Fiction*: A New-ish Mother Wonders

This is all so bizarre and all so strange
And so way out of my fancy-free range!
He pines for me when I’m not around
And I cannot bear that heart-wrenching sound
But when I’m around, he doesn’t seem to care
What I’m doing, as long as I am there!
Coochie-cooing leaves him in giggles
He imitates my smallest twitches and wiggles
Even if I look like rag, he sees a halo and wings
And he pouts his way out of unpleasant things
Talks gobbledygook most of the time
Thinks missing meals or sleep is a crime
And all this is bizarre and strange because
The baby’s not mine, it’s Mom-In-Law’s!

*Behold the flying pigs!

Tu Hai Mera Lucky Number, Tera Number Hai 12!

Rediff has given us a sneako peako of Saif Aashiq Aawara Khan ka naya navela tattoo. Ab bhai aapka to pataa nahin, but I think this bhaiyyaji has done kamaal ki future planning...

Let's face it Kareena Aunty ke saath future is shaky. But she wants tattoo, so what to do? Humre bhaiyya bhi ishmart hain! Ek teer se do shikaar! Agli baar toh bahut kam effort lagega! Check out humraa artwork in red...



Kitni soni lagegi jodi! Saif and Kaif!

Pondicherry Ki Sair

So we went to Pondy (first everyone calls it that and then they snigger! People, I tellya!). The first thing that hit us, apart from the highway fog and the uncontrollable urge to pee, was the Pongal preparations everywhere. Where we stopped for breakfast (at the driver Sri Murugan's orders), we saw one of many rangoli color stalls:



And then there are the ropes.... I've come to the conclusion that the smaller the settlement, the more the proportion of shops selling ropes of all kinds....and it can't just be because of all the coir...coz this is definitely for local retail... so is rural life held together by ropes? The sample below is skewed because it seems to have lots of cattle jewellery as well, but you get the picture.



And then there were these mountains whose strange rocky formation seems to have only one explanation: Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Mount DinoPoop:



There was an imposing fort at Gingi, but we sped past, and reached here:



Now Pondy is nice and all, but as the Sistah said, veggie teetotallers are not really the target audience. We got to do some anthropological study, though. Check out out conclusions on beach etiquette: The gora way versus the bhoora way.





And then there was this sadistic take on the thirsty crow's story....notice the hole in the jug:



The French architecture was all very pretty, and very easily copy-able, as many under-construction buildings showed. The Bharat Sarkar office, however was a "site for sore eyes". So here's the French one only( Wee, Vella France :P):



After ogling at the expensive silver jewellery and designer clothes in town, we finally ended up at our home-away-from-home and did some token Pongal shopping!



And of course a visit to Auroville: mostly for the bakery, and also for the hype. Nice place, but this mandir really scares me, especially the desciption of what's inside. Too scifi baba!



And finally, what I've been avoiding all this while: the hotel we stayed at! Please avoid Tata ki hospitality ka azeem-o-shaan namoona: Ginger Pondicherry. Whoever came up the 2 room colours idea totally appropriated the privelege of setting the tone for your holiday: Check it out. Which room you get surely determines how you feel, doesn't it?



Stuck in the blue one, we were also plagued by three men trying to repair our AC at 10pm (we had woken up at 4:30am to beat the traffic) crazy kids banging our door and running at 11, a call from the reception to please return the keys for some random room at 11:30, and a drunken dude knocking and asking me for his keys at mignight. Add to that the cold and exorbitant buffet and the already falling apart room accessories, and you have the Hotel from hell:



Ginger is a crap name for a hotel anyway! So when Sri Murugan decided we must leave before the Rahu Kalam on Monday Morning, we were more than happy to get out. The holiday was good, but it made us love Bangalore more!

Sober version of the tale here.

Signing off with my newly-acquired Tamil Nadu manners: "Vanakkam and Nandri to all and sundry"

Jet Lagged :)

Mumbai is clean, cool, quiet and pretty at four in the morning. And it looks like Taare Zameen Par when you take off at five thirty from the fancy schmancy airport.

Can't they put early morning sometime between 12 and 1 in the day?

Help!

Does anyone know how one can get married in court in Bangalore?

Happy New Ear to You...

...As I not only happily listen to and tap my feet to "X Machi Y Machi" but also realize that Machi is probably dudette here and not fish as I had previously imagined. As one bacterium said to another, how far we have come in one ear.



This is from the same time last year, when we were Honeymooning. On New Year's Eve this time we saw two films, both set on the South Bank! London yaar tu mera peechha chhodta kyun nahin????

The usual resolve to post daily, of course. How cutely we kid ourselves again and again... Anyway 2008 seems to be the year of spooky song coincidences if today is anything to go by. We were generally looking around for houses and the song in the property dealer's car was "And I'm sorry for all the lies" or something like that, and then at the "beauty" parlour as the hapless technician's feeble thread equipment struggled with my steel eyebrows, the radio asked "Naazuk yeh dor hai kyun..."

Ok. That's all. Must leave something for tomorrow na!

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!

बताओ तो!

क्या रोशनी सफ़ेद है और इन्द्रधनुष एक धोका?
या कमज़ोर आंखों ने सब रंगों को घोल दिया है?
किस लोहे से ढला है वो इन्साफ़ वाला तराज़ू
हमने जिसमें अपना सब कुछ तोल दिया है?

'Spooky!

Ok, I'm probably overdoing this now, but this song is giving me serious punarjanam vibes. It's "O re paakhi" from Khoya Khoya Chaand... just the first few words....they evoke a Mohammad Rafi ke gaane ki aatma and I am completely unable to figure out which one...help!

UPDATE: Kya mausam hai! Ae Deewane dil! Chal kahin door, nikal jaayein! From Doosra Aadmi... Imagine stealing from Rajesh Roshan!

cheater cheater!

ok...this is too trivial for a tang-ta-dang comeback post, but if someone out there has the DVDs for Chak De India and Life in a Metro, can you please confirm my suspicion?

In Chak De, go to the scene where Shahrukh is locking his house and leaving. Check out the background music...very haunting sound. Now in Life in a Metro, go to the scene where a defeated Kay Kay comes home and the kid runs up to him saying "daddy!"... same music???? I don't have access to Chak De to Check de! :(

In other news, my husband and I bacame proud parents during the blogging break. It's a boy. No, it's an "Oh Boy!": the 24" iMac, lovingly called Apple Gulati and we're fussing over it like a baby. It does not poo and pee, and is cute and smart. Nazar na lagey!

And I am going bald, but that is another story. I suspect it's the job.

And oh! I finished LOTR! So I almost named the Mac "Precioussssssss"

eSpar ya uSpar!!!!

Am in love with Spar, the new Hypermarket on Bannerghatta Road. It’s a clean, organized, non-claustrophobic place to do your grocery shopping in, even if your grocery needs include flat screen TVs, cameras, clothes and whatnots.

The fresh veggies on the first floor are plentiful and you can pickup your weekly quota in an ergonomically-designed basket and head to the weighing section to have them weighed, packed and barcoded. Each species(?) of vegetable is put in a separate clear bag and weighed, and the bag is then sealed with the barcode sticker, which is read by the machine at the checkout counter. This step filled me with mild horror on my first few visits, since I buy 200 grams or so of many things, and end up with a lot of waste plastic.

Today, however, I was delighted to see they had figured out a way to solve this environmental and logistical problem. My motley 200 gram veggies were all weighed separately, stickers were printed out, and then all the veggies were thrust into one clear bag, and all the stickers were put on it! The checkout dude just beep beep beeped the bag thrice, and that was it!

Ambani uncle became the world’s richest man today, but in my humble opinion, the fact that a megastore figured out a way to cut plastic use is equally important news. Yay Spar (Ok. Yay Ambani uncle also.)

kuchh to hua hai...

It’s official: I cannot stand theatre in Bangalore anymore! If Naseeruddin and Ratna Pathak Shah could not hold my attention for ninety minutes, then either something is terribly wrong with me or I have officially become a West End snoot, addicted to things I cannot afford. Either way, I’m unlikely to be seen at high-falutin theatre places here.
A word about the beautiful sarees the audience members wore to the play: thanks ladies, you made my day!

The boy has bought an iPod Touch and we’re playing with it! Very very nice! Here’s to jobs that fund toys!

Mujhe Nahin Pata!

No matter what anyone says, I LOVE this joke I made up tonight!

ek baar santa singh sadak ke oopar jaa raha tha
ek baar santa singh sadak ke oopar jaa raha tha
ek baar santa singh sadak ke oopar jaa raha tha
saamne se roadroller aaya, peeche se coaltar ke truck ne maara

tab se sadak santa singh ke oopar se jaa rahi hai

Thankyou very much ok bye horn please....

Finally Reading LOTR

...at the repeated insistence of dost and pyaar.

Everyone probably finds a reason to love the book. Here's mine!

Bath Song

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is BeerCoke, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

Lamerick

I wonder if you've heard of the case
Of the girlie who wanted her space
And those who wouldn’t let her be
Were promptly made to reason-see

Some say she used a hammer, some a mace

Hippo Birdie to Bunny...one of my first readers, and a fellow believer in violence.