Movies i've seen in the last couple of weeks.

Quantum of Solace.
I didn't think it was as good as Casino Royale, but i got a close up view of Daniel Craig (courtesy bad front row seats) which made the experience worth it. I do intend to watch it again, though.

Marvin's Room.
Star Movies on a Vegetation (word for a day/time when one wants to vegetate) Sunday. Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Leonardo Di Caprio. Nice movie, but i liked the title song better.

Flashbacks of a Fool.
Daniel Craig. Butt-naked. For 6 minutes. Nuff said.
(Actually, the movie was simple and beautiful. Leaves you with a happy sad feeling.)

Tropic Thunder.
Hee ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Funny. Funny funny funny. Robert Downey Jr plays an Australian playing a Black guy in the movie. To get into the role, he gets cosmetic surgery done and changes skin tone to sepia. And he's worth every pore that turns sepia because of surgery. Ben Stiller walks real funny when he's dying. And his own son stabs him! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!Confession: I slept through some of it though, because i was completely exhausted and depressed.

Feeling full of songs today...

My new favourite.

Fashion Alert!

After a bout of shopping on Sunday afternoon, we decided to pay a visit to Rex to watch Fashion. We'd have done better had we chosen to indulge in some Hara Kiri, although by the end of the movie our brains had anyway committed suicide. But let's begin with a proper beginning, shall we?

Madhur Bhandarkar: I remember reviewing Chandni Bar for our final year tabloid. And i remember crying buckets over the movie, praising it to heaven and back, thinking it was one of the most beautiful films ever made. Tabu was excellent, Atul Kulkarni i developed an instant crush for; the rest i don't remember. I remember saying to myself, now here's a director who can capture realities of life without overdramatising. So when his next movie, Page 3 came out, i couldn't wait to see it.

Like Farhan Akhtar set his standards with Dil Chahta Hai and then decided to play ball(s) with the boundaries - therefore the screw up that i believe Lakshya was - Bhandarkar followed the same trend. His Page 3 wasn't even a hundred miles close to what Chandni Bar was. One could clearly see that he was on commercial movie-making mode. (Remember item song about a woman being thirsty and looking for the well of love or some shit like that???) Then came Corporate, Traffic Signal and the latest, Fashion. And a pattern emerged - leading women are near-bitches; leading men are almost always gay; at least two hearts need to be broken; at least one person you don't expect to die, dies; lots of moralising happens; the movie almost always picks on people with drastic actions and drastic consequences; oh, and drugs, don't forget drugs - lots of sniffing, smoking up and nasha. The drugs though? I think Bhandarkar outdid himself in his latest flick.

Fashion: One word - Aaaaaargh.

Stereotyped, and how. Full of cliches. Some clever bits where he tries to make everything seem very authentic, and which efforts of course, fall flat.

Chandigarh Chidiya Priyanka Chopra goes to Big Bad Bombay (henceforth BBB, if i mention it again which is doubtful because i'll be too busy bitching about the rest of the movie) and turns into a wild fox. Oooooooo, thrilling. She meets several men, all of whom are gay or married (that sort of rung a bell with me), sleeps with two, gets stoned out of her skull constantly, drinks straight from a giant Smirnoff bottle while ripping on the roads in the early hours of the morning, starts throwing attitude from the time of her first assignment, begins smoking when she breaks up with her boyfriend and just generally acts like a bitch for no reason. Oh correction, she sleeps with three men - the last, when she's snorted at least five rows of cocaine and bumps into a man at the club. Oh oh, and guess what? The most memorable scene in the movie? When she wakes up after this cocaine-induced lovemaking session to find that she has slept with (drumrolls) a Black guy! OMG! Her conscience suddenly breaks through her wild side, she wants to kill herself, she goes into depression, her souls dies. All because she sleeps randomly with a Black guy.

My question is, it could have been a white guy, or even a sleazy Indian chap. Why did Bhandarkar choose a Black guy? Does he consider that to be the worst category of the human race an Indian woman can sleep with? I mean, really. This is a new low even for Bollywood. (Some interesting alternate questions that came up among my group of people: What if the Black guy was a leading Fashion Designer from Africa? What if the Black guy turned out to be Denzel Washington? Or Will Smith?)

Then there's whatsername Bangle (Kangan-a) Ranaut, rival of Chandigarh Chidiya Priyanka. She did nothing in the movie but snort cocaine (i told you Bhandarkar outdid himself), sip wine and call her boyfriend "You bastard, you bastard" every five seconds in the most brittle voice one can imagine. Her ruin comes to her on the ramp, when her dress comes undone and her boobs are displayed for the world to see. (Of course, here the director plays the Bharatiya Sabhyata Ke Thekedaar and pixellates her bustline, which clearly has a skin-coloured tube underneath all that pixellation). Distraught, Bangle walks backstage and breaks down. Then she hears Chandigarh Chidiya coo about "Only Bangle can tell if it was a publicity stunt or not" on TV, and surprise surprise, she snorts more cocaine and injects drugs into her system. She goes into rehab, comes back 2 hours and 45 minutes later for 5 minutes as the Mute Model (thank God for small blessings) who is rescued by the new and improved Chandigarh Chidiya. At the end of 5 minutes, she's found lying in some gutter, dead of OD. In short, her role was completely pointless. (You'll hear men sighing heavily, nodding their heads in despair that they didn't even get to see her bust.)

So anyway, the story goes on for 3 tortuous hours in this fashion. (Pun DEFINITELY intended.) In fact, the audience was so restless that by the end of the movie, when Chandigarh Chidiya hears news of Bangle Ranaut's death by OD (despite her brave efforts at playing Jesus) and refuses to walk the ramp, the theatre roared at her to just frikking walk and get it over with. (I think Rex was to blame as well - apparently, the last standing oldie will be torn down soon to be converted into, duh, a mall. My surmise is, they're taking their final revenge on poor unsuspecting viewers by screening movies like Fashion; and that too unedited, uncut.)

Oh wait wait! I forgot the closing shot! Chandigarh Chidiya on the ramps of Paris sharing it with top supermodels as (that's right) Chandigarh ki Chamiya! So you're seeing these Anorexic women in quarter-clothes and suddenly you have a (in comparison) thunder-thigh, bulky Chidiya Chopra in a bad haircut and a metal barrel belted at the waist with more metal! Awww, how sweeeet. After all her trials and tribulations, she emerges smelling of...is that aluminium on her dress?

P.S: Mister Bhandarkar, the next time you make a movie, make sure that AT LEAST the pop corn is good. And take tips from Hitchcock or our very own Ghai on doing cameos in their own movies.

Once bitten, never shy.

So, i broke the news to my aunts as well when they pestered me over the M word yet again, saying that their jhumkas would give me limitless blessings and their shararas would dance unashamed in the evening breeze if i could just find a guy and get married by, get this, next October. My mother couldn't stop smiling, my aunts were bursting with curiosity and grilling me about the boy (and i know zilch; well, close to zilch) and giving me these i-knew-something-was-up-your-sleeve looks.

I am stupefied. It's a stranger we're talking about here. Someone i hadn't heard of before last week. Someone i only showed SOME curiosity in. JUST curiosity. And NOT that i AM going to get married to him or something. Not that i AM going to get married AT ALL. If they're spilling all over themselves with happiness at just the interest i show in somebody who seems like a potential candidate for slaughter, i shudder to think what could happen if things actually work out.

Save me, God.

I feel Dante's pain.

I wish i could call it a poem, but it's not even prose. It started a day after Friday, not even a Good one at that. I met S, her husband and children. After a hearty lunch of Biryani, i hung around for a bit and then, just when i was leaving, her mom goes, "Hey there's a proposal. Are you interested?"

It wasn't just my feet that froze mid-motion. While my tongue tried to unstick itself from the roof of my mouth, S picked up from where her mom left off: "Baba knows him really well. He's apparently not looking for a regular bride."

Yeah, okay, so i'm not like the other Muslim girls who get married when they're still in college (read Pre-university) and are grandmothers by 45, who wear burqas and pray five times a day, listen to the advice of elders, don't hang around with friends who're smoking chimneys and leaking wineries, or even wear salwar kameezes or jeans with salwar kameez tops and dupattas. But that doesn't mean i automatically fall under the category of the extreme, rebel non-conformists. Which is why i was quite taken aback by her statement. And, i must confess, a little interested: it's not everyday that a boy of my clan wants a 'non-regular' sort of bride.

Whirling on S, i asked her what she meant by 'not a regular bride', and while she explained, i saw myself sort of veering towards the other side, the taboo side. Justifying to myself that it was just the non-regular bit that caught my attention (fortunately for me it is the ONLY thing that got me interested, and now i think i'm a little bored with it all), i told my Dad about it the next morning.

The momentary smile of pure joy that broke through his face made me shrink within. I couldn't help but feel guilty (not a new feeling at all) about having deprived my parents of that little happiness. Immediately after, i couldn't help but feel overwhelmed, pretty much burdened by my past. (Sounds so ominous, 'my past'.) And then i felt guilty about having thought of forsaking it. Well okay, not so much forsaking it as i was marvelling at my healing abilities. Time does work wonders.

So anyway, now the thing is that i'm completely dying of curiosity about the guy - and it's only curiosity, trust me - and want to meet him for a cup of coffee or something to ask him what his idea of a 'non-regular' bride is. So far, i've checked out Google and found zilch. If perchance, Mister I-Don't-Want-A-Regular-Bride, you've been looking me up the same way i am you, then be kind enough to leave a comment specifying what you meant by it. I'm very, very interested in knowing what your answer will be.

P.S: I used non-regular everywhere on purpose. The proper opposite of regular makes me uncomfortable in this instance, with its plethora of implications.
P.P.S: One need only scratch the surface to see the pain.

I'm cool like that.

So, like i've been harping about it since the accident, i haven't touched Red's steering wheel at all for a really long time. Until today, when my father's advancing age played tricks on him so that he thought he'd asked the driver to come home at 9. For once in my life, i diligently got ready by 8:30 - a miraculous, full half-hour before time. Call it instinct or whatever, but i asked my dad if he had told the driver to come in. Happily nodding yes, he went back to memorising the morning paper.

Come 9 o clock, and i'm shooting dad killer looks. He calls driver and finds out that, Oh, he hadn't told him to come at 9 after all! So there. As if to compensate for his lapse in memory, he removed the cover of the car. I went in and got the car keys from the keyholder, and started contemplating about whether i should save time and reverse the car.

After 15 minutes of speculation, i decided to take the plunge. Now, let me tell you that reversing is quite a process - an inch forward and i hit the neighbour's compound wall, an inch backward and i hit the lamp post or my home compound. It takes great precision, alertness and skill to reverse. And i did it, like, easy peasy.

So i was very proud of myself. Then driver came and saw the car reversed and was maha impressed as well. All in all, a good start to umm... more driving in the near future. (Future being the operative word.)

Back from the dead.

So, i had a near-death experience last week, thanks to my illness. Correction, illnesses. The flesh around my joints got all swollen and fit to burst. I couldn't walk because my feet hurt so much. The area over my veins turned bruised and blue (no pun intended, really). My face lost all its colour, my skin grew waxy and my body seemed possessed by unseen forces. All this because i enjoy my occasional Tropical Iceberg from CCD.

That's right, it is. My tonsils got so sick of me gulping down ice by the plastic glass like an arctic walrus, that they decided to have their revenge on me by bloating up to fill my throat and cause unbearable joint pain, accompanied by a fever that would put any tandoor to shame. Flu followed soon after, and with it a mighty allergy to the medicines doc prescribed for me - 650 mg of Novaclox and Imol. (The second med sounds like a Malayali invention, no?)

My first day of illness, i didn't venture out of bed. I couldn't. It was humanly impossible. Lifting anything that weighed more than 100 grams was a Herculean task. Day Two, i was better with the heavy dosages of pills. Day three was Eid. I had little energy to dress up in the sarees i had bought (what a waste it was to go shopping two weeks back), much less stand on my feet and bathe. Despite many threats of being disowned by the family if i took a bath and developed pneumonia, i went ahead and scrubbed away as much of the illness as i could without toppling over like a house of cards. Dressed in a saree that was all over the place, i went sniffling and eskimo-like to Grandma's. There, i watched faces gobbling down Biryani by the buckets while i chewed on phulkas and my mum's special 'Chicken Curry For Patients'. (Doc had warned me against eating rice, much less sniffing it even.)

On Day Four i ventured out of home to apply for my duplicate marks card. Half delirious, i walked two floors to school, hung around till somebody helpfully sat me down and translated some of the more complicated form instructions in Kannada, and the present principal sealed my fate with her signature and the school seal. Day Five, i was glued to the TV all day, shuffling from Samantha Brown on T & L to Behind Enemy Lines and Miss Potter thereafter. Day Six and Seven were unremarkable enough and passed in the dread of coming to office on Monday.

Which is where i am, incidentally. I intended to post a lot of interesting stuff - life-shattering philosophies and home truths that dawned on me in my feverish state, that i have most inconveniently forgotten now. So now you'll have to wait till i get sick again, or my brain decides to act up.

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.

The anomaly that is singledom.

So i go to his Wordpress site and read. And read and read and read. And keep laughing my ass off and smirking, torn between marvelling at his sense of humour and being dazzled by his intelligent posts. And then, for kicks, i scroll up and see his face.

Ah. Peace.

The face that peers back is a basket case with a full-bodied, neatly trimmed French beard and tousled, neck-longish hair. So who cares about his pot belly (if he has one) and the size of everything that follows after? He's smart, and oh-so-sizzling-bloody-hot. Before i type his blog url in my Explorer address bar, almost ritual-like i put rubber sheets at my feet, keep a 30-litre bucket within reaching distance and cover my desktop with Turkish towels to act as drool-absorbers.

And so i work my salivary glands overtime, till his profile ruins my fantasies - he's been happily married for pony's years.

Which, of course, brings me back to my eternal grudge against life and everything about it:
Why the heck are all the good guys taken? Like, got girlfriends or are married?
Why the heck are the wedded ones all happily married????
Where in the name of Zeus were they when i was of a more eligible age?
More importantly, where the hell was I and wtf was i doing??

Sigh. Like Donkey* says in Shrek, "I think i need a hug." (And maybe plenty more.)

*Refrain from letting your mind grapple with allusions, allegories or the like. The comparison to above-mentioned animal is limited only to its common name, and not its characteristics or traits.

Let's go!

The link to the pictures, as promised.

I won't apologise for the lack of water pictures. They're all going to come from someone else.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Nabila.Tazyeen/LetSGo

I went to Coorg.

After much speculation on the night of the 14th, i woke up at 5:45 a.m (five hours after i went back home from work) and packed my bags, getting ready for a promisingly gorgoues drive to Coorg.

The weather was perfect, the drive peaceful, the view calming. I was wide awake throughout the journey. Good thing, that. Was able to see tobacco plantations - for some reason i'd always thought they were trees and not bushes. I was proven wrong. The tobacco is used in cigarettes of course, while the leaves are used to make beedi wraps.

At Nagarhole, we spotted plenty of spotted deer and a very hungry young tusker. He was an angry one too, considering he sort of threatened to come at us with a flailing trunk when we got close to take a picture.

We stayed at Polybetta the first night - a full bungalow to ourselves. Four poster bed (yeah pp, they had one of those. Pity we didn't know of it when we were together), hot water, antique furniture, skylights - the setting was pure fantasy. Everythe the estate owners served us was homegrown - even the coffee we drank.

Our next stay was at Dreamland Holidays - another home stay, this time a stone's throw away from Iruppu Falls. So while A and L went gallavanting to the falls, i stayed back to soak in the beauty of the place and more importantly, the comfortable silence. When it started raining, i went into the estate owner's home, settled on a stone seat in the kitchen and had an easy conversation with Maya, the proprietess, about marraige, having kids, running a home stay, the works.

Sunday morning was the most exciting. My first time out rafting. Barapole was the chosen river. Slightly muddy, but not in the rapids where the water was crashing against the stones and churning. Manju, the very easygoing organizer of the rafting, made us get into the water wearing our life jackets. So i floated for a bit, my breath coming in short gasps because the water was freezing (and not because i don't know swimming). Then he pulled us all into the rafts and we went in search of gushing rapids.

Good Morning, Grasshopper, Wicked Witch aka Raam Jaane, Milk Churn - each rapid more unnerving than the other. My favourite was the Wicked Witch. (No guesses why). I loved the whole experience. So much so, that every opportunity i get to go rafting, i will. I recommend it to everyone - you must experience it at least once in your life.

We arrived back in Bangalore at 11 on Sunday night to torrential downpours. Surprising, because we didn't have so much rain in any part of Coorg we passed through - this, despite all the floods that it was rumoured to be ravaged by.

The trip was totally worth it. Sprawling tea estates, lush coffee plantations, lakes, rain showers, drive-throughs, spotting wild animals, stopping anywhere we wanted... it's my first trip for the year. About time as well.

Will post link to pictures soon.

Celebrating Independence Day in a liberated way.

So, i'm off to Coorg tomorrow. Everybody i know is too busy to travel before the 16th. So i decided to go. Now i'm having second thoughts. Apparently, i can't change my mind. The money's already been paid.

Oh well, let's see.

*Mariyal marghooz*

Running nose, running temperature, running cough, running commentary, running boss, running behind juniors, running away from my past, running away from marriage, running to stay fit, running, running, running... Can i just stop and please shrivel up and die instead?

A penny for my thoughts.

I could do with a few. I'm quite broke.

For sex maniacs out there, i can think a sex-related thought every six seconds. But i doubt if i'll get more than a shag of the wag if i do. They're all broke losers looking for a freef***.

For the awardophiles, i can think of award ideas. I definitely will get more than a penny, but most of it will go for taxes. Which will then leave me with a penny. And an award that i can sell at the pawn shop for more pennies. Yay!

For the depressed, i (sad) can (kill myself) think (hate my life) depressing (bleaagh) thoughts (nobody loves me) at (if you're here, God, prove it) the (i need love) snap (i'm a failure) of (everyone's having fun, everyone but me) my (i want to shrivel up and die) fingers (si...igh).

For the pious, i can think good, clean thoughts. Downside is, i might either be converted or slaughtered for religion.

For my parents, i will think the 'M' word thoughts. Then they'll give me many pennies. In the form of dowry.

For the men in my life, i will think grateful thoughts. Maybe then they'll come back into my life and stay with me forever and not leave me begging for pennies and buy me everything i need instead.

For the terrorists, i will think violent thoughts. That way, i'll become a supplier of arson, get rich, mingle with the underground, grow a big moustache (which is in the process of growing anyway thanks to my infrequent visits to the parlour), be called "Maamu" or "Bhai" and get my driving license and passport without hassle.

For life, i will think, "F*** you b****". And remain hopeful for a penny till i die.

(Pliss bare, I yam fee ling very sick today. Balle Balle.)

Loser thing i did this morning.

So i was sitting in the backseat this morning, on my way to collect my checkbook from the bank, when i see a familiar face on a bike. Now, this familiar face i saw last evening as well, so the image was fairly fresh in my mind. So was the motor bike - red and gold, i think a TVS or a Hero Honda.

So anyway, i get all excited on seeing this familiar face. Just to be sure, i check bike for familiar signs. No, i didn't know what i was looking for, but the first thing that seemed recognizable - 'Nag's' stuck above the tail-light - i latched on to, and waited for the car to go ahead, so i could wave out to him.

Car inches closer, closer until we're level. Then i wave at him, with a big, big grin on my face. The familiar face looks back at me. Only, it isn't familiar any more. It's a total stranger i was waving at like a madwoman!!!!

Guy thinks i'm weird and zooms away, afraid of what i might do next. As for me - i roll window up to the mark, skulk down in my seat, avoid looking out and just wait for the car to safely deposit me within the confines of my fourwalls of workspace.

Cool things friends are doing.

1. Quitting job as Creative Director and biking to the lusciously cold mountainous region of Ladakh to shoot a documentary.

2. Travelling on litigation work to Chennai, and meeting up with long-lost friends in the process.

3. Getting their work published in a book of short stories, and holding a book reading.

4. Wanting to be adventurous and hire a stripper for a special birthday.

5. Meeting their Indian boyfriend for a week of loving in Rome.

6. Having a boy (madly in love with them and ready to forsake the world at the drop of a hat) over from Chennai, to get to know him better.

7. Buying truckloads of yummy clothes from UCB.

8. Getting married out of the blue. (This is just an occurance. NOT under the category of cool. Definitely.)

I missed the most interesting parts!

Yeah, i'm a goof. I missed the most interesting bits.

Cut to Friday afternoon - after slogging butt off on the Autumn Winter campaign of an apparel brand, F and i went to Couch for a late cocktail lunch. Happy hours. Hee hee hee. Came back feeling drowsy as hell.

Cut to late Friday afternoon - riots break loose on my side of town, so i am not allowed to go back home by my parents. So what does the bunch from office decide to do? Go to A's place and chill out! So we go and A, as usual, cooks for us. And we watch movie - Paris je t'aime. Paris is beautfiul. I have added it to my list of must-see places before i die.

In the middle of all this, fucker decides to message. A Woody Allen quote on sex. But a good one: "Sex is like bridge - if you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand." I had him know that i take getting physical very seriously, unlike a bunch of others i know who don't. A little later, in a sort of half-trance, i begin to dream of a life that has somebody i can share it with. Not a fly-by-night (yappaaaa!) kind of person, but someone who'll stay. And believe in the relationship. Anyway. F and A exchange Tamil songs while i flip through Esquire lending half an ear to their conversation. When our eyelids reached a point where they had to stay open supported by toothpicks, A dropped F and me to F's place. Yeah, i stayed over at F's place! A cosy little one bedroom house done up with a lot of love, it reminded me of my life over 8 years ago. Somehow, i wanted things to go back to that time.

Woke up real late on Saturday, lazed around and ate rice dumplings for breakfast that F made. And then headed back to office. The rest, you know.

Got meself a new look!

Umm, no. I still weigh the same (almost). It's the hairdo. After less than two months of colouring and cutting hair, i went and got it cut again. Apparently, women get a haircut when they're emotionally disturbed. I had no reason to be. Unless of course, living a half life in the past counts!

Weekend wasn't too bad - i went to office on Saturday (that's the bad part), did nothing (that's worse), met N and went out for the haircut. Getting bitten by the snip snip bug with someone is great fun. Then you have company while you get your hair cut in funky styles, and chat the whole process away.

Post that, went back home and read Sea of Poppies. I would have finished it, if not for the fact that there were about 20 pages missing from the book. Now i have to write to the publishers and ask them to send me a new copy. I can't even discard this copy because it's autographed by Amitav Ghosh. Sigh. I hate the processes and the time wasted in them all man.

Sunday dawned bright and sick. I didn't want to get out of bed at all. My body felt exhausted, drained, washed out completely. Dragged myself out and went for Hancock in the evening and felt much better. Went out for dinner to Saigon, had some yummy food and got back home.

And i just realised that my logs are getting boringer and boringer. So i'll just stop here.

For my beloved K750i.

No, you are not dead. Battery or otherwise. It's just that i realised how much i need you.

You keep me in touch with the world, and help avoid people i don't want to have anything to do with. You are my eyes and my memory, capturing moments that would have been lost forever if it wasn't for your quick wit and sharp eye. Like that picture of me and him. Do you know, you're the first and only one to get a picture of the two of us together? So what if we don't look like the perfect couple, we're still in the same frame without anybody else being in it!

Yeah, yeah i know. I'm getting sentimental and all. And see, you have a way to cheer me up as well - songs at the tip of your button, games at the snap of a finger. Yeah, the radio too. One cannot help but feel helpless without you, K750i. And it's not just sitting here deserted in my brand new office that makes me say so. I really, truly mean it. From my heart.

I hope to God that i never have to forsake you. I can't live with the added burden of having to dump you like i did my reliable old Nokia 3310. He did serve me well, that one. It's also true that i put him through a lot of shit - slamming him against a wall when i was angry, hurling him across the bed when i was hurt or frustrated, just plain f***ing around with him so much that he couldn't handle the pain any more and quietly left this life for another, better one. No. I don't want to do those things to you. You're my best buddy (among the inanimate varieties). Besides, my life has changed quite a bit.

I no longer feel those pangs of frustration. Hurt, yes. No frustration, no tears, no anger. You revived me.

What i've been up to.

Work's been keeping me so busy, i don't even have the time to wake up and get to office! And what with battling out some ten thousand other things as well as my own 'internalised' problems... yep, it's still the same old story. The days may have passed, but life hasn't. I'm still the same. Sort of.

1. I started work at my new workplace on Friday the Thirteenth. Instead of me bringing bad luck to them, turned out i was the recipient - had to stay till late in the evening for no reason whatsoever. Weekend followed, and i made the most of it chilling out because i knew i was going to be rammed, starting Monday.

2. True to prediction, i did get rammed. I suddenly found myself in charge of three fledgeling writers and one senior writer. Life's been a roller coaster ride ever since, with me doing late nights every other day. Ugh, but i'm loving it.

3. Went for a one-woman mehendi session. The one woman was me, because the mehendiwali had left and i was the only one without henna on my hands. So i carried home a cone and put it myself. The prettiest i have drawn so far, if i say so myself. PK of course had to show off her beginner's skills as well, so she used my leg as canvas. She drew a chain of uh... i don't know, a chain, that resembled the snakes on Medusa's head (you know they did Peekay! Hee hee!), a sun with the rays pretty much confused and darting here and there, a moon and a star. And yes, a flower. It's been three weeks now and i haven't been able to wear anything that will expose my ankles (and the leg above it) to the world. Oh wait, did i forget to mention that to all those designs, she added one very girlie word - 'Bubbles'?

4. The wedding followed two days later at Someshwara Temple. Simple and sweet. What followed it was the mind-blower - breakfast at The Leela Palace. Yummm. There were five different kinds of cheese - herb, blue, cheddar, swiss and one more, the name of which i can't remember so i guess it means the flavour is pretty forgettable - croissants, muffins, juices of all kinds, appams, idlis, dosas, upma, cornflakes with three different varieties of milk, fruit yogurts, fruits, pancakes... oh my, i was dazzled by the array of food. Needless to say, i had everything i could lay my hands, nay stomach, on. In the middle of all this chaos, i managed to click pictures as well. Tons and tons of them. Just haven't uploaded any yet.

5. I did lunch at 3 Storeys and Indijoe's, dinner at The Rice Bowl, kudiks at TGIF which was followed by the most exotically mindblowing meal at A's Oh-my-god place. We went back to his place a second time as well, and had another finger-licking meal of roast chicken with tomato and mushroom sauce. Preceded by a home-made Bloody Mary and followed by some clips of Godfather and Little Big Man. Legends of Rock came soon enough, and Chandni Chowk and G's place where there was a small get-together, with kiddies running around the rooms and hurting themselves.

6. Sea of Poppies - a book reading of Amitav Ghosh's latest and first in a trilogy. By Amitav Ghosh himself. Man, does he make an impression. I wouldn't call him sophisticated, i would call him refined but very approachable. For instance, i went up to him to get my copy of the book signed and he asked, "Should i sign this to you?" I mean, how many authors have you heard of who actually care enough to ask you if they should write 'To someone' or 'For someone'? Most i know would only scribble their name in a jaded fashion and do away with you.
I of course, replied in the affirmative, and he asked my name. I told him and he went, "What a beautiful name." Swoooooooooon. Sadly, the rest of me wasn't looking all that beautiful that evening, considering i rushed from work to the hotel where it was happening, like a madwoman escapes from the asylum and finds herself at odds with the outside world. Additionally, i also felt very ashamed for not having read any of his books till then, and fervently promised to myself that i would read more of his books.

7. A man is attracted to my writing and falls in love with my face, but only briefly. Turns out the face he fell in love with actually belonged to my very good friend. Thus proving, once again, that i am thoroughly jinxed when it comes to men. Hmm. Maybe it's time to shift, uh, orientation.

Soul searching.

I've seen you laugh. I've seen you cry. I've seen you in pain, i've seen you through pleasure. I've seen you fully clothed, seen you stripped down to your skin. I've seen you angry, i've seen you keep your calm. I've seen you abundantly happy, and infinitely sad.

What i never saw, was that you never thought of us being together in the future.

Sneezing once is unlucky. What about sneezing 30 times?

That's what happened to me this morning. I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed one after the other till my nose fell off and i had to stick it back on with Feviqwik. Now it rests precariously on the cartilege, while i try and ward off any more sneezes coming my way.

My throat hurts too, because i'm such a loud sneezer. It's gone all sore and itchy, and i have to make weird noises to ensure the base of my tongue scratches against the walls of my throat to give it some respite.

My tummy's acting weird and in the middle of nothing decides to torture me with sporadic and completely unnecessary cramps. And it's grown so much in size that every time i see myself in the mirror, i'm afraid a baby's going to pop right out from under. It's not a nice feeling, i'm telling you.

Lament is my new favourite word. I'm reading Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang, and the word appears and reappears, so i'm completely taken by it.

That's all.

Thirteen books recommended for everyone.

1. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the First - The Bad Beginning
2. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Second - The Wide Window
3. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Third - The Reptile Room
4. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Fourth - The Miserable Mill
5. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Fifth - The Austere Academy
6. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Sixth - The Ersatz Elevator(Something i discovered about characters in this book - Esme Squalor, who later turns out to be Count Olaf's girlfriend, is a reference to J.D Salinger's short story 'For Esme with Love and Squalor'; her husband Jerome Squalor's name is, by my deduction, a reference to the O Henry Award-winning writer Gordon Lish's short story 'For Jerome with Love and Kisses' - a parody on Salinger's short story. And yeah, the two characters are quite the opposite in Snicket's book. He's got plenty more fascinating snippets like these hidden in the rest of the series too.)
7. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Seventh - The Vile Village
8. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eighth - The Hostile Hospital
9. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Ninth- The Carnivorous Carnival
10. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Tenth - The Slippery Slope
11. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eleventh - The Grim Grotto
12. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Twelfth- The Penultimate Peril
13. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Thirteenth - The End

Somebody just walked over my grave...

... and I can do nothing but shiver.

Yesterday, i ate no food and almost all my words.

I chewed my left pinkie right down to the stub last night. It was the DLF IPL Finals between the Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings that made me. What a match! This one was as nail-biting to the last ball as the semi-finals were completely lukewarm efforts from the two competing teams of the finalists. Although, if you had to ask me, the Rajasthan Royals match with Mumbai Indians was more a BP-shooter than this one.

Ravi Shastri was a drag on the stage prior to the awards ceremony, asking some very silly questions and insisting on answers to them when it was pretty evident that some of the players didn't understand what he was asking ("So, that was some script you wrote out there"; "Nai, main yeh pooch raha tha ki aapne kaafi achchi script likhi field mein" and nonsense). Not to forget the whole thing about Ntini "adding colour to the game". Oh boy, what a goofer that one. Bet we'll be reading the papers pretty soon about Ravi Shastri being sued for racist remarks.

Although i was rooting for the Royals, i preferred to side with the Super kings post the award ceremony. Dhoni was so dignified about it, but what really did it for me was that bit about "we lost as a team today, and that's what i'm happy about". Completely contrary vibes to what i sort of felt from the Royals - they seemed to be so individual-focussed: example, Sohail Tanvir himself saying that he had played very well throughout the match, and that 50% of the effort of winning came from Shane Warne and his captaincy. Come on, you're a team, why would you put yourself before it? Which is why i really liked Dhoni and his team's attitude. Somehow they seemed less money-grubbing and more i-play-for-the-love-of-the-game than the Royals at the award ceremony.

So as we finish the first of DLF IPL season, the next year's T20 is on my mind already and i can't wait for it to happen. It's made me think of cricket like i never did before. And that brings me to the next thing on my mind: Dear god, you really should stop making me eat my own words. I mean, i know i hated cricket and all that but my hatred was doing nobody any harm that you had to take it upon yourself and make me like it so much! I hope you'll only restrict this exercise to the T20 matches!

Got a few stories of my own.

P mailed us all a link yesterday - Cassette from my ex-lover.

I read it this morning - accounts and fairy tale-like stories of women who've been gifted mixed tapes by their boyfriends. I remember those days too. The only difference was, i used to get my own mixed tapes recorded and gift them to myself. Yeah i know, i can see the 'L' blazing on my forehead.

But there was this one guy - incidentally, my first ummm...love - who put together a tape. And included a song in it that he completely detested, only because i liked it so much. I was touched.

They're all right, those women who shared their accounts and playlists with the world on the site/blog: first loves ARE something else. Mine lasted four years, and ended in him getting married to someone else. Sigh. Heartbreak High.

I must admit, though, those were some of the best years of my life. The sort of silly things we did, despite him being six years older. Those secret rendezvouses, the long walks in the nights (uh, no, we were never alone on these), the group outings with me travelling on his Suzuki Samurai, him picking me up sometimes and dropping me off to school (!) and later, college. I remember each moment so clearly after all these years, it seems like only yesterday.

I still have those mixed tapes. Just haven't gone back to listening to them. Perhaps i'm a bit afraid to open up Pandora's Box and let out all those things again.

P.S, here's the link: http://www.cassettefrommyex.com/

Heady, heady weather.

It started out with the sky turning a sullen-yellow that turned into sepia. The wind blew, the young trees bent in submission as it rushed past leaf after leaf. I stood outside, letting it whip my hair into a streaked frenzy. Watched the good-looker from two offices away as he bent over the cemented railing to let the breeze really hit him. Paid attention to the splendid colours of the sky once more, breathed deep the smell of nature and impending rain.

I love this weather. Reminds me that this is all it takes to lift my spirits and sweep them high above the clouds, straight into heaven. My life is full. I need nothing else now.

My bucket list.

This is for you, A. Pretty simple, really. And my bucket list - things to do before i kick the bucket - hasn't changed too much over the last eight years.

• Own a penthouse with a lovely sit-out with a mini-garden, and a glass roof in the bedroom that slants towards the ground. (This one you obviously know.)
• Learn to play the drums, perhaps even the violin if i have the time.
• Visit Egypt and Switzerland.
• Climb the Telephone Tower in R.T.Nagar and watch the world right from the top.
• Float.

Random-oxide.

I drove today. After close to three months. Without incident.

I made up a chorus last night: "I wanna see, wanna hear no more/ come back to me and i'll show you the door". I don't know where the silly thing came from, considering i was in the middle of watching the RC vs DD match.

Reminds me, i love the concept of the DLF IPL. I'm hooked onto it, and how. I can bet my left arm that the TRP ratings must have shot through the roof. Ya, so cricket zealots believe it's a violation of the sacred spirit of the game and blah blah blah but, think about it - globalisation's so effectively demonstrated (!). Sure, the players are auctioned and bought, but isn't that how cricket has been in the past handful of years? Personally, i think the IPL only sort of brings transparency and openness to the money-minting angle.

I was thinking about... it. Realised that after all that has happened, if things should work out between him and me tomorrow, i'm not sure i'd want it anymore. It's the whole once-bitten twice-shy syndrome. Besides, there's way too much bitterness now for the feeling to be dislodged easily. I have become a sad, withdrawn, bitter person.

There was also something else i was thinking about - how people fall in and out of marriages. And i realised, it isn't courage that makes a person take the 'right decision' and opt to stick in the marriage: essentially, we're all cowards and don't have the balls to break away from something that's been a part of our lives for however long, regardless of how traumatic it's been. What does take courage is to opt out of it, because then you're pep-talking yourself out of taking the easy way out. Some would call the latter a selfish act, an act that brutally disregards family (values, name, heritage etc.) and systems. I think it's a matter of perspective, and letting your needs drive your decisions.

I love my mother. I love the fact that she's so young, so caring, so in love with everybody around her that she'd so anything for them. (Which is not something i can say for myself.) I want to understand my father better - he's so quiet about what goes on inside of him that the rare emotional outbursts that happen seem like freak incidents that can only be ignored.

I want to live alone. I do. I want to find myself a comfortable 1 bedroom penthouse, do it up simply - more minimalistic than anything else - and fill it up with warmth and the smell of cooking. I want to listen to good music while i do this, and make weekends last forever and read books and sleep as much as i want and just not worry about where life is taking me.

I don't want to live very long, though. Perhaps 50 is good enough for me. That's 25 years left to do everything else i want to. Hmmmm...

Conversation.

*Tring Tring*

Oh, sorry. Wrong beginning.

*Vibraaaate vibrate!*

"Hello?"
"Kya hai bey kuttey?"
"Bhak saaley"
"Bhak madar****"
"Bhak t*** m** k*"
"Bhak cho**"
"Chup bey madar****"
"Chup bey l****"
"G*** mara bey b***** ke"
"Tu mara bey b***** pappu"
"Achcha waisey phone kyun kiya?"
"Aisey hi, gaaliyan dene ke liye."
"Oh achcha, theek hai. Ho gaya na? Chal abhi rakh."
"Rakh l****, rakh."
"Tu rakh bhen****"
"Haan theek hai. Kutta saala."
"Chup bey madar****."
"Haan theek hai, chal bye."
"Haan bye."

By far, one of the most fun and dirty conversations i have had in a really long time.

Oh, which reminds me (actually, 'dirty' reminds me), my friend G called this morning. Like his calling itself wasn't an event, he called at 3:40 a.m. Trying to go all husky and sexy on me saying, "I just felt like waking you up from your sleep." And then he offered to hang up - an offer that wasn't genuine, of course, but i took it up anyway because i was dying to curl up and go back to bed. And he went all abusive and tried dirty talking, which of course didn't work either because all the dirty talk we have is because of the lack of better things to talk about. Besides, he thinks he's this complete stud, so there's not much one can do except ask him to go get his job done somewhere else. All said and done, though, he's the one i talk to when i need serious advise - and one that makes sense.

So anyway, after i went to sleep, i had two very bizarre dreams - one of which i screamed my lungs out in, in absolute mental distress because a bunch of security guards were giving me a lot of unnecessary grief about a parcel. And the other one in which it seemed like all the world's zoos were let loose and animals were as free to move around as people. So there were snakes hanging down from trees like branches, sharp-eyes crocs doing the rounds in drains and sewers while ocassionally putting their heads out on to the roads to survey their chances of food, monkeys (like we don't have enough of the two-legged kind already) and God-knows-what-else.

Between yesterday and today, these are the interesting things that have happened to me so far. The fact that i'm sitting with my nose covered because S at work is giving out acidic fumes of body odour, is not something we need to get into details about. Sometimes i think he wears that smell with pride - some mad scientist (remember Roald Dahl's Bitch?) must have told him that the scent will unknowingly creep up into women's nostrils and attract them to him like moths to a lamp. Tch tch. What these young boys won't do for Lays these days. (Oh my go, it rhymes. It rhymes!)

Oh, Horror!

My phone rang at 8:30 last night, and i wondered why R was calling me. Putting it down to confirming my ticket at K's dance performance, i answered with a sing-song "Hello!"

"Quick, tell me a funny story. Now. Or i'm going to lose it." Stumbling, fumbling in the crevices and folds of my brain for something that would make her laugh, i said the first thing that came to my mind: "Once upon a time, there was a rat who used to roam around here and there. One day, a thorn pierced his bum..." and stopped because it sounded so lame to my own ears.

It hit home then. I don't know a funny story. Any funny story. And to think i'm supposed to be a funny person. I'm terrible at funny stories when people are down, but great at drawing them out and gettting them to talk about it. (Which is why, primarily i tell everybody in shit to "talk it out" with the concerned parties.) But now, i've decided to go about memorising funny stories with a vengeance. One never knows when they might come in handy.

Oh, i just remembered one that has never falied to make me laugh till date - A was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and i was sitting in the hall watching TV and talking to her. A2 was as usual messing around with A, then suddenly he left the hall and walked into his bedroom rapidly like his ass was on fire. Seconds later, i hear a "Prrrrrrrr!" and A2 emerges, looking like nothing's happened, like walking into the bedroom was the most natural thing in the world to do. Only, he didn't count upon the farting noise being so loud that i could hear it out in the hall. He looked at me rolling on the diwan and laughing my guts out at his crackpot behaviour and i still can't get over his expression - somewhat like a startled rabbit caught making out in the forest or something in the dead of night! Hyuck hyuck! The moron!

Thrilled to bits about my weekend.

My reports came on Friday, and got me feeling extremely low. I've got severe Hypothyroidism and a bunch of other equally bad diseases.

So i needed something to feel better about over the weekend. And that something came in the form of movies. Two movies back-to-back at Inox on Saturday, and one on Sunday. Family time too.

Watched Speed Racer with my cousins and mom; and loved, completely loved the movie. Getting out of the theatre, we decided to go in for another one - The Water Horse. After Speed Racer, it sort of faded in comparison. The colours, treatment, everything was so completely different. Yesterday i watched Bhootnath - the first half is pretty enjoyable and then they go right ahead and screw up the second half badly. Maybe the guys were at a loss on how to end the movie, so did what they did.

Then we headed to the Food Court, where i stuffed my face with lots of food (duh!). Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Gateaux, Chicken Kabab, Caramel & Nuts ice cream... basically, all things sweet because from today, i go off them.

It was a super duper weekend. And i spent a lot of time with family. So i like it. I'm beginning to feel like the old days again. Yay.

Now let me tell you about my visit to the 'Hostile Hospital'.

Not really a hostile hospital, but it just sounded nice because it's Snickety. After days and months of near-panic that i was suffering from multiple illnesses - thanks to the regularity with which i have been falling ill - i decided to take the plunge. So i went to Elbit.

The family wanted to come along. And i told them there were some facts of life they were better left in the dark about - like perhaps my liver being damaged because of excessive alcoholism, or my uterus doubling as a breeding ground for cysts and fibroids and stuff. Actually, i didn't really say all that. I couldn't. So i quietly let my mother accompany me.

At the reception, i asked for the Healthy Woman Exam. The first thing she asked me, of course, was if i was married. And i told her i was single. "Then you can't take the test ma'am. It has a Paps Smear test." Thinking i had heard wrong, i asked her again. And she answered in almost the exact same words: I wasn't married, so i couldn't take the Paps Smear test, therefore the Healthy Woman exam. Obviously, i had to let the matter rest because mom was around, otherwise i'd have asked her if her recruitment had virginity as one of the qualifications for employment, or by some chance, her name was Mary with a 'Saint' thrown in somewhere for good measure. Bloody hell. My single status isn't necessarily proof of anything innocent. Or deprived. What if it turns out later that i've actually been suffering from AIDS and could have been cured if i could have had it diagnosed today? What if i have some other horrific disease of the sort? What if? Huh?

Benignly smiling at her, i opted for the Executive Health Check-up. Mom and i stepped into the lift - more like a cage of flimsy metal dangling in mid-air because we could see a gaping hole in the earth under the lift. Needless to say, the urine sample was not a tough job at all considering i was all set to pee in my pants all the way to the second floor, praying to God to spare me the irony of plunging me to my death in a hospital.

The blood samples were a little more painful though. I was completely fascinated by the colour of my own blood - a deep, dark red. I was even more fascinated by what seemed like bubbles spurting forth into the container. "You think those are bubbles? How will bubbles get into the blood?", asked the guy who was drawing it from me. "That is fat."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know who was more disgusted - him or me. I realised i couldn't get away with pinning it all down to voluptousness. It was sick, greasy fat. Ugh. I really, really have to work it all off.

I also know now why the canteen food is so average too. If people get such bad news all the time, they'll be more than happy to eat the bland food thinking its healthy.

Let me tell you about the creepy crawly night i had.

I slept like a baby last night after a really long time, at peace with the world. At least, i did till 3:30 a.m this morning. Which is when i felt a touch as light as feather on my right toe. Now this unbelievable phenomenon woke me up for two reasons: a) i sleep alone on a really tiny bed, so there's no chance that some man was feeling amorous at a godforsaken hour in the morning; and b) this fleeting touch was soon followed by a vigorous flapping of Geranium petal-sized wings.

I didn't feel scared, just irritated that my long-awaited peaceful sleep (those medicines the doc gave me must have really worked) should be disturbed by some stupid insect - which by the time i woke up fully, realised was a flying cockroach - that was fluttering around in my room. So i reached overhead for the K750i (no, it's not an insect repellant or a little gun designed to shoot at unsuspecting insects) and switched it to torch mode, to figure out where the cockroach had landed. There it was, crawling over the posters from college kept on top of the Godrej cupboard.

I did have the option of throwing the duvet over my head to stay cocooned and protected from the cockroach's prying antennae and hairy feet, but it was hot as Dante's Inferno. Reluctantly enough, i got out of bed to play the part of Death. And what an unglamorous role it was - with my phone in one hand throwing light on the spot where the cockroach was and a hawaii chappal in the other, i reached out slowly, carefully, waiting for the right moment to strike it.

Now... now... now... WHAM! I switched on the light in my room, took the limp little blackish-brown body, wrapped it in layers and layers of plastic bags and threw it in the kitchen dustbin so the sounds of its struggle to free itself wouldn't disturb my sleep. I even went so far as to go to the loo so i wouldn't have to get out of bed again.

Sighing, half-smiling in anticipation of some more hours of blissful sleep, i headed back to bed. Just to play it safe though, i left the light still switched on so i could check for other creatures hiding in the dents and crevices of my pillow and duvet before i settled in. And voila! I see Miss Charlotte dangling comfortably from her web halfway to my bed.

Now, i hate spiders more than anything else in the world. So even if it meant i would lose a few more minutes of sleep in trying to get rid of it, i would do it. And i did. Finally, throwing my duvet to the side, i melted into the groove of the mattress that was still warm from my hours in it, and hafl-closed my eyes. I could see flashes of lightning through the window in my parents' room across mine. I could hear the wind whooshing through the champak trees on the street outside. I could hear a dog yelping softly, a car zipping on the main road, the vigorous flapping of Geranium petal-sized wings in my room...

Bloody hell. There was no chance that stupid cockroach could've escaped my little trapping device so easily so fast, and this flapping was stronger. Which meant that another cockroach had adroitly found its way into my room. On came the torchlight again, up came the hawaii chappal in my hand. I searched for a minute, couldn't find the pest, admitted defeat and pulled my duvet up to my head. The cockroach could go soak its head somewhere.

I settled down immediately of course, but my brain didn't. So like a typical junkie suffering from hypochondriasis, i imagined tiny little creepy crawlies running marathons and relay races all over me. And i was left tossing restlessly in bed till 6:00 a.m. Like people count sheep to fall asleep, i tried hard to count the seconds that lapsed between each lightning strike showing in my parents' room. Nothing. I was as wide awake as an owl on caffeine. Then i tried scaring myself to sleep, imagining ghosts moving in the dark; instead ending up imagining ghosts of all the cockroaches and spiders and rats and what-nots taking their revenge by crawling all over me. Basically, i was back to being sleepless.

Approximately 30 minutes after i managed to fall asleep, i was woken up again by the sound of my alarm going off. Every nine minutes, at that. Just about enough time to let me fall asleep and jar me awake immediately.

Boy, what a bad night. I was left wondering this morning, as i got ready for work, if it wasn't a sign from God about my past life, or worse still, my future reincarnation. I'm not even considering it to be symbolic of the present, because i'm a bitch in my present life, not a pest that wakes people up from deep sleep and makes life miserable. (No, we're not going to go into the calls i make to people i know at bizarre hours after i'm fully high and happy.)

Enteric-coated Pantoprazole Sodium And Domperidone SR Capsules...

... whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. I got the meds on Saturday after innumerable stomach aches and a much-needed visit to the doc. He prodded my belly like some newfoundland, asked me a few questions and then prescribed these with some other tablets.

And i'm supposed to be on a strict diet of home food - fat chance that's going to happen with my social life keeping me as busy as it is right now. Which is a good thing, it keeps my mind off other shit (except when i read Jodi Picoult and then, in a fit of overwhelming emotions i do stupid, self-destrucive things).

Life has been pretty helterskelter, pellmell, hooha, shoosha for the last...umm, four days. I enrolled myself into the Center for Film and Drama - sounds more intellectual than it actually is - where i get to watch international movies from across the world every weekend; played Baddy (Badminton) for an hour on a lovely Friday evening, post which N and I sprawled on the terrace, letting the wind sweep away the heat and sweat from our bodies. We spotted human satellites in the sky, watched the thunder roll in, and i wished upon a shooting star. Saturday night, caught up with H, her fiance and a couple of other people who don't deserve any mention here, over God knows how many shots and BMs and what-nots. Didn't eat a bite of food and still managed to wake up without any hangover from the previous evening. Yesterday, went for a book reading by the author of V.S. Naipaul's biography, Patrick French. Plus, i got an autographed copy of the book!

And in the middle of all this, i found time to groan and moan about my poor stomach. Despite the medicines - which i haven't been taking regularly - my tummy feels like it's made out of lead. Or perhaps it's a machine that makes weird gurgling noises and spews acids all day. I'm wishing i could stand with my hands spread wide, waiting for all these evil things i feel happening inside me to leave like the charm from Fiona's body (damn, i even look like her now - an ogress!). Only, it will be the spirits of junk food making a quick exit after having created a mini-zoo of a variety of bacteria and other micro-organisms.

Yappaaaa. I so badly need a pick-me-up right now. And not in the form of lines.