I'm buying. Who's selling?

1. Love. Genus: Happily Ever After.
2. Hugs, preferably by the dozen.
3. Page-3 tasting Margaritas, BMs and T-shots for the price of phooti kaudis.

4. Page-3 penthouse for the price of phooti kaudis.

5. Time. Enough of it to laze, travel, explore, read, sleep. And perhaps some CFC capsules thrown in for good measure, so moments can be frozen for eternity when I need them to be.
6. Commitment. Now don't go preaching that one can't buy commitment. One can. I have living proof.
7. Better writers in my team.
8. A place of my own that i can do up the way i want. Check No. 4 for details.
9. This is where it stops being natural, and the other two are forced out of me after much thought because, hey, i need to have a rounded number. Like 10. Nothing less.
10. That's it.

Got me an addiction. Two actually.

- Tropical Iceberg from CCD. The coffee is good, but its the ice that does me in. Nothing lifts my spirits and gets me high like crushed, slushy ice, and Tropical Iceberg is full of that. Crunchy delicious ice that cools to the marrow and makes me feel at peace with the world. Just thinking about it gets me salivating like, umm, Jughead. Now my system needs a quarter litre of it at least thrice a week.
- Sarees. I admit it, i'm a six-yard fetishist (uh, no, no connotations to ANYTHING). I only have to see a gorgeous saree to be overcome with an immense, uncontrollable desire to feel it, wear it, own it. Bought two, nay, three sarees for Eid. With innumerable blouses to match in silk, brocade and georgette. All of it to die for. Correction, to live for.

All this i discovered in the last week, one of the few that's been full of revelations.

I realised OPH Road during the month of Ramadan is the Kumbh Mela of Bangalore - in all probability, if you lose some near and dear ones, you'll find them only a month later, when the crowd has cleared and gone back to devouring the goodies that shops on Commercial Street or Chickpet have to offer.

I also realised that a credit card is an extremely dangerous thing for me to own. Chew on this - that little imp that rests in all cards? It decided to be itself, and push me into eternal debt with the bank belonging to the card. Like Faustus' gullibility in the face of the parade of the sins, i fell for the temptations hook, line and sinker. And blew up 7,000 bucks in less than three hours. Result? A very happy, but very broke me.

I realised that Red turned one year old over the weekend! Yay! Time sure passes, doesn't it?

Finally, it happens.

Know how dangerous it is to be the only single person in a group of closely-knit, married friends? No? Let me tell you then.

S called me yesterday, marvelling at the fact that i had actually taken her call. So i told her that i took it only to tell her that i would call back later. Which i did today. (Yeah, sometimes i think i must have been a man in my last incarnation, if any, because for them later is like three days later or so and not later the same day.)

The conversation started pretty smoothly, me asking her what she was upto, how the kids were doing and blah blah. I can't even remember when we took a turn into that dreaded road, the one that leads to the altar. That's when she started off.

"You know, i actually called you for a purpose yesterday. I was sitting around, thinking that i would be 26 next year and it struck me that, hell, you'll be 26 too. And that's OLD. I think you should start thinking about marriage." (Note be, it only weakened my case a lot more when i told her earlier on that THE breakup happened almost eight months ago.)

Traitor. Just because she's happily married.

"I mean, really Nabila. By the time you turn 27, you won't be able to catch any nice men at all. After that it will be very difficult you know. There won't be any nice men. I mean, yes, there are no nice men, no perfect men also ("except for my husband", she says, slipping it in just so i can barely register it, but i do, and kick her butt on it), but you need somebody to get back home to, who will stand by you at all times. You're not intending to stay single, are you?"

At my response that, yes, i was planning on staying single, the domesticated cow in the body of the feminist broke through with an ear-piercing cry: "Whaaaaat? Ey, don't be stupid! You know, i keep thinking about you and how you're not married? And when i can't get you on the phone i chew T's (her husband's) brains. If you don't listen to me, i'll get him to talk to you."

At which point, i am beyond panic-stricken. I am torn between laughing and taking her seriously, but in need of some urgent rescue.

Enter Google Talk. Peekay is online, so i send out SMS (short for Save My Soul).
nabila: oh nooooooooooooo!
call s***! do something! the marriage brigade is getting unleashed on me!
she's on my back to get married!

No response.

nabila: peekay!
PEEEEEEEEEEEEKAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!
WHERE ARE YOU??????

p.k: brb
client call

Just my luck. But anyway, Peekay comes to the rescue, calling S just as she is settling down into a cushy list of the merits of marriage. Quickly she cuts my call to take Peekay's.

Dammit. Now i'll have to add her, along with my entire family - extended or not - to the list of people i have to hold the cross against. Or better still, sprinkle some aab-e-zamzam on. Sheesh.

T on my linguistic skills.

"Oh my God!! Your Tamizh has improved so much i say! You can now have full-fledged conversations with my daughter!"

Please note, T's fledgeling is all of two years old.

P.S: This is not to mean that she doesn't speak good English. She does. In fact, she's so good, i feel professionally threatened.
P.P.S: Let it be known that i am first to predict she will be child prodigy.