I treat it? There’s only one thing I know which can do that, and there’s no way my mother is gonna agree to stand still with her feet stuck in soil on my balcony parapet…

If you are green-fingered and can gimme an answer, what are the comments for??? Say something!