Everything that could go wrong yesterday, went wrong.

I got back from my shoot last morning and landed straight into deep shit.

Got into a civil skirmish with one of my writers.

Got into TVCs directly, something i'm still trying to get a hang of.

Pending work just came crashing in, and i realised that a lot of stuff has been going out without my seeing it.

Went for dance class, and as is usual these days, was a disaster at it. Missing the previous two classes didn't help at all. Besides, all the women were grooving and shaking so well that i felt extremely intimidated. And i was wearing uncomfortable clothes for the dance.

My weight reads 75. 75!!! That just got me extremely, extremely depressed.

All in all, by the end of the day yesterday, i wanted to burst into tears. A mixture of self pity and exhaustion and self-recrimination.

I hope it gets better.

Hypocrisy.

March 1998:
Him: "I'm 20 years old, and you're just 14. I can't do this to you."
Me: "Do what?"
Him: "I can't let this happen."
Me: "When has love ever been about age? Think about it this way, when i'm 20, you'll be 26. Only!"

December 2002:
Him 1: "F***. I'm 19 years older. Old enough to be your father. I can't be seeing you."
Me: "But i don't have a problem with it! It isn't about the age, it never is! Stop thinking that way!"

April 2009:
He Who Cannot Be Named: "We intend to get married in a couple of years."
Me: " "
Me (sleuthing sleuthing sleuthing...Aha...Wha?!!!!)
Me: "She's bluddy 23! You bluddy cradle snatcher!"

Tch tch. I'm beyond repair.

I love Instant Messaging.

Being pissed with someone doesn't mean being pissed with someone. Nastiness doesn't seem like nastiness, disappointment doesn't seem like disppointment. On IM, even heartbreaks don't seem like heartbreaks. That's what i like about it. You can just smiley emoticon, grin emoticon, laugh-out-loud emoticon the pain away. Thank God for all the geeky intelligence in the world.

And damn men.

Let me tell you, it's not the best of ideas to try and comfort a friend who's crying when you're half out of your senses yourself.

Work's been merciless for a while now, so i went out last night for some long-pending retail therapy and bonding session with girlfriends.

Wearhouse rocks, always has. Some of my best clothes have been from there. So i went last evening, not just for that reason but also because they had 50% off on all merchandise. Picked up loads for Goa and Dandeli - shorts, a skirt, capris, tees and a couple of winter jackets in electric colours. All of this for 1,500 bucks.

Headed out to Retro after, where i met R, K, B and L. We were bOHnding after a long time, and i was happy because i desperately needed to spend some time with them.

That's when i got the call. She was weeping, telling me that she had tried for so long and that now, she didn't want to stay in the marriage any longer. At first i thought it was triggered off by her in laws coming and living with them for a while; evidently i was wrong. It's been festering in her since the time of her marriage and this was just the icing on the cake. Besides, she had never spoken to me about this before, so i knew this was some serious shit.

She needed help. And i was pasted.

I did nothing except mumble a 'Hmm' between sentences because that's all i could do - i was buzzing, beginning to get incoherent and just basically not there. She was in pain, she was crying hard and i couldn't find the right words to comfort her. For everything i said, she told me that i wasn't understanding the problem, she had tried everything and so on, till at one point i could hear myself chanting in my head, Babe you're losing her, Babe you're losing her. Definitely a first for me.

I guess i did manage to give her some peace by the end of it, though - she sounded better by the end of it. And because i was happy that she was comforted, i just went back to putting and sending some more.

Me feels a tad insensitive right now.

Game Rhyme.

Oh mama, she told me a fifty years ago,
There came a lady knocking at the door
With an Ooh, Aah
I want some bar
The bar is full
I want to go by bull
The bull is fat
I want to go by cart
The cart is neat
I want some meat
The meat is tough
I want it softened
We don't have that request often
Then, bloody hell, do it now
I would, only i don't know how
Oh you bloody stupid cow
This is more ignorance than i can allow
I want to go by bus
The bus is rough
Oh, that was off the cuff
So, does that mean you're staying?
What do i look like, a lay in?
Well, i thought we could roll in the hay
Ah, but i'm too old for that, nay
Oh well, then come back tomorrow
Oh my dear Lords, Oh my heart's sorrow
I'll keep space for you in the bar
But you said the bar was full?
Oh, i was just giving you a load of bull.

I got my Duplicate Marks Card!

After months of pondering and waiting and watching and finally, applying for it, i got my duplicate marks card yesterday! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Passport office, here i come!

And no, this time it won't take me months to apply for my passport. Now things will just roll. Happy happy!

Updates on Red.

- He completed 20,000 kilometres last month.
- He made a trip to Coimbatore for a couple of days.
- He's developed a wheezing problem. Perhaps his kilometre age is showing.
- He had a new driver. Had, because i'm firing him - he doesn't treat Red right. Besides, Mom suspects the driver might be party to a murder in our locality. Shudder.
- He's been accident-free for a while.
- The most i have gotten to do is reverse. No balls to drive him around town. But i will, pretty soon.
- He doesn't play music any more. Something to do with battery charge. Sigh.
- Maybe he IS growing old.
- Maybe he's lonely and in need of a companion. Should i make it a two-wheeler or a four?

Keep the faith.

When i was in the Tenth Standard, a certain psychologist lady had come to school and given us a talk on sex education, marriage, the works. In the process of talking about the second, she'd asked each of us what we thought we wanted in a guy.

Some said, he should be fun, some that he should be good-looking and all. I remember telling her that he should be understanding. She seemed pretty impressed by my answer - who sees such wisdom in one so young? (Pat pat Nabila). I was pretty impressed as well, and my answer still stays the same. But there's something else that's gained as much importance in my Guide To Finding The Right Man - faithfulness. Not the kind that's shown by a dog, but the kind that shows through when one person loves another.

Think about it, why was it that in our parents' days, loyalty to a partner was never a problem? Why is it that more than 95% of the marriages, arranged or otherwise, worked without a third person to hold it together? What is it about our generation, and more specifically, our society, that sees so many indiscretions?

I watched 'Breaking and Entering' the other day. As an aside, i don't particularly like Jude Law but there was something about him in this movie that really got me. Was it the fact that he was an infidel? Maybe. What really got me, though, is that maybe sometimes for marriages to work, an extra-marital affair is a necessity. Almost like you love someone, you get married, life takes over the romance which starts being taken for granted, and then you have an affair because it brings back the excitement and love and lust. Come decision time, you have to choose between the new-found love and the taken-for-granted love. Except that it's no longer taken for granted. Somewhere in the middle of the affair you realise that you're so comfortable with the person you already have, that that person is somehow so much better, you've already given it the best years of your life; and so you give up your affair, reinvesting all your energy in making the relationship you already have work. What's left is a big question mark in the form of a love-lorn woman/man. Is it worth all the heartache?

In the movie, it is. Because Jude Law and his wife get back into their married life with renewed vigour and love, the way it was (by implication) before they were married. And it's not all sad for Juliet Binoche, the other woman: there is a bond, an understanding between them, a strong dose of love as well, but not one that's strong enough to overcome their respective priorities - in his case the marriage and in hers, her son who gets convicted for felony.

The movie, to me, in so many ways summarised the story of most of our lives in this day and age - the marriage reaching a stagnant point with no joy for either party involved, pent-up feelings that need a vent and find it in somebody else's embrace and bed; the difficulty of making the decision to choose what you already have over what you could have had; the half-ease, half-pain with which the lovers walk away from each other to pick up their lives where they had left them off; the heartbreak, the truths, the sacrifices; the residual love, or what resembles it anyway. An act of faithlessness that only brings back the faith with full force, all quite peachy-keen actually.

So yes, i do understand this side of the coin (or should i say, bed?). But am i ready for faithlessness in my relationships or my marriage?

No. I'm not. My heart's not big enough for that.

I hereby designate you to be my husband!

I got a link in my mail today for www.designate.com.

The first time i tried it, i thought that in all seriousness i would get some answers to problems of life like "How do i get my writers to move their asses?". All i got was a virtual stuck-out tongue.

The second time round i got the hang of it, i typed in the question "Who should i marry?", with four names i thought could be potential hubbies.

Decided to do best of three. Two out of three times, it was a name that was, well, ironical in the context. Wonder what he'd do if he found out. But i'm not taking chances, no siree. Besides, i can't even blame the Web site. They have happily said that they will take no responsibility for any decisions taken using designate.

Dayem. Just when i thought i could palm the blame off on somebody else.

This day, last year.

This day, last year was Closure Day.
This day, last year i was out with G getting S's jeans altered.
This day, last year i was on the phone trying to figure out if i was going or not going.
This day, last year i was antsy - i needed certainty in my life.
This day, last year i was going to Neverland.
This day, last year i made it through Security Check in one shot and with fingers chewed to apologetic bits of flesh.
This day, last year i didn't want the sun to rise.
This day, last year was the last time.
This day, last year. I want it back.
This day, last year. I don't want it back.
This day, last year i hated him.
This day, last year i loved him.
This day, this year, i still swing between the two extremes.

Nyenhehehehe!

One of the things i love doing is going through other people's FB pages and checking stuff. A tad voyeurish, but hey, if it comes on my News Feed then i'ts worthy of a second look. So anyway, today i was browsing through Up's Notes and came across this link for urbandictionary.com - the place for new-age words with new-age meanings - where you type in your name and the urban meaning for it comes up:
Nabila
A silly, quixotic girl that loves bright colors and laughter. Do not, however, mistake her kindness for weakness because inside, she is a lioness waiting to strike.
Example: I saw this really cute girl fight some broad who was all in her face. She didn't back down or anything. She's so Nabila!
Guess they're talking about me. :)

I see you.

Ever since you've been posted closer home, i've been hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I didn't give any thought to what it would be like to see you again.

Which is why, when i finally caught you saluting somebody and my hand flew to my mouth to stifle the impending gasp that was my reaction, i was surprised. If nothing, this was definitely not i was expecting out of myself when i saw you standing there.

How the last six years have changed you. The last time i saw you, you were up on stage with your new bride, smiling at the cameras, looking at everyone. Everyone except me, that is. Marriage suits you - except for that hint of a paunch, the weight shows that you seem to be experiencing wedded bliss. You're still wearing your glasses. You skin seems to have turned a few shades lighter and rosier. You look happy. And...not spineless. You look like you don't need others to take decisions for you, that you can make decisions on your own and stick by them.

I'm tempted to call you. But maybe that isn't such a great idea. If the changes wrought are so visible physically, i wonder what it could have done to you as a person. And i don't think i'm ready for that, even after all these years. I'm satisfied with the memories i have.

I won i won i won!

Radio One has this CK contest going on for a while now. Today, when i woke up and switched on the radio, the contest was on again. On a whim, i decided to enter it. And even as i was typing the answer to the fill-in-the-blanks "I love my Calvin Klein because...", i instinctively knew i would win. Powerful gut feeling. So anyway, repressing my excitement, i sent the message. I waited out the next five minutes, not moving from where i was sitting on the bed, expecting a phone call any moment from the radio station and afraid that i would miss it if i moved. Sure enough, i got a call: "Hello? Ya hi, this is a call from Radio One. Congratulations, you have won the Calvin Klein Contest. Please hold on while i record your voice to air in five minutes."

Woo hooo! I got a gift voucher of Rs.1,500 from CK! As in, i won it though i still haven't got it in my hands.

Five minutes later, i was on air. I recorded the whole thing, but unfortunately cannot post it here - format issues. A called me up immediately after saying, "Were you on air just now, you cow???" So yeah, i was beaming all day long.

Lesson learnt: Listen to gut feeling more often, it'll only do you good!

My first trip for the year - a King Kong-sized adventure.

Pondicherry. (I believe i am revisiting my past and putting silent ghost-forms to rest. There was Goa last year, and Coorg as well.)

Our journey to the town was disastrous. Do NOT travel by Red Bus. EVER. The service is terrible. Hell on wheels. Death Proof reminiscent - it's like only the driver was safe in his seat, the rest of us were as vulnerable as insects on the highway. They delayed the bus by two hours, then put 60 of us in a rickety six-wheeler, sent us 20 kilometres out of the city to board the bus, caused another half hour of confusion and made us stand on the highway like w****s waiting for truck drivers to pick us up. It was humiliating, infuriating and above all, disgusting. I'm planning to take them to Consumer Court. Or whatever Court it is that will hear me out.

We reached The French Villa at 7 the next morning, all worn out by the drive. Freshened up, ate a hearty Continental breakfast with well-done eggs, toast, butter, jam and fresh fruit. Had another fiasco about renting a bike, walked a lot, put a lot and like good children (for the first time in our lives, i'm sure) went to bed at 8:30 p.m. Oh, and had a super-relaxing foot massage as well. And some good food.

The next day was more fun. We totally took the trip of a couple of guys who'd apparently driven down from Pune to Pondi for the weekend. Apparently, one of them was the guy who provided the bikes for Dhoom 2, while his cousin was in Service Management for Nokia. We were so engrossed in kicking butt that we didn't realise it was time to leave for the bus stop and board our bus back to Bangalore till it was too late. Besides, neither of us were looking forward to the ride back. So we decided to stay in Pondi for the night, and took the bartender - a nerdy 22-year fresh from Hotel Management - out for a couple of drinks on us.

Rode back the next morning with a bunch of really sweet musicians who played at the Freedom Jam the previous night.

Overall, it was quite a trip. For the first time in my travelling history, I:
... abstained from wearing shorts, and wore capris instead. Only because shorts were riding up and Pondi is a bloody lecherous place.
... didn't give a damn about being stared at (whatever little that happened, because B was the focus of all attention). Maybe i've just grown up.
... rode a bike on foreign land, and that too doubles. (Even if it was for half a kilometre because the bike ran out of petrol.)
... spoke to strange Indian men and took their asses.
... took a total stranger (the bartender) out for drinks.
... showed the middle finger to two AHs without worrying about my safety.
... called the bus driver who took us to Pondi all sorts of names without worrying about my safety. Again.
... missed a bus. Intentionally, too.
So it's true, what they say about the New Year Eve setting the pattern for the New Year: i am, indeed, meeting a lot of new people and doing a lot of things i've never done before!

F,

You cared enough to gift me something out of my wishlist - something that i've been dying for - for a loooooong time. Don't ask me why, but i was very touched. It's not often that one finds people doing these things for them, which is why yesterday i was overjoyed, torn between grinning from ear to ear and shedding a tear or two. But tears there have been many in the past, so i settled for the grin. Oh, and thank you for completely killing the urge to give you a hug as well. Fucker.

So anyway, i wore the perfume this morning and it felt...wow. I feel good about myself, and that in itself is an occasion to celebrate because the feeling is rare. Hopefully, this time it will last longer - perhaps even as long as the little blue bottle does!

Thanks for caring yo. It means a lot to me.

B.

(P.S: Would it be too much to expect the big bottle in a couple of months' time? *Grin grin*)

What is it like to be 26? No different than being 25, really.

My birthday happened off. Full, fuller, fullest day. Birthday eve, i had a party thrown for me - you can read about it on my other blog - after which i went to G's place and crashed there. On birthday, i had a relaxed lunch at Toscano, UB City. Then i went to visit A and her little star, from there to Grandma's and then to dinner at A.J. By the end of it, i was ready to collapse like a ton of bricks (i'm both heavy, and unattractive). I did have a surprise waiting for me at home, though - 26 long-stemmed red roses and a box of Ferrero Rocher Chocolates with this tag on it:

Like, okay, i am pretty keen on finding a decent man to have a lasting relationship with, but also pretty pessimistic about finding one. So i was overjoyed when a box of chocolates arrived with the reassuring message of 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' - if there isn't a man, there's always chocolate. (Wait, is Ferrero a man?)

P.S: PK was the one who sent the flowers and chocolates. PK is a woman. She is married and i am straight. It was a gesture of love. Platonic love.

My wishlist for my birthday, pliss.

26 wishes for my 26th.
1. Diamond nosepin.
2. Davidoff Cool Water.
3. A month of drumming lessons. (Wisecracks out there, lay off of this one.) (Conditions apply. Interested parties may contact me for further details.)
4. Jack Johnson / Strings / Moby CDs.
5. A nice black pen (ink only) and beautiful sheets in colours of clotted cream to draw on.
6. A night at a lusciously expensive and luxurious resort.
7. A man. Sensible, fun, and oh yes, hot. Like French Beard, Bald Pate, Lean kind of hot. (I just made it completely impossible to find one.) (Points number 6 & 7 don't go together.)
8. Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.
9. Lemony Snicket's The Lump of Coal and The Beatrice Letters. Please note, while i completely love Blossoms i prefer books that look like they're fresh off the press and not like they've been handled by grubby little (or worse, big) hands.
10. A house of my own. Specifically, a penthouse.
11. A month-long holiday to a place that will give me back my peace of mind.
12. A generous soul to pay my credit card bill every month. (Last month has left me begging on the streets.)
13. A masseuse at my beck and call.

Updates due as and when i think of more.

Tripping on strings.

What-ey. This morning i heard somebody playing Strings, and my mind flipped a switch. It was beautiful listening to songs with melody not just in music but also in the lyrics. Started with "Yeh hai meri kahaani" from Zinda Hoon, one of the most goose-bumpy songs i have ever come across. Then went on to hear Anjaaney, Duur, Dhani, Naa Jaane Kyun, and then to songs from various singers - Chandni Raatein (my theme song from school days when i used to have a crush on my neighbour), Sajna aa bhi ja, Chand sa mukhda (my theme song for school days when i vacationed in Hyderabad and had a huge crush on the guy a lane away whose balcony looked onto ours) and more. And as i hear them, i'm reminded of lovely, lovely days from the past. Days when love was about meeting just a guy and falling for him totally and weaving dreams of marriage around him; days of hide and seek with balcony doors, with songs blared across the street as signals to come out of hiding; days of waiting for him to park his bike in the passage just outside our dining room so we could sneak in a touch or two through the window; days that melted into nights that melted into never-ending sighs that melted into...well, just melted. (Imagine me smiling wistfully at this point.)

So, anyway, beautiful days. Listening to the songs also reminded me of something else, something M - a Swedish designer we met at New Year's - said when we sang songs for her on the way to the after-party. She said that the songs were so intense, so full emotion. It's true. Most songs in the past were, thanks to writers like Gulzar, Javed Akhtar (he used to be good in those days), musicians like Khayyam and more. They brought emotions alive without, you know, trivialising them the way its done these days.

I figure that's probably why we never let go of our past entirely - because it has given us some of the best days of our lives. (Thanks Bryan Adams for that last bit.)

The Man Proves Fatal Already. (Aka The Speedbreaker With DID, aka Happy Birthday R.)

It was supposed to be R's birthday yesterday. Supposed to be, because i thought it was and managed to convince a whole bunch of others about it as well. As a consequence, the surprise we planned for her got buried six feet under; i got abused left, right and centre; R got pissed because it seemed like none of her friends remembered her birthday.

Of course, i was the root cause for all this, and i got punished appropriately as well - i was the victim of an above-average road accident for the first time in...umm, my life i think.

K was the mastermind behind the surprise that was put together for R. We met last night at belly dancing class, finished a con-call and then got to Church Street to buy f&b. From there, we left for R's place to meet up with the rest and try to do damage control to the surprise party we had planned. Close to Prestige Elgin, it struck me that i hadn't told her about the boy. (Oooooh, incidentally, i haven't posted about him; update is, i managed to get in touch with him but he hasn't called back or made any attempt to get in touch).

So while we were talking, we came close to MICO on Adugodi road. Now, this place has a mother of a speedbreaker that's almost always wet with the waste that no matter what, manages to find its way from the naala close by. Such an ideal setting for an accident, one would say. And it was. When our Activa and the Maruti van ahead of us reached the speedbreaker, our actions were almost identical: while the van braked, sped and suddenly braked hard again, we braked, sped and skid.

It was a pretty bad fall, especially for K. Thank God for her helmet and overcoat. Both of us fell on our right side, with K's shoulder taking all the impact while her knee knocked against the asphalt. I scraped my elbow quite badly (it still hurts like a bitch) and injured my wrist (a pain that i noticed only this afternoon). The most damage was done to my chappal - it just snapped - and my jeans - the rivets that hit the road as i did, came off. Plenty of people came to our rescue - a woman even offered to drop us off in her car to our destination. Politely we refused, and like brave knightesses (why isn't there something like that?) we got back onto the bike and rode to R's.

Funny thing is, when the van braked the first time, both of us instinctively knew we were going to get hurt. Falling just before a speedbreaker meant that our heads would've suffered had we hit it. But it also meant that traffic on either side was slow at that point, so we were saved from getting crunched under wheels like gravel. It was almost like the speedbreaker couldn't decide whether it wanted to be good to us or bad. (Must've been created in the month of June, poor thing.) Surprisingly, our clothes weren't dirtied by the muck.

When we got to R's apartment complex, K parked her bike; we both looked at each other and burst out laughing. And it didn't stop there. We got into R's place, where a waiting B, V and P were only shocked that we could be laughing like two madwomen when we had just had a pretty bad accident.

Ice packs were brought forth, Dettol bottles and cotton brandished like instruments of torture, with B and P as our tormentors. An hour later, K still couldn't move her hand so we took her to Sagar Apollo and got an X-ray done. No dislocation, but inflammation of tissues around the bone causing excruciating pain. P and I got her into a sling and got back home to find a very angry R trying to smoke away her fury. We wished her a happy birthday, but she didn't respond. That sort of set the mood for the rest of the evening. Twenty minutes later, we were out of there because R just didn't seem to be interested in responding to our efforts to make everything seem normal. And the accident wasn't so bad, really. Nothing life-changing happened to us - K and i were in one piece, nothing broken.

I rode back with P on his bike at 2 in the morning. Dad was asleep, so this morning i explained my injury with a watered-down version of the accident. While coming to office, he declared, "Take it as an omen, and avoid staying out late from now on."

I don't know about the latter half of his statement, but it sure did seem like an omen: i have now inaugurated my current account with the Demon of Road Accidents.

And so it all comes to an end. Or does it?

It's been a horrible year for me. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Work and personal life wise.

70% of my year was spent looking, feeling, behaving miserably. My personal life hit an all-time low, with me behaving like a c**** the first three months and a devdasi for the next five. My OH consumption hit an all-time high of 1,000 litres for the year. (This is beginning to sound like a mix of stock exchange and weather reports, no?) I feel better now, but death is death no matter what form it comes in, right?

My work life underwent a change in June, and then it just hit rock bottom thereafter. Things only started looking up a couple of weeks back. But the climb upwards is going to be slow, so slow.

There were turbulent marriages all around among family and friends, made me wonder why people get married - and that too, to people they have chosen. And there were lots of visits to the hospital.

The good thing is, i travelled quite a bit. Twice to Mumbai, both trips that didn't give me any peace of mind like i had wanted them to. Twice to Coorg, the best trips of the year - drove down both times, stayed in gorgeous places, lazed around. In short, idyllic. Went to Goa once 'on work', had a blast there as well. Discovered that once i start laughing after i'm high, i don't stop. That was the only time it didn't feel fake. Pit-stopped at Chennai as well, had a nice time there too. And that's that. Watched lots of movies, went out for lots of dinners, lunches, coffees and sessions at HRC. A couple of concerts - Jethro Tull, Boney M - and a lot of book releases - Amitav Ghosh, Patrick French, Kunal Basu et al.

On the last day of this year, i'm looking back and i'm thinking, there were so many things i wanted to do. And i just let time pass by without attempting to do any of them. I feel pathetic about myself.

So my new year resolution is just this: i will make every attempt to be genuinely happy, and find my peace. Wish me luck, y'all.

Aha! Found it!

United by skirts and dresses. Divided by the moral police.

Saturday night was eventful, and not just because i had a goooood time but also because i was at Fuga.

Ignorants may ask what the big deal about that is. Not much, except that in the middle of the partying, the place was cordoned off by some activists who believed immoral acts were going on inside, and even had the bravado to lock everybody in. A pretty potent experience for someone who's been to the place for the first time.

We reached Fuga at 8:30 p.m to celebrate H's last week of singlehood. She was super excited about getting married (a rare feeling among to-be-married-soon couples these days), and we were super excited about throwing her a super party before that. Hence the venue - it was the hippest place in town with no restrictions on music or dancing. I've had friends go there week after week to party, emerge blown out of their skulls but also emotionally (and physically) intact. Therefore, the happening on Saturday was a complete shock.

Twenty minutes after getting onto the dance floor, the music was switched off. The DJ left us with a mysterious one-liner: "You know why guys..." Dejected, we went back to our places. Ten minutes later, the DJ calls us back on the dance floor and we gyrate. Ten minutes later, lights are shut off and everything is engulfed in the gloom of darkness and quietude. Figuring out that things are not going to go anywhere at this point, we decide to leave. And that's when we discover the problem.

Some Kannada Sangha guys had locked us in, screaming slogans on restoring the purity of the culture/down with Westernisation etc/the usual stuff. Skirted and shorted birdies went oooh and aaaah inside, while some dumbass firangs and Iranians kept hooting their asses off without fully comprehending the seriousness of the situation. Most women were freaked because they had a) lied at home about coming out partying and b) didn't know what torture was awaiting the free spiritedness that showed in their clothes. Apparently, Athena had a similar attack where the women dressed in 'extreme' Western attire were undressed so as to leave nothing to the imagination and put through more humiliation of the sort. And my, my, were the skirts short and the dresses flouncy that night. Obviously the wearers were going to be terrified.

Stranded inside for close to an hour, the alcohol flowed for the unaffected, the smoke swirled over the stressed and phones rang for the loved. At least two break-ups also happened because guys abandoned girlfriends to take care of themselves. Tch tch.

We stood in the corridor, where the glass floor was reflected by red lights underneath it - an attractive sight when you're out partying but not in the face of jobless activists to whom the lighting would only add a cheap filter to view the people stuck inside through. And they did make full use of it - when the doors were opened, in walked the cops in full uniform. Followed by media - cameras glaring into our faces, tapes rolling, hungrily searching the area for shortest skirts and most transparent dresses. C covered up R and S as soon as he saw the media because he wanted to save them the embarassment of getting caught on camera. And guess what? The camera found its way to C's crotch, squeezed into the little gap in between and SNAP!, the brilliant photographer just had a winner worthy of the Pulitzer that he could comfortably title "A young man engaging in un-public activities caught on camera by photographer XYZ."

I've never seen so many cops in one place, and all of them pinning you down with accusing eyes. And that too despite wearing full-length jeans and a full sleeve top with an almost-closed boat neck. R was shivering by the time she got out; H and her sis-in-law were laughing their guts out because they had looked right into the video camera and waved happily; S was worried about her friend's car that she had driven that night; the men were just focussed on getting the women away from the picture.

It's one thing that we went to H's place after and sanitised ourselves against the situation by resuming the party where it had broken off. And it's another to actually go out with the intention of having a good time with friends and come back with a bad taste in the mouth. One that takes its own sweet time to go away, like a hangover.

(P.S: I've tried every means to get some sort of coverage on the incident over the Internet and have had no luck so far. Generous souls are welcome to post links if they come across something.)

In which i have nothing to say.

...

Vices of the visceral.

The sort of visceral i'm talking about is the second in the series of meanings from the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, namely 'not intellectual'.

I'll tell you what i'm talking about. The lame comments people leave on posts that deal with the recent Mumbai attacks. Take for instance, a post by a Muslim youth who sort of decides to come out in the open about his name and his religious identity. One who also talks very strongly about how these so called jihaadi acts are anything but jihaad, and are doing more damage than good.

Out of the 30 odd comments the post generated, at least 75% of them say "Nice post" or "Wow! Great post!". Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, but if that's your way of appreciating blog content that deals with serious issues, i suggest you take a print-out of the same and shove it up. Such posts don't for the life of them strive to be nice. What they do try to do is share the author's angst, frustration and call for action with readers. What, pray tell, is 'nice' about it? If somebody had to walk up to you and say, "I'm so frustrated with the way your girlfriend's been whoring around man, it's time to do something about this whole high-society prostitution business" or some shit like that, would you still go "Wow!"?

The there's the Bearded Guy From Chen-eye, who talks about yellow journalism and the most-irritating branding of the attacks as the 9/11 of India. While i personally am astounded by the media's shortsightedness at comparing something as massive and shocking as 9/11 with what happened in Mumbai, some others felt the following:
"Hi, I’m a regular reader of your blog… nothing but admiration, appreciation etc. for you and your writing…AMAZING. However, here’s a first, a typo! In your blog! “hold” up instead of “holed” up!"

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Gaaah. I'm not really a socially (culturally, geographically and all other -ally) sensitive soul, but this form of inane shit-shat thoroughly pisses me off. Pah. If you got nothing worth anybody's salt to share bimbettes (yeah, that goes for the men too), zip it. Zip all of it. Really. The world can do without more idiocy than there is already.

To Salman Khan with love.

Dear Salman,

The next time you decide to shoot black bucks, take this piece of advice: visit Nagarhole and kill the deer instead.

No, no, i'm not trying to play devil's advocate here! If you hear me out, chances are you will feel the same about it when i finish.

The thing is this, Salman. We went to Coorg in August, my friends and I. And we chose to take the Nagarhole route because we thought we would get lucky and perhaps see a lion roar us senseless. So we entered the gates of Nagarhole in great excitement, fingers crossed and baited breath. A little into the forest, we thought we saw something big and golden move but we couldn't be sure, when suddenly as the car ambled on we came upon a family of golden sunshiny deer! Beautiful creatures, them. Sigh. It was an absolutely pleasant sight. Their black spots shining in the sun, their coats glistening with good health and natural, un-organic-rendered grass, they ate in all their glory. We went berserk taking pictures. The younger ones got scared and scooted, and poor Mommy deer had to drop her poses and scoot after the young ones lest they get eaten up by the carnivores. The Papa deer, though, stayed on and continued posing for us.

So excited we were, Salman, that we thought we would never see such a magnificent sight in our lives ever again!

But we were wrong. We saw the same again. And again. And again and again and again till we got sick of the bloody deer.

They were all over the place! In front of houses, crossing the road, insolently munching on grass everywhere! Even when they weren't around, i was seeing them, there were so many! It made me wonder if the carnivores had converted to vegetarianism. How else would one explain the abundance of these creatures, unless you're telling me they're far cousins of rabbits and therefore breed like crazy?

On the way back from Coorg as well, we saw hordes of them. I don't know about the others, but i wanted to shoot them right there! Then i thought, why not get somebody who's already an expert at shooting?

And so, Salman, i am appealing to you. Please do something about these...these...these pests. If you need help, just call. I know somebody who knows somebody who works in the forest department. (It can all be arranged.) For all you know, even the authorities won't arrest you because they must be sick of the deer too.

With all due respect,

Nabila.

When the 'Kabab mein haddi' became a Kabab.

S, G and I went to Coorg this weekend. And everybody i told this about, before and after the trip, came back with the same retort - "Oh, kabab mein haddi haaan?"

Little wonder, i was completely pissed off. But momentarily, because if they wanted to be left alone, they would have kept quiet about it and not called me at all. So anyway, after momentary pissedness, i ran home, packed my bags and went over to stay at their place so we could leave at 5 in the morning to Bamboo Loft, our home stay in Coorg. (Note be, their apartment has THREE bedrooms, so i slept in one of them while they slept in the other. So stop clicking your tongues. Hmph.)

Our drive to Coorg in G and S's new Alto was pleasant and short, if one can call it that. The estate owner of Bamboo Loft had given us directions for the shortest route from Bangalore to his place, so we ended up saving at least two hours of travel. Despite stopping for breakfast and lunch - each a comfortable 45 minutes - and for a bit of picture-taking, we reached Bamboo Loft by 12:30 in the afternoon.

I can best describe the home stay in one word: breath-taking. The entire structure, the rooms where we were staying, was made of bamboo and was on an elevation. Sky lights dotted the roof which was draped in stacks of hay, a bit of order in its disorder. The beds were super-comfortable, the pillows supersoft and the room basic but clean. Big windows gave us a view of endless coffee plantations doused in mist and resplendent with bird songs and chirping crickets. Needless to say, the setting was completely romantic. So i decided to veto the original plan of me sharing room with G and S, and moved out into one of my own. A wall away from theirs, but still, it wasn't the same room so i was happy.

Most often, when i'm in a new place, i'm terrified of closing my eyes because i think the shadows will come alive and by morning i'll be dead as a stone. This time round, the initial fear gave way to peace. Absolute, smiling peace. I was lulled to sleep by the cicadas and the moonlight streaming in from the sky lights. It's a different thing that i almost froze to death because of the cold, but my sleep otherwise was restful. To illustrate, G woke me up at 6:45 the next morning and i was up without a second though and out in the freezing cold to watch the mist lift from around the home stay.

The morning was white. One couldn't see beyond a 100 metres because the mist had enveloped everything. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't very cold.

Post breakfast, which was a grand affair of Puri palya, honey, butter, jam, bread, scrambled eggs and tea, we set out to Dubare Elephant Camp, cracking bad ones all the way - Dubaare aa gaye Dubare par, Dubaare mat poochna etc. From there, we headed back to the Bamboo Loft, finished lunch and hit the Golden Temple. Once again, i was overwhelmed with the place. Rows of monks in maroon robes chanted prayers while two more blew into gigantic horns, creating a somewhat trance-like setting. We also caught some interesting sights - a little monk-boy showing the middle finger to his companion and running away, another singing a flirty Hindi song while walking past us, and so on and so forth. After an hour or so, we headed back towards Bangalore, taking a longer route this time by default.

I hated leaving Coorg so early. Wanted desperately to spend a few more nights at Bamboo Loft and soak in the silence of the place. Back in the city the feeling just grew stronger, what with the traffic and pollution and shit. If i had a choice, i would make enough money and go stay there for as long as possible.

And yes, i'll make sure i have a man of my own then.

Hayeellllp!

I am unable, and i mean UNABLE, to crack bad ones! I can't make puns, leave alone sad PJs! From yesterday, J has been bombarding me with one-liners and phrases. I sit here and take it all, without responding to a single one in the same vein because... because my brain CAN'T THINK OF ANY! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! This cannot be happening to me! It might be a phase, but it can't be here! It's not a part of my life! I'm not a bloody residential complex to have phases like these!

Wait a minute, does that last sentence qualify as a bad joke?

Urhhh hmmm ahem.

So... (my neckline seems to be too tight suddenly)

I don't know what prompted me to go through my mails again, but i found one. THE one. And, umm, well... i don't know how i managed to write it. My ears are a bright red, and so is my face. I am, to put it simply, quite embarassed.

The humiliation doesn't stop there. Oh no no no. When have i ever let myself be in peace? No siree, i have to skim through the mail. And my first reaction is... laughter. I'm laughing, thinking what an idiot i must have been. The whole thing is so Mills & Boons-y, and for some reason i never saw it that way at that point. Oh my god, i want to bury my head somewhere and not emerge into the open again.

Shit, i was such a d*** ***d. It's not any consolation that everybody in love is supposed to be one. Hmph. I'm quite tempted to delete this documentation of my idiot-in-love days.

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.