Just so that October does not pass silently

1. The blog has become kind of redundant because I can let off steam on Facebook and Twitter.
   
2. There is no Farmville on my blog.
   
3. I'm too busy with Farmville and life to even think of things to say.
   
4. The anonymity thing is kind of pointless since most readers know who I am, including the parents, in-laws, and work people. Fat chance of noting down what I REALLY think, under the circumstances, wouldn't you say?
   
5. This month the blog turned 5 or something. No longer a baby. Do you know any good schools?
   
6. Did I mention Farmville? Am so addicted to it that it's a wonder I manage to do anything else.
   
7. So many people have so much to say. And some of it is even worth reading. Might as well just read that.
   
8. Damn, has something switched off inside of me?
   

Horror In Real Life

My hands were icky from the auto ride when I reached The Forum to catch up with friends this evening. I went into the ground floor ladies' room of the mall, and it being just shy of 7pm on a weekday, the mall was not crowded, and the ladies room was empty except for a determined cleaning lady who was mopping.

I pushed the soap dispenser's button to get some soap, but no luck. I tried all the other basins, but the soap seemed to have run out. I asked the cleaning lady: "Soap illa?"

I should have known that a paragraph of Kannada would be unleashed upon me. Shame-facedly mumbling "Sorry gotilla", I wondered how much my hands had become ickier because of all the dispensers!

Suddenly the lady said: "She has the soap."

I looked at her, and then looked at who she was looking at. She was staring at the place right next to the first basin, where NOBODY was standing.

"Who?"

"She has it" the lady said again, half-irritated.

There was nobody in the whole area except for us. The only reason I did not crap my pants was because I KNEW there was no soap to clean up with later.

I prepared to leave, and true to the horror tradition, the lady came after me……

….and jabbed the first basin's soap dispenser button hard about a dozen times. Till a few drops of soap began to trickle out.

So ladies, gentlemen and babies, remember that in Bangalore, all accessories in a Ladies' loo are feminine. I wiped my hand on Mademoiselle Paper Tissue delivered into my hands by her mommy Madame Kimberly Clark, and fled.

Idling

Five mornings of sleeping in till one of four parents loses patience and calls

Two of catching crimson sunrises through eyes crimson with a cold

Seventeen afternoons of making mental grocery lists while looking busy at work

And three of obscenely long siestas after overeating one's own cooking

Fourteen evenings spent reading in coffee shops

Waiting for friends, calls, and that darned cappuccino I ordered 15 minutes ago

Umpteen nights of racing cars and growing tomatoes on the computer

While the washing machine spins and spins and spins

And each day a pointless pin driven into the velvet pincushion of eternity

Overheard

In a restaurant called The Tibetan Kitchen, Leh. Guy with 5 girls at a table

Guy: Can we have some fresh apple juice

Waiter: No sir, only bottled juice

Guy (suddenly getting firang accent): Is it Snapple?

Waiter: What?

Guy (maintaining accent): Snapple. The juice you're going to give us. Is the brand Snapple?

Waiter: No sir. Gulbadan.

 

At the Big B-School of B'lore, Staff Canteen, where Sis (Thinky) took me for coffee

Professor: Hey Thinky, what does the number on your T-Shirt signify?

Thinky: Oh that's my birthdate!

Professor: A guy once told me a joke. Give me any number and I'll represent it as "A to the power B plus B to the power A"

<some gibberish exchange later>

Professor: Like 24 is 23 to the power 1 plus 1 to the power 23

Professor, Thinky and I: Hahahahahahahaha

Later, I: Puke Puke Puke

 

In office today:

Dude: There is no comedy in my life!

 

Leh Gayi Leh Gayi

Despite the fervent wishes of many ex-readers, I am still hale and hearty (neither of the two words mean anything, I suspect) and the blog has been neglected because I've been busy travelling to Ladakh for about 9 days, and then I've been fishing out Ravalgaon candy wrappers from 9 days' worth of laundry all of last week. Ah, the sweet and sour joys of altitude and motion sickness (on our return, they've reverted to being attitude and notion sickness).

I could ooh and aah about the Ladakh scenery - the gigantic bare mountains with little veins of snow and ice on their wrinkled foreheads, the blue blue sky with little puffs of clouds, the riot of flowers where vegetation gets a fighting chance – but I'll leave that for the husband and his fotus. Instead, let's talk about the tons and tons of exquisite turquoise, coral and lapis jewellery in Leh bazaar? Or Jasmine tea and veg momos? Ok. I'm packing up and going back there right now!

Time for some evidence:

From the hotel, which I heartily recommend to anyone planning a trip.

Nine nights of waking up gasping for breath, bleeding noses and a hopeless inability to climb more than two flights of steps… matlab Lung Se Jung!

"Yak"een nahin hota that such beautiful places exist on Earth!

The breathtaking Pangong lake. I believe the film 3 Idiots was shot here recently…

We did manage to catch the shooting of the Ladakhi version!

...and this is one of the 274 reasons, my camera tells me, that I will go back!

30 Plus

This morning I woke up and realized that it's true. You really change in your thirties. My hair was weird, my face had wrinkles and lines I had never noticed before, my walk was slower, my back was stiffer, and every task took more time to accomplish. Then I had some tea and time magically turned around and I was back to my twenties! Bah! Kaiko itna hype I dunno!

 

Must Do Things Before I Turn 30

1. Hang the laundry out to dry
   
2. Fold yesterday's laundry
   
3. Brush my teeth
   
4. Heat water in anticipation of tomorrow's powercut
   
5. Comb what's left of my hair
   
6. You get the point
   

It's the big one, and I'm NOT going to mope (or mop) tomorrow. That's all I can promise.

Superpowerty

From the New York Times. Oh to be needy in the First World!

O Mere Maajhi Abki Baar Le Chal Paar

There comes that point in life where the whole world seems to be against you, their demands are unjustified, and you're too weak to fight them alone. You pin all your hopes on that one guy who has promised to stand by you no matter what, and asks for practically nothing in return for helping you through troubled times. I am talking, of course, about my chartered accountant, who might or might not get me my IT receipt this week. Sigh.

Leaving this stuff to parents/the husband seems the lazy way out, so I'll bumble along and learn a few things on the way. I think of it as the downside of being able to do what I want with my earnings. Like donate them all to the government, if some people are to be believed. The thought of doing this thrice a year is scaryyyy. Long live jobs! All hail Form 16!

Taxing Times

It's the week of filing tax returns, and the week when I always remember my first brush with Income Tax.

There was this precocious little girl who came to live in our colony (Punjabi: cloney) when I was about 8. She was a brat of the first order, and her major claim to fame was her ability to turn her eyelids inside out. It was one of the most horrendous things I had ever seen, and my eyes used to water and clamp shut at the sight. All of us used to beg her to not do it, but she threatened to reverse the natural ocular order at the slightest provocation. If opposed persistently, she would unleash her standard dialogue: "Mere Papa Income Tax Officer hain! Tere ghar pe chhapa padwa doongi."

That used to be the line that shut me up promptly. I knew that there was no way my parents would appreciate an income tax chhapa on our house just because I could not stand inside-out eyelids. I never even told my parents about the income tax chhapa possibilities. Not because I come from a family of underworld dons, but because income tax was not even a fuzzy concept in my brain. "Chhapa" on the other hand, was a very vivid word, a kind of bold splashy print. And my parents had just gotten the whole house whitewashed….

Learning, Unlearning

Age 5: After a blood test, you get lots of chocolates.

Age 29: After lots of chocolates, you get a blood test.

 

Age 19: Attendance does not matter. Knowledge is all.

Age 28: Knowledge does not matter. Attendance is all.

 

Ages 5, 10, 15, 20, 25: Mummy knows everything.

Ages 7.5, 12.5, 17.5, 22.5, 27.5: Mummy knows nothing.

 

Age 6: Boys are evil

Age 25: Evil boys are the only company worth keeping

 

Age 12: The human body converts carbohydrates into energy

Age 18: Some human bodies convert oxygen into fat

 

30 days to go before the big three oh! Expect pithy wisdom all month!

Free-conomics*

*This lesson comes to you free of charge.

Spar, the "hypermarket" on Bannerghatta Road, just redid their entire store layout. The claim to have created "Worlds" in the store: one for home, one for groceries and whatnot. They've mainly shooed out all the underperforming brand stores from their premises, and spread out their wares so that there is no 3-hour trolley traffic jam in the aisles. For which I am very grateful, especially since I was always an innocent victim of the trolley jam.

The supermarket trolley is the most devious marketing ploy ever dreamt up by retailers. It's chugging along on wheels with minimal effort from your side, if you have an infant you can plonk the bugger little darling into the baby holder and let it rip colourful packets off the shelves or dupattas off the shoppers as it passes them by, and if you like those breadcrumbs that might be useful for making those cutlets that you haven't made in four and a half years, you can just throw the packet into the trolley and carry on. You could end up collecting raw materials (incomplete, of course) for half a dozen cookery and hobby projects to counter your premature midlife crisis, all in one hour's shopping, and never realize it, because the trolley is doing the damned lifting! The trolleys will make sure you use EVERY ONE OF THOSE SODEXO COUPONS in your booklet, even the 50 paisa ones that you count fifteen times when you're ahead of me in the queue (may your cutlets fall to pieces in the kadhai). Between the trolley and the Sodexo, you can be sure that Spar is going to expand into the apartment complex next to it before the year is out!

The husband has devised a wonderful strategy to beat the retailers at their own game. We always pick up a basket. When the basket becomes too heavy, it means it is time to stop shopping. If it becomes too heavy before you've picked up the essential stuff you came to buy, well, you just put those 2 litre bottles of mild detergent back into the shelves! If that doesn't work, you just hand the damned basket to the husband and get another one (basket, not husband).

Today I saw how Spar has deviously shifted the billing counter to the ground floor, and lined the space where the queues form on weekends with chocolate, chips and other junk food that we all eat but scold kids for demanding. Mummies will not even be able to see what junior is adding to the pile on the trolley because she's busy playing "The Price Is Right" in her head and counting off Sodexo coupons. Devious, devious store. To take revenge, I did not even pick up a basket today. I must have looked like a crazy fat woman with flying hair clutching groceries in my arms, but that's how I walked to the billing counter. Bwahahahaha! You cannot make me buy more than I need!

And yes, I DID need that mango, ok???

In other news, The Times Of India has made an amazing breakthrough in the study of the human body.

"Low birth weight due to toxic chemical in toys"

Apparently, the 100% conscience free retail chains are now targetting gullible foetuses. Expecting Ladies who just saw an ultrasound that nearly killed them: It's not a three headed baby! The kid has a playpen in there!

Blendin’

Remember the scene from The Father Of The Bride where the girlie comes home in tears and threatens to call off the wedding when the guy gets her a blender as a gift, because he thought someday she might want to blend something? Well, I came quite close to threatening to call off my already-happened wedding when the guy just refused to get me a blender, even though I so clearly needed to blend something every now and then! But he's a darling cutie pie and I have been working damned hard in my can't-put-on-the-resume animal husbandry role, and we're now the proud owners of a mixer-grinder.

Of course I have gone bonkers with the new gadget, and given the husband's inexplicable need to watch every single T-20 World Cup match down to its end despite not having a TV, we're having two dinners daily. One at about 9 and another at 11:30. (Mothers, please turn your attention to your other kids at this time. Thanks for having those cute little girlies.)

Here's what we've managed to make so far:

Pesarattu: For the first time in my life I measured the ingredients. It's not my style.

Mango Milkshake: Sad that the mangoes are all but gone from 'looru

Aamras: See above

Mattar Paneer with actual gravy instead of floating onion cubes and tomato skins

So just writing in to say hooray, and if you're looking at buying a mixie in the near future: Jo biwi se karey pyaar, woh Mophy Richards Icon DLX se kaise karey inkaar??

Singing off with a lovely ad I found online. Can't be abusive on a "family" blog (Hi Papa!) so I'll just say the guy is wearing the last set of clothes that the mixie hasn't washed for him….

Yellow Dal

At the supermarket yesterday, a newly married chooda-dhaari girlie and her friend were trying to buy dal for what was clearly the first time in their lives. "This one? This is the yellow dal? The one for sambhar? The one for dal chawal? Are they the same?" Since they were standing facing the right one, I did not offer to help, and just walked past with a smile. They were speaking in Hindi, and if their accent had been dyed Punjabi, I'd have had to push them a fair bit to the left.

Yellow Dal. That mysterious, all-encompassing name of the food of those who do not enter the kitchen! My favorite question, and one which I regularly ask random people is: "How man kinds of yellow dal are there and what are their names?" Most people stop at two, which are the two their Mummy makes. Anyone who goes beyond three is generally a cook (for better or worse). 

Now you're surely thinking how many kinds there are. My answer is five. Maybe there's one or two I missed. Mind you: not all of these look yellow in the shop! Give them 10 minutes of introspection in  a pressure cooker and they'll rang themselves basanti for sure!

Aside: The Husband has left a strange song playing on the comp: "hey hey hey lady! don't treat me like a baby! hey hey hey mister, don't treat me like a sister..." iTunes tells me it's from Ussele Ussele...Abey kiss-se kya lena hai? 

Grandpa's Century!

That's me cutting my first birthday cake in Daddy's lap. Today is his hundredth birthday, so it's only fitting that we cut a cake together again. Happy Birthday Daddy!

"Ek dafaa..." is how all his stories used to begin, and I still remember many of them.

My favorite is a drama in real life from his own childhood:

When Daddy was a little boy, he once got into a fight with a classmate, who, incidentally, had a dislocated elbow tied up in a plaster. When they came to blows, Daddy hit the boy's broken arm rather forcefully with his slate. The boy cried all the way home. Soon enough, he arrived back in school with his father. Daddy knew he was in big trouble and hid immediately. "Kahan hai (daddy's name)?" the father yelled. Eventually, Daddy had to emerge and face the fire. But hey! the father had brought along a box of sweets for the naughty kid who had hit his son!!!

Turns out that the doslocated arm, which the doctor had been trying for many days to slip back into place, got perfectly aligned with one master stroke of Daddy's slate. With 7 doctors in his extended family, it would be tempting to say that his kids inherited his gift for healing.... but no..... nobody else practises his unique hit-and-trial style!

A dedication from my younger sister, his youngest grandchild and, according to him, a reincarnation of his mother (she bossed him around like that for sure):

My memories of my relationship with Daddy are in part those which I remember from my childhood and those that have been told and retold by my family. His room was a territory it seems I had free access to and many of the elders feared to tread in (specially when he was sleeping). The office, the black ledgers, the book in urdu with the stamps, the glue, the letterheads, the walking stick, his white hair: they all fascinated me and I can still see them when I shut my eyes. Posting letters in the red letterbox with him. The fights to make sure he didn't get more kharbuja than I did. Stories of how I was completely indulged by him, how rules were changed for me, and how I let out secrets I was told to keep by my parents. He was my grandmother and my grandfather. I called him "angootha-chaap" because he couldn't write his name in hindi! But being the youngest, you get away with a lot. Daddy, this comes in late but Happy Birthday and thank you for all your love.

And now for a guest post from my father. "Ek dafaa...

a boy was born in an agricultural family on the 1st of June 1909 in a small village in Laiyah (now in Pakistan)… he lost his mother at a very young age… worked in farms for a few turnips for lunch and his school expense. He was the first in the family to try his hand at education. Through his inclination, dedication and above all the blessings of his teachers, he passed matric and went to Lahore for his graduation. He got married and had a loving wife and five daughters He worked very hard to make ends meet .When the youngest daughter was 13 days old India got independence and the Partition happened. He went deep into Pakistan and after few months came to India with the help of his Muslim friends in Pakistan. By the grace of God he, his wife and five daughters, their sewing machine and a few valuable reached India safely. The Partition had the sorrows for him too: he lost his sister and her husband.

His office re-established in Delhi and he was instrumental in getting it reorganized. He lived in a shared accommodation in Mehrauli above the Arya Samaj Mandir, and used to commute by buses everyday all the way to Delhi University North Campus. In 1951, when he was 42, he had a son. This is where I come into the picture. I am the son and the person I am talking about is my father, who would have completed his century on 1st Jun 2009 if he had not got out at 83 on 18th Jan 1992.

I was the full stop of my parents' children. The earliest remembrance I have of him was when I was five or six years old. I remember him as a hard-working, disciplined and a strict but affectionate father. He had his priorities: clean clothes, health food, good education, simplicity and punctuality. Six children, a wife and a moderate salary: still he made sure that none of us feel deprived of the basic essentials of life. On top of it all, he helped his brother-in-law, and a few nephews to study and make their lives. Before he retired, all my five sisters had completed their education and four of them had been married.

When I went to college, he had retired and was fully involved in a career of Life Insurance business. On his insistence, after my graduation I joined him .Throughout his life I held it against him that he made me do something that I did not want to do. If I had my way, I would have become a nature photographer or travel guide living somewhere in the Himalayas, where he himself had taken me many times, as he loved nature and traveling.

In 1983, three events happened: First I lost my mother, second India won the Cricket World cup and the third was arrival of my younger daughter. All the three happened in quick succession. Instead of losing himself in grief over the death of my mother, who had been with him through thick and thin of life, he enjoyed the Indian victory of World Cup and played the role of grandmother and grandfather for the new arrival.

On Jan 17, 1992 he went to the office. I was working late, so he met every body he knew in the office. That Friday night he had set his bag for Monday as the next day there was a one day match between India and Australia, and he loved cricket passionately. The next day when we opened the door of his room, he was lying on the floor. We picked him up and called a doctor but it was too late. He was no more.

Auto Rakshas Checklist

If you're in Bangalore, please memorize this checklist and evaluate the autorickshaw before you board it:

1. LICENSE: If it's not displayed, minus two points. If it's a tattered old photocopy, minus one point.
   
2. METER: Old meter, minus one point. Old unbranded meter, minus two points.
   
3. RELIGIOUS ICONOGRAPHY: Minus one point if God is easily accessible for doling out forgiveness for having fleeced passengers
   
4. PROACTIVITY: Minus one for having spotted you from afar and stopped. Remember, in the auto jungle, only the predator hunts.
   

If all the above problems are present, move on to checklist 2

1. AGE OF AUTO DRIVER: Minus two for being below 30
   
2. LOCATION: Minus two for having been found outside a place of worship. With due respect, God would need a superb lawyer to disprove his connection with the auto mafia.
   

It's not a foolproof system, of course, but so far it's rarely been proven wrong.

 

 

e-lections

Yet another sequel, this time from the netas instead of the abhinetas... hope this one betters the original!
(thanks Deepak for doing all the artwork!)

Stumped!

IPL is very closely connected to both my salary and my husband's, so don't blame me for being interested. I don't understand the game, I don't have a TV, and I have barely-there team loyalty, so it's mostly a number-fest out there as far as I'm concerned.

Here are some statistics I culled out (manually) for the last few matches. (Note that the washed-out matches were number 7 and 13!)

Toss Winners:

• 23 won the match, 17 lost the match
  
• 27 chose to bat first, 13 to field first
  
• Of those who fielded first, 8 won the match, 5 lost the match
  
• Of those who batted first, 15 won the match, 12 lost the match
  

Now this looks fairly straightforward, assuming those who make a decision after the toss have some sense and it really means something to be able to choose. But that second stat, it's very numerically skewed. Possible reasons:

1. The pitches are good for batting first. This is probably the actual reason.
   
2. Viewership is higher and more focused in the second innings of an exciting match, and sponsors urge the team to fill the field with their logos at that point. This is the theory that makes me fear I will go mad or write saas-bahu scripts in the near future.
   

   
   

Maike Se Aike Post

Mom: (something horrible about me, in the way only mothers can do it)

Inky: Did I come across the seven seas to hear this????

Mom: What seven seas does one cross between Bangalore and Delhi???

Inky: Why? Krishna Sagar, Shanthi Sagar, Sandhya Sagar, Upahar Sagar….

 

 

Pyar Tera Dilli Ki Garmi

The sound and the fragrance of the desert cooler reminds me of the hot hot afternoons when we used to come back from school all squished up and practically busted the poor doorbell in our hurry to get home to mommy, amazing lunch, mangoes, cool cooler air and an afternoon nap. Oh the insufferable five minutes when you had to leave the pump switched on for the grass to get wet before you switch on the fan! The crazy creative plumbing around the house to ensure you did not have to run about with a hose pipe to refill the coolers! The war with the permanently sick little sister over the room temperature! The icky colourful salt deposits that the electrician scraped out of the cooler at the beginning of the season! And the fragrance! The smell of mitti, paani, relief, shelter, childhood and love!

It's taking all I have to not go stand in front of the cooler right now and go "aaaaaaaaaa" and let the fan blades slice my jungle cry!