Confession

I’m on medication to recover from the trauma of having to watch “Mangle Pandey” and the drugs are making me speak unspeakable truths. Therefore, I am avoiding human company and most forms of communication, but the pressure that is building up inside is going to blow out my brains, so I have to say this:

I LOVE the song “Kajrare Kajrare” from Bunty Aur Babli.

I went through an I-love-“Patli-Kamar-Chikna-Badan”-from-Jungle-Am-I-Homosexual phase a couple of years ago, but this one is slightly less disturbing. Ash’s blatant skin show and the Bachchan duo’s pelvic thrusts cannot cheapen or taint the beauty of Gulzar’s lyrics:

“Surme se likhe tere vaade/ Aankhon ki zubaani aate hain/ Mere roomalon pe lab tere/Baandh ke nishaani jaate hain…”

The song is playing all over and is being written about in every publication (Dear TOI, it is “kajrare”, not “kajra re”.) Normally the stuff belted out by the paanwalah’s radio is the Gadar-Dhadkan-Raja Hindustani variety, which makes one’s soul cringe and fold into a Japanese fan. But this time, they’ve managed to make an anthem out of a song I’m not ashamed to hum. Finally, street music meets poetry.

“Aankhen bhi kamala karti hain/Personal se sawaal karti hain” is Gulzar having so much fun and being so cool! “Teri baaton mein kimaam ki khushboo hai” applies to Gulzar himself!

All the civilized people who probably look down upon the song are welcome to laugh at me/break up with me/throw stuff at me.

I love “Kajrare”.

P.S. Anyone who liked Mangle Pandey need not visit this blog ever again. That applies to you too, Aamir.

Mangal Pandey: Review

Never before was a movie so aptly titled. The Rising. Halfway through the movie, I Rose. And left.

Thanks!

A big thanks to all bloggers who wished me luck!
Thanks Joker, Colours, Aditi, JW, Pleo, Patrix, Kahini, Patrix, First Rain, Kaju Katli, Halequin, Shoe Fiend, HoH, Ash, Rash, Parna, CoolCat, KK, Ostrich, Jasmine for leaving wishes.
Thanks Godpapa, Deepak and Chugs for the mails.
Thanks Heretic for the call.

:)
I'm going senile, so if I missed someone out, it's not intentional.

26

It’s been the most eventful year of my reasonably long life, and a great many wonderful things have happened to me since my last birthday. Here are twenty-five things I learned about myself and the world in my twenty-fifth year.

1. It’s not worth being in a miserable job in a miserable organization. They’ll scare the living daylights out of you if you try to quit, but you need to stick to your guns. Don’t work for people you don’t respect.
2. Setting up your own house with your family’s help is setting up a satellite house for the family. They’ll live their fantasies through you, and if they can all live their fantasies in one house, why can’t you, as a family, do it in your own home? It’s most amusing.
3. Having lunch alone at work saves you a lot of time for surfing the net and playing word games online.
4. When you live alone, you become heavily dependent on friends. And this can be good, or very bad. However, hour-long telephone calls to compare architecture and poetry at 12 in the night are possible only when you live alone.
5. When you sign a cheque to pay the rent for your flat, it is the wonderful feeling of being a self-sufficient unit that gives you a major kick!
6. I need 24-hour water supply to retain my sanity. Don’t ask me why. I’m still trying to figure out this one. Maybe it’s because of the hot baths I need many times a day.
7. You can’t fall in love by wanting to. And when you do, you know why.
8. It is important and impossible to hold your own against oversmart Bong ladies who live next door.
9. Being a pillion rider on a motorcycle at five in the morning on the superhighway is my closest brush with adventure, and a wonderful one that I will remember for the rest of my life.
10. Music is important.
11. I cannot listen to music and work seriously at the same time.
12. Work is also important.
13. Fortunately, I can strike a balance.
14. Working for a boss who knows your strengths and uses them can be a most rewarding experience. Fancy offices and fun colleagues do not make a wonderful work environment. The stuff in your MS Word window does.
15. Labels matter. People look up to you immediately if you can drop names. That’s life.
16. Poets and writers are self-obsessed specimens who are too much in love with themselves and their opinions.
17. I am a self-obsessed specimen who is too much in love with herself and her opinions.
18. Five days after knowing me, people find out I am a clown. And almost everyone considers it their fundamental right to pull my cheeks. It is not funny.
19. Hurting someone you care for hurts more than hurting yourself. Doing something just to avoid hurting people is also wrong. Dunno what is right.
20. I can rtoe without lookinf art the keoboard. No. I tale that baxck.
21. I cry too much at the movies. Way too much.
22. I get hassled by paperwork and I need a level-headed person to guide me through it. Sis is a good resource and I should keep in her good books.
23. I have double standards. One for me, one for Sis.
24. I am many different people, and I don’t like many of them.
25. I can make long lists if I want to.

Am expecting life-altering adventures this year. Wish me luck!

NO KIDDING!

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I was station-surfing on my cellphone radio. At 1:48am, the chap hosting "The Wicked Hour" on 102.6 FM was heard saying:
"...he was the artist who caprured the various phases of his intreresting life in a series of self-portraits. Yes, I am talking about REMEMEBRANT. And now let's listen to a song by him..."

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA"

At this point I switched off the radio, covered my head with my sheet, trembled in fear, and hoped that it was his mom,not mine, who was mixing narcotics in her child's food.

One Year On

Just browsed through some entries from my old blog. This time last year, I was suicidal. This year, I'm murderous. I've come a long way.
:)

Wrist-Watch

Something is wrong with my right wrist. Nobody knows exactly what, but it hurts when I move it. The physiotherapist says it is not a bone injury (and I asked her twice; she says its not CTS). She prescribed a wax bath yesterday, which consists of molten wax being poured on one’s hand till one gets a fully customized hot white glove that one can crack into a million pieces as soon as nobody’s watching. Today, she prescribed an ultrasonic session which consists of having gooey gel rubbed into one’s wrist with an electrode by a person who stares at you for no earthly reason, till you have to check whether you are wearing your clothes upside down or inside out.
And when you get home, you are supposed to tie up the wrist in a crepe bandage (those clips that come with the crepe bandage are not anger/frustration-proof.) And if it’s still hurting the next day, they make you tie a flat object into the bandage as a splint. Yours truly has been roaming around town today waving a bandaged hand with a comb peeping out of the bandage all day!
It is a revelation when one tiny part of your body decides to act up. Small tasks become impossible. And dad bragging about breaking his right arm twice and doing just fine for two months without his right hand means nothing! He does not have to pull certain stunts that women have to as a matter of routine!
Ok. That’s about as much as I can manage with just one finger of my right hand.

Jaane Ke Ishaare Mil Gaye

Biggest Achievement Of My Life: Successfully completing paperwork for a visa.

PJ Rani

The following gibberish is the product of a rapidly deteriorating mind, which inhabits the top floor of Inky Tower.

Q. What was the world's first advertisement?
A. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Issued in public interest by Seyton tailors and drapers"

Q. Who is the patron saint of software professionals?
A. Version Mary.

Ok. Kill me.

Mauled!

Went to the Gurgaon malls after ages today. One would expect that with malls opening in every locality these days, the craze for the twin monsters at Gurgaon would have abated, but that is certainly not the case.
There are certain inexplicable phenomena that are peculiar to Punju-Land:
1. Aunties in synthetic salwaar kameezes with painted faces and dyed hair (and gold edged purses and sunglasses) exploring malls with mega-bags: The only time one can wear synthetic clothing in this city is December-January, and then it needs to be covered with five layers of woolens. Believe me these are not superwomen who don’t sweat. They just ensure that perfume alleys in malls make you dizzy when you pass through.
2. New brides with fifty kilos of painted plastic around their wrists (the ghastly “chooda” that helps satellites locate where newly married Punjabi women are) sifting through clothes. Now, if I remember all the Punjabi brides have encountered in the last ten years, the only reason they got married in the first place was the shopping for clothes/make-up/more clothes/shoes/bags/did I mention clothes a wedding gives them an opportunity to shop for. Then why are they raiding the shelves again before their mehndi is gone completely? Is there scope to start a deaddiction programme for these hapless specimens? I’m going into business! Would like to partner with a divorce lawyer, because those soon-to-be-out-of-love husbands look like they could do with some help too!
3. Smaaart women with newborns, husbands, and ayahs in tow. Husband carrying baby. Ayah carrying shopping. Woman carrying truckloads of attitude and diamond-studded cellphone. Way to go baby! Enjoy your new light-weight chooda-less arms, before you slip them into synthetic suits!

Stand Up And Be Counted!

Say NO to paperwork.

Query

Is the idea of studying "Masculinity" as an academic subject completely preposterous to you?

Vacation Diary

Sniffing raindrops
and musty books
An afternoon with Gringoire

BRB

Idle thought: We tag each other and make them write about books and music and likes and dislikes. Why don’t we tag people and make them go for vacations? That way, the fun never stops!

I’m going to start a vacation meme when I’m back!

Ups and Downs

was too busy looking down all this while and never realized that there is an up and when I finally did look up there WAS an up and now I am caught between the joy of knowing that the up is looking down at me with kindness and the shock of knowing that I am not as high up as I thought I was

Killarification

I am not doing an MBA at Harvard.

I am not marrying an Uzbek or an Indian or anyone.

Colours gets an award for the coolest comment ever!

Gibberish

Today I went to a VIP bags showroom, and looked for travel bags. Two bags that can carry 25 kilograms each. They looked so big on the outside. And had so little space on the inside. In two months, I am expected to pack my world into two (heavy) bags and leave for a land far far away to do something I’m no longer used to. Something that will cost me more than I will be able to repay in many years to come. I’ve been trying to come to terms with this fact with varying degrees of success for many months now, but the bags really scared me today.

I wish I had not promised someone that I would not worry about this.

Am talking to my DMAIC friend as I type this. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control: the five step approach to improving the efficiency of processes (Six Sigma gyan). But with her, it refers to Don’t Marry An Indian Chap, a mistake she has made and is determined to stop me from making. Apparently Indian Chaps are all chauvinistic pigs, and will squash my individuality. They will expect me to be the perfect homemaker and the perfect professional at the same time. And their parents will suck my blood.

So I will pack my two VIP bags and go far far away and marry an illegal Uzbek immigrant and set up a dhaba in Notting Hill. Anyone who reads this blog gets a 10 percent discount.

PDA

This is a rant against PDA: not the handheld kind, but the hand-holding kind. Sis, who belongs to the next generation, tells me that PDA stands for Public Display of Affection.
I’ve seen countless arguments in favor of PDA, which convince me that it is perfectly okay for people to cozy up (note the archaic use of language) in front of all and sundry. I’m not supposed to object in my silent and invisible way to the sight of love-lorn (“love” being highly doubtful in some cases) couples lolling on sofas in a coffee parlour or suchlike in the middle of the day.
However. I object. Very muchly. When I “don’t” go to Lodhi Garden except for an occasional morning walk, I am respecting the privacy of people who cannot find a place to be alone together in this city. But when I am walking into a coffee shop at four in the evening with someone who is strictly a friend, I do not want to see people making out. And don’t ask me to ignore them because I cannot. And don’t ask me not to notice their uncouth behaviour towards the rest of the world.
Hypocritically enough, this does not bother me in a non-Indian context. But in a country where the girl’s neighbor’s sister-in-law is sure to see this scene, and the girl and the boy are sure to break up after they have realized that their families will never accept them, and the girl’s prospective groom’s uncle will make enquiries about the girls “crackter” in the neighborhood, PDA seems like carelessly imported goods.
On the other hand, maybe I should scout for an old age home for myself.
If anyone who reads this disagrees with me, just leave a smiley. Indulge a lunatic. If, by any chance, you agree, do leave a comment and surprise me.
Joker Anna: You can leave hugs. That kind of PDA is totally acceptable!

Raindrops

It has rained a little and the clothesline is a necklace strung with shimmeing droplets. I am smiling because I know that when I step out and flick my forefinger against the clothesline, the droplets will all fall to the ground at the same time, and will create - for a moment - a curtain of diamonds.

And who knows, tomorrow it might just rain again!

Made Up

I must have brushed past a woman who was wearing many different kinds of make-up. Suddenly, I was led by my nose back into my schooldays, to the highlight of every year in terms of the number of free periods it generated: the Annual Day.

The school believed in mass participation, and so even if you had no special talent, you were thrust on stage as part of a group of 200 hoarse voices welcoming “our parents dear” in ridiculous color-coordinated frocks. And lots of make-up.

Annual Day was the only time I smelled make-up. Tonnes of compact, lipstick, rouge and what-have-you. Generously applied by teachers over the faces of girls whose mothers had paid for the three-inch thick layer of goo on their darlings’ faces.

I don’t know if it is my imagination, or make-up really does smell stronger after it’s been on for a while. Prize distribution used to be last event of the programme, often a good three hours after the welcome song. The “parents dear” would be dozing off in the chairs in the auditorium, while the poor “prize winners” would be pushed into an empty classroom and made to sit quietly for the entire duration of the programme.

As luck would have it (yes, luck alone), I was always there in that room. All prize winners were supposed to wear the school uniform and the school blazer. I did not own a blazer for many years, and so I borrowed it from my best friend, who was taller, and the blazer sat awkwardly on my shoulders (as did the prize in my hand, in hindsight).

Despite our everyday clothes, we were all three inches deep in make-up. By the time we were herded to the backstage door and made to queue up in the open air on the chilly December night, the smell of make-up had overpowered my being. I was in a most unpleasant haze that made me forget everything. We had been made to practice bowing once facing the chief guest and once facing the audience, and then making a dignified dash for the wings. I don’t think I ever got it right. All because of the make-up smell.

And then I was there next year, winning a prize for Moral Science if nothing else. (Digression: I can totally picture a news item dated 2050: Ino Awl, the genius who proved Einstein’s theory of relativity wrong, discovered the cure for AIDS and prevented World War 3, was found hanging from the fan in his lab yesterday. A suicide note said that he killed himself when he realized that no cure would ever be found for those who had won too many prizes for Moral Science.)

The smell of make-up carries too much baggage for me. I detest it.