Was at Forum earlier this week and saw what I have seen so many times before: Aunties (I should stop calling them that now, I have fifty whites in my head) draped ever-so-casually in crumpled but exquisite Kanchi cottons, flowers in their hair, poised at the foot of the escalator with Uncle, afraid to step on to the moving staircase that will do the climbing for them. They smile nervously: “of course I know this is safe and saves me the effort, but what if I miss? What is my foot lands between two steps? What if my sari gets stuck? What if I fall?”…all these questions play across their faces simultaneously.
Meanwhile, as more and more empty steps form and rise, form and rise, the queue of people behind them grows longer. Uncle moves from coaxing to annoyed to exasperated, and a loud scary encouragement or two is uttered. In most cases, it achieves what loud, scary encouragement generally achieves: Aunty backs out. Uncle either stays back, or heads the queue of patience-depleted persons up the escalator. In either case, Aunty smiles, she is embarrassed, but too afraid to trust the machine…
Aunty grinds her own masala, stitches her own blouses, cleans her own house, brings up her own children; how can aunty let the stairs do the climbing for her?
Never mind Aunty, when your Bala or Rajan or Smitha call you to visit them in America, you’ll get enough practice! For now, psst: there are steps in McDonalds for ground to first, in Landmark for first to second.
May 18, 2007
May 08, 2007
May 07, 2007
Because It's My Blog And I Write About Whatever I Please!
On my latest trip to Coorg, I was greeted at the homestay by a bowl of kathal ki sabzi. The husband looked on in wonderment as I shrieked with joy, but pretty soon the Punjab Da Puttar was hooked to the dish, and we fought a polite informal battle over who gets to lick the bowl clean (well... almost).
All around Coorg we saw Jackfruit trees and I was torn between asking for an unripe one to be lopped off for me to take home and cook, and the realization that all I knew about cooking kathal was that is was a nightmare to prepare.
Back in Bangalore, the kathal pangs struck with renewed intensity this weekend, and I marched off to the local sabjiwallah demanding an enormous slice of unripe jackfruit. He said he stocked none, but pointed at a tree across the road where lots of jackfruit was growing in clusters, like batches of bloated porcupines learning tree-climbing. When I petulantly asked for one to be plucked for me, he said he did not have a sharp enough knife! I threatened to come by with mine the next day: now I would either have the jackfruit or this guy’s head!
I was at his shop demanding my pound of jackfruit flesh Sunday morning. Reluctantly, monsieur sabjiwalla brought me the smallest fruit from the tree, and I demanded that he skin it for me. His first attempt can only be called…. depilation. Thankfully, an elderly lady customer was looking on and guided the proceedings in kannada, all the while also advising me on how to cook the veggie. So at this stage I had the complete recipe…in a language that I do not know.
Mom and mom-in-law dispensed advice over the phone, and the sabjiwallah moved to oiling the knife and slicing off the thick rind with greater ease, all the while being guided by the panwallah on the exact angle at which to hold the jackfruit to facilitate ergonomic efficiency. Life went on as usual in the street, with a goat butting its thankfully tiny horns into my legs.
Icky white liquid that reminded me of shoe polish flowed freely out of baby Jackfruit. When my hand brushed against it, the stickiness engulfed me and soon flying bugs were caught in the trap of glue. This was the low point of the exercise! Soon however, the jackfruit was peeled and cut into pieces, the core removed, and it was all set to be cooked. The sabjiwallah refuses to take any money, and mumbled something about regretting the day he was born.
I ran home with the bag and cooked the kathal as best as I could! I boiled it, chopped it up, and then fried it in onions and tomatoes with random spices for hours… I had some sticky utensils, an aching arm, and a whole lot of yummy kathal at the end of the exercise. We hogged on it at lunch, and stashed the rest of it away.
So if you’re looking for a recipe or are planning to make this dish anytime soon, just drop into our house while we’re away and the kathal is in the big round steel box in the middle shelf in the fridge.
All around Coorg we saw Jackfruit trees and I was torn between asking for an unripe one to be lopped off for me to take home and cook, and the realization that all I knew about cooking kathal was that is was a nightmare to prepare.
Back in Bangalore, the kathal pangs struck with renewed intensity this weekend, and I marched off to the local sabjiwallah demanding an enormous slice of unripe jackfruit. He said he stocked none, but pointed at a tree across the road where lots of jackfruit was growing in clusters, like batches of bloated porcupines learning tree-climbing. When I petulantly asked for one to be plucked for me, he said he did not have a sharp enough knife! I threatened to come by with mine the next day: now I would either have the jackfruit or this guy’s head!
I was at his shop demanding my pound of jackfruit flesh Sunday morning. Reluctantly, monsieur sabjiwalla brought me the smallest fruit from the tree, and I demanded that he skin it for me. His first attempt can only be called…. depilation. Thankfully, an elderly lady customer was looking on and guided the proceedings in kannada, all the while also advising me on how to cook the veggie. So at this stage I had the complete recipe…in a language that I do not know.
Mom and mom-in-law dispensed advice over the phone, and the sabjiwallah moved to oiling the knife and slicing off the thick rind with greater ease, all the while being guided by the panwallah on the exact angle at which to hold the jackfruit to facilitate ergonomic efficiency. Life went on as usual in the street, with a goat butting its thankfully tiny horns into my legs.
Icky white liquid that reminded me of shoe polish flowed freely out of baby Jackfruit. When my hand brushed against it, the stickiness engulfed me and soon flying bugs were caught in the trap of glue. This was the low point of the exercise! Soon however, the jackfruit was peeled and cut into pieces, the core removed, and it was all set to be cooked. The sabjiwallah refuses to take any money, and mumbled something about regretting the day he was born.
I ran home with the bag and cooked the kathal as best as I could! I boiled it, chopped it up, and then fried it in onions and tomatoes with random spices for hours… I had some sticky utensils, an aching arm, and a whole lot of yummy kathal at the end of the exercise. We hogged on it at lunch, and stashed the rest of it away.
So if you’re looking for a recipe or are planning to make this dish anytime soon, just drop into our house while we’re away and the kathal is in the big round steel box in the middle shelf in the fridge.
April 30, 2007
The Return To Coorg
In our second Coorg jaunt this month (Hello! It was a different part of Coorg, ok?) we met certain fascinating people, and I’d like to introduce them to everyone around here:
1. Fiona the Labrador, pictured here: There was a time when “Princess Fiona Ugly” was the hottest Google keyword linking to this blog, and I’d deleted the relevant post and vowed never to mention her again, but what do you know? We run into this adorable lady with the histrionic skills that most Bollywood starlets cannot even hope to achieve. Ms Fiona hoodwinked my softie husband into feeding her his share of chikoos and then pretended she had not even tasted any when her owner walked by! He’d told us she’d eaten three already, so she wasn’t supposed to have any more. Also note that Fiona did not take very kindly to my singing to her, but then that is unremarkable because nobody ever does…
2. The priest bug: Ever since we landed in Coorg, we were assailed by something that looked like a cross between a bee and a “bhanwara” and this person muttered mantras under his breath and maniacally circled around me and the husband collectively, uniting us now and forever in the bonds of holy matrimony. For variety, it made “8” shaped loops around us, probably implying that the union had been sealed by it for infinity… In vain did I tell it that a pandit had already performed the rites, and that we had even got our registration form and were filling it for legal purposes in earnest…. We kept getting married for three days non-stop.
3. The punjabi bug: This gentleman was spotted near Irpu falls, which, by the way, is a beautiful place. It was unbelievable that something so tiny could look so flashy and make such a ruckus…you get now why we’ve dubbed it what we’ve dubbed it….We got this chap’s dhinchak audio on our videocam, and boy, it’s bugging!
4. The OINKs: These were the One Income Numerous Kids couples who were giving us company at the homestay. Let’s just say that because of me, none of these little ones got to sit on the swing, and they had to contend themselves with killing each other over a beach bucket and barking at Fiona. I remarked at the peace and quiet of the place: “This is DINK heaven”, to which the wise husband replied “DINKs are in heaven wherever they go!”
1. Fiona the Labrador, pictured here: There was a time when “Princess Fiona Ugly” was the hottest Google keyword linking to this blog, and I’d deleted the relevant post and vowed never to mention her again, but what do you know? We run into this adorable lady with the histrionic skills that most Bollywood starlets cannot even hope to achieve. Ms Fiona hoodwinked my softie husband into feeding her his share of chikoos and then pretended she had not even tasted any when her owner walked by! He’d told us she’d eaten three already, so she wasn’t supposed to have any more. Also note that Fiona did not take very kindly to my singing to her, but then that is unremarkable because nobody ever does…
2. The priest bug: Ever since we landed in Coorg, we were assailed by something that looked like a cross between a bee and a “bhanwara” and this person muttered mantras under his breath and maniacally circled around me and the husband collectively, uniting us now and forever in the bonds of holy matrimony. For variety, it made “8” shaped loops around us, probably implying that the union had been sealed by it for infinity… In vain did I tell it that a pandit had already performed the rites, and that we had even got our registration form and were filling it for legal purposes in earnest…. We kept getting married for three days non-stop.
3. The punjabi bug: This gentleman was spotted near Irpu falls, which, by the way, is a beautiful place. It was unbelievable that something so tiny could look so flashy and make such a ruckus…you get now why we’ve dubbed it what we’ve dubbed it….We got this chap’s dhinchak audio on our videocam, and boy, it’s bugging!
4. The OINKs: These were the One Income Numerous Kids couples who were giving us company at the homestay. Let’s just say that because of me, none of these little ones got to sit on the swing, and they had to contend themselves with killing each other over a beach bucket and barking at Fiona. I remarked at the peace and quiet of the place: “This is DINK heaven”, to which the wise husband replied “DINKs are in heaven wherever they go!”
April 27, 2007
ना हिसाब ना किताब बहिखाता भी खराब ...
I should mention that's pound sterling, as one astute flickr pal notes...
Just found this while browsing through "London Backup" on my laptop, and also found this conversation:
Me: i want chocolate eclair
She: i want unlimited money, brains and greek men
Me: i have those already. once u have those, u need chocolate eclair. skip a stage
She: ????? you never told me
April 14, 2007
A Typical Conversation In The Spill Household
Mr Spill: I am so hungry, I am Ravanous! I could eat with ten heads!
InkSpill: Hehe! Do you think Ravan ate with all ten heads?
Mr Spill: Yeah!
InkSpill: How? He put in food into one at a time? That would be tedious…
Mr Spill: No, he put all the food in a big plate and ran all ten heads across it and lapped up his food. (with actions)
InkSpill: He was rich. He could have had people feeding his heads… Achchha, do you think he ate roti with one and sabji with another? Or everything with each head? Or did his wife only make slop*?
Mr Spill: Can we please talk about something else?
*Slop: Frequent dinner at the Spill household: consists of veggies, daal and rice all cooked together and eaten with dahi, plum chutney, and good humored tolerance…
InkSpill: Hehe! Do you think Ravan ate with all ten heads?
Mr Spill: Yeah!
InkSpill: How? He put in food into one at a time? That would be tedious…
Mr Spill: No, he put all the food in a big plate and ran all ten heads across it and lapped up his food. (with actions)
InkSpill: He was rich. He could have had people feeding his heads… Achchha, do you think he ate roti with one and sabji with another? Or everything with each head? Or did his wife only make slop*?
Mr Spill: Can we please talk about something else?
*Slop: Frequent dinner at the Spill household: consists of veggies, daal and rice all cooked together and eaten with dahi, plum chutney, and good humored tolerance…
April 08, 2007
Closing The Door...
... on a three-day excursion to Coorg, full of long drives and walks, delicious homemade food, naps in the afternoon silence of the hills, and oh, lots of coffee!
Dear Job/Monday/Bangalore Traffic, here I come!
April 04, 2007
Objects Not In The Mirror Are Farther Than They Appear
Dearest Wendigo,
Though we are in two hot cities in two hot third world continents, and real life has dust and pollution and anxious waiting for letters, never forget that my you and your me are perched there on the riverside ledge, dangling feet in coloured socks over the rocky banks of a muddy river…
Though we are in two hot cities in two hot third world continents, and real life has dust and pollution and anxious waiting for letters, never forget that my you and your me are perched there on the riverside ledge, dangling feet in coloured socks over the rocky banks of a muddy river…
March 30, 2007
Cats Killed The Curiosity
This blog’s been dead for a long time, like a lot of other things. So I’m guessing nobody reads it anymore. So now it’s become a pensieve or something. So I’m gonna pour random nonsense into it. Not that I didn’t use to do so earlier.
In class 10 or 11, there was this girl in my class: A.R. She looked like Utpal Dutt minus moustache even at her age of 14-15…I don’t know how she managed but she did. Anyway, one day she stands up in Biology class and asks the teacher: If urine is not at a much higher temperature than the rest of the body, how come it feels so hot when it’s coming out? 59 laughing slaves of the Indian education system shut her up instantly, and the teacher never responded to her question…
A.R, I hope you made it big in life. You deserve to, much more than any of us spineless idiots ever would…
In class 10 or 11, there was this girl in my class: A.R. She looked like Utpal Dutt minus moustache even at her age of 14-15…I don’t know how she managed but she did. Anyway, one day she stands up in Biology class and asks the teacher: If urine is not at a much higher temperature than the rest of the body, how come it feels so hot when it’s coming out? 59 laughing slaves of the Indian education system shut her up instantly, and the teacher never responded to her question…
A.R, I hope you made it big in life. You deserve to, much more than any of us spineless idiots ever would…
March 12, 2007
March 10, 2007
हिंदी को सहारा मिल गया है ज़िन्दगी!
छोटा सा साया था
आंखों में आया था
हमने दो बूंदों से मन भर लिया
हमको किनारा मिल गया है ज़िन्दगी
ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला
हमो किनारा मिल गया है ज़िन्दगी
ए ज़िन्दगी गले लगा ले!
आंखों में आया था
हमने दो बूंदों से मन भर लिया
हमको किनारा मिल गया है ज़िन्दगी
ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला ला
हमो किनारा मिल गया है ज़िन्दगी
ए ज़िन्दगी गले लगा ले!
February 28, 2007
Chalo Chalein Mitwa...
Watched Billy Elliot last night and cried when I saw the National Express bus! And he performed at Theatre Royal, Haymarket! Boo Hoo Hoo and then some!
Dying here. Must. Travel. Someplace. Soon.
Dying here. Must. Travel. Someplace. Soon.
February 27, 2007
Chaand Khaarish Kyun Karta Humaari....
I am unable to get over the fact that someone (Flimfair) chose “Chand Sifarish” as the best written song of 2006. It's not just the fact that they overlooked Omkara (beedi, dude!), but they chose like the yuckiest muckiest song that I bet Prasoon Joshi secretly regrets writing! You could award Rubarooo if you wanted to scratch Joshi’s back, or Crazy Kiya Re if you wanted to scratch Chopra’s back (in his own backyard, which explains Kajol for Fanaa and Hrithik for Dhoom).
But you cannot play with “sifaarish” so lightly, or you end up in knots, which the husband and I untangle through parody quite regularly. Here are some we came up with:
Chaand maalish jo karta tumhari, deta who tumko chamkaa
Chaand parvarish jo karta tumhari, kehte tum usko pitaa
Chaand baarish jo karta tumhari, lete hum raincoat silvaa
Tch Tch Tch
Feel free to add your own.
But you cannot play with “sifaarish” so lightly, or you end up in knots, which the husband and I untangle through parody quite regularly. Here are some we came up with:
Chaand maalish jo karta tumhari, deta who tumko chamkaa
Chaand parvarish jo karta tumhari, kehte tum usko pitaa
Chaand baarish jo karta tumhari, lete hum raincoat silvaa
Tch Tch Tch
Feel free to add your own.
February 22, 2007
Khimchi-Ben
Is the name of this quick and dirty recipe for when a daal-paalak and rice dinner for two needs to turn into a meal for three:
- Heat one and a half teaspoon oil in a kadhai.
- Throw in half a fistful of raw moongphalis.
- Let Fry.
- Add a medium sized chopped onion.
- Let Fry.
- Add a finely chopped quarter of a cabbage and half a capsicum.
- Let Fry.
- Add Salt and Pepper.
- Let Fry till Dry
- Add two slit green chillies somewhere along the way.
- Cook till, well, cooked
- Serve
- And oh, remove slit green chilli from husband’s spoon one millisecond before it makes its way into him…
February 20, 2007
Ballooney
Once upon a time in ancient history I was in kindergarten. Before Sports Day, our teacher told us all to get a balloon each the next day, for the selection race for the grand final balloon race on sports day. So Mamma and Papa Inkspill bought me a balloon and sent me off with a hug and a kiss.
For the uninitiated, a balloon race involves running up to a chair on which a balloon is placed, sitting on the balloon and bursting it, and then running to the Finish line. Mamma and Papa Inkspill were definitely among the uninitiated, because they bought me a huge, industrial strength balloon that Godzilla could have sat on and not busted!
So during the selection race, we all ran to the chairs and tried to squash the balloons. Everyone who had got the holi-water balloon type contraption or the extremely tacky and mostly self-exploding birthday balloon was done in a second and ran to the finish line. I, however, sat and sat and the balloon would not bust. My face progressively became pink, red, purplish red, reddish purple, purple, tear-stained purple, but the balloon refused to bust. The selection race was over but I was still sitting on the balloon. I am sure people must have been laughing at me but I could not see anything. A teacher came and rescued me eventually.
I don’t know why this incident came back to me today. Maybe that was the day I was thrown out of the race (by which is implied the balloon race, the racing sport, the rat race, and, I am afraid, the human race)
For the uninitiated, a balloon race involves running up to a chair on which a balloon is placed, sitting on the balloon and bursting it, and then running to the Finish line. Mamma and Papa Inkspill were definitely among the uninitiated, because they bought me a huge, industrial strength balloon that Godzilla could have sat on and not busted!
So during the selection race, we all ran to the chairs and tried to squash the balloons. Everyone who had got the holi-water balloon type contraption or the extremely tacky and mostly self-exploding birthday balloon was done in a second and ran to the finish line. I, however, sat and sat and the balloon would not bust. My face progressively became pink, red, purplish red, reddish purple, purple, tear-stained purple, but the balloon refused to bust. The selection race was over but I was still sitting on the balloon. I am sure people must have been laughing at me but I could not see anything. A teacher came and rescued me eventually.
I don’t know why this incident came back to me today. Maybe that was the day I was thrown out of the race (by which is implied the balloon race, the racing sport, the rat race, and, I am afraid, the human race)
February 19, 2007
Misc.
As I grow older, the profile of the people who bully me gets more and more pathetic! While it was the big didis on the school bus when I was about two feet tall, when I was in the twelfth standard, I was slapped on the selfsame school bus by a kindergarten student! And now that I am much, much older, I was held hostage yesterday by … a kitten!!!!
Locked out of the house without my key yesterday, I waited for my knight in faded t-shirt to come and rescue me. Near the elevator of my building, a cutesy looking but not cutesy behaving little kitten furiously drew a lakshman rekha around me and my bag of veggies, and with very angry mewing refused to let me get our of it! I tried to reason with it in English, as I (unsuccessfully) do with the rooster (who lives on the top storey of our building and thinks he’s Michael Jackson), but the kitten was clearly in charge of affairs and thoroughly enjoying the angry circling and mewing.
At forty, I’ll probably be knocked to death by a feather at this rate!
In other news, a cool friend sent the boy a digital photo frame as a wedding gift! It looks like a harmless photo frame but when you just connect it to your laptop or put your camera’s card into it, it shows you a slideshow of all your digital images! Best of both worlds I say! Too much excitement in a single gadget for a stepchild of technology like yours truly!
Locked out of the house without my key yesterday, I waited for my knight in faded t-shirt to come and rescue me. Near the elevator of my building, a cutesy looking but not cutesy behaving little kitten furiously drew a lakshman rekha around me and my bag of veggies, and with very angry mewing refused to let me get our of it! I tried to reason with it in English, as I (unsuccessfully) do with the rooster (who lives on the top storey of our building and thinks he’s Michael Jackson), but the kitten was clearly in charge of affairs and thoroughly enjoying the angry circling and mewing.
At forty, I’ll probably be knocked to death by a feather at this rate!
In other news, a cool friend sent the boy a digital photo frame as a wedding gift! It looks like a harmless photo frame but when you just connect it to your laptop or put your camera’s card into it, it shows you a slideshow of all your digital images! Best of both worlds I say! Too much excitement in a single gadget for a stepchild of technology like yours truly!
February 18, 2007
Quote From Mr InkSpill
(On being told that the current design of this blog was the first and only to be made without my interference)
Darling, if something productive ever comes out of a man, it will have to be without your intervention….
February 14, 2007
Skeptically Yours, on Feb 14
What he said:
Rose’s lips are red
And Violet’s eyes are blue
‘Ole Mary’s willin’ to wed
But my heart belongs to you
What he meant:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
And invested in mineral water
They got richer than Warren and Bill
And you’re their only daughter
What she said:
Humpty Dumpty just sits on the wall
For Valentine’s he did nothing at all
All the kings are horses, as are the king’s men
So let’s fly away and never see them again
What she meant:
Twinkle twinkle little star
The scheming golddigger that you are!
Our mineral water springs are dry
And you’ll pay our debts by and by
Rose’s lips are red
And Violet’s eyes are blue
‘Ole Mary’s willin’ to wed
But my heart belongs to you
What he meant:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
And invested in mineral water
They got richer than Warren and Bill
And you’re their only daughter
What she said:
Humpty Dumpty just sits on the wall
For Valentine’s he did nothing at all
All the kings are horses, as are the king’s men
So let’s fly away and never see them again
What she meant:
Twinkle twinkle little star
The scheming golddigger that you are!
Our mineral water springs are dry
And you’ll pay our debts by and by
February 12, 2007
Belawadi Bytes
Found these while browsing through my picture collection yesterday…
I went to the Belawadi Hoysala temple at the peak of the recent language dispute in Karnataka , and look what I found sitting comfortable between the stones of the ancient temple… (Apparently the language dispute was not acute but chronic. Thanks D.)
At Belawadi, you are greeted by an obscure signboard saying that the temple is under the aegis of the ASI and the heritage monument is hajjar old. Workers are nonchalantly ripping up pieces of the temple and repairing other pieces of it, and the sounds are of a road-construction site, not those of an archaeological site by any means.
Surrounding the temple are homes of the villagers, separated from their heritage by a hesitant iron wire fence, which succeeds not because it is strong, but because nobody seems to want to pass through it in any case. We were the only tourists there, and immediately on our landing, we were greeted by faceless cries of “Pen please! Pen please!” As the children appeared, we gladly handed over our stationery, and I got this bright picture in return…
I went to the Belawadi Hoysala temple
At Belawadi, you are greeted by an obscure signboard saying that the temple is under the aegis of the ASI and the heritage monument is hajjar old. Workers are nonchalantly ripping up pieces of the temple and repairing other pieces of it, and the sounds are of a road-construction site, not those of an archaeological site by any means.
Surrounding the temple are homes of the villagers, separated from their heritage by a hesitant iron wire fence, which succeeds not because it is strong, but because nobody seems to want to pass through it in any case. We were the only tourists there, and immediately on our landing, we were greeted by faceless cries of “Pen please! Pen please!” As the children appeared, we gladly handed over our stationery, and I got this bright picture in return…
February 06, 2007
One Flew Over...
I’ve flown often enough inter and intra-nationally in the past two years to have become a privileged member of Jet or Kingfisher (which I didn’t because I always flew their cheapest fare and my boarding pass practically said “Class: None”). However, I still cannot help feeling all important and grown up when I take a flight, especially alone. I know it’s stupid in an age where practically everyone’s resorting to air travel, but I’m just a child of the age when flying was a huge deal!
So yesterday I flu (which means flew with a bad cold) from Bengaluru to Dilli, seated between two (other) executives from the telecom industry (coincidence?) who were not just acting cool like me, but were actually pretty cool about flying. The uncle promptly fell asleep and the girlie replied to an inbox full of mails on her laptop all the way. I just blew my nose and sneezed, and did not even get a chance to look important and grown up, but across the aisle was a girlie who was affected with the same syndrome as me, to an even greater degree.
When the air hostess offered her buttermilk/orange juice, she asked for the choices to be repeated maha-eagerly and then chose buttermilk with such enthusiasm that I felt like bopping her on her head! Idiot! Even I’m cooler than you…don’t you know it’s always buttermilk on Indian and Tomato Juice on international flights? (I think that’s only my rule, but what the hell?)
When my cold-infested ears popped painfully while landing, and my nosy-tissue and eye-tissue and cough tissue all became pulp by the end of my flight, I sighed at the lost opportunity to be cool, decided to fly more, and to think less highly about it from now on. I’ll become the laptop-murdering girlie on the right, or the sleeping uncle on the left, or the female version of the husband, who flies so much that I’ve had to cut slits into his vests where he’s sprouting evolutionary little wings, and who treats flights like auto-rickshaw rides.
So yesterday I flu (which means flew with a bad cold) from Bengaluru to Dilli, seated between two (other) executives from the telecom industry (coincidence?) who were not just acting cool like me, but were actually pretty cool about flying. The uncle promptly fell asleep and the girlie replied to an inbox full of mails on her laptop all the way. I just blew my nose and sneezed, and did not even get a chance to look important and grown up, but across the aisle was a girlie who was affected with the same syndrome as me, to an even greater degree.
When the air hostess offered her buttermilk/orange juice, she asked for the choices to be repeated maha-eagerly and then chose buttermilk with such enthusiasm that I felt like bopping her on her head! Idiot! Even I’m cooler than you…don’t you know it’s always buttermilk on Indian and Tomato Juice on international flights? (I think that’s only my rule, but what the hell?)
When my cold-infested ears popped painfully while landing, and my nosy-tissue and eye-tissue and cough tissue all became pulp by the end of my flight, I sighed at the lost opportunity to be cool, decided to fly more, and to think less highly about it from now on. I’ll become the laptop-murdering girlie on the right, or the sleeping uncle on the left, or the female version of the husband, who flies so much that I’ve had to cut slits into his vests where he’s sprouting evolutionary little wings, and who treats flights like auto-rickshaw rides.
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