Le Chef.

The Writer (W) in conversation with The Basboobah (B) on her highly combustible weekend. (Because she cooked on Gas.)

W: So, Restricted Entry heard about your cooking frenzy this weekend B.
B: Yes, well. Sometimes the domesticated me rears her head and wants to do extremely domestic things. Since cooking is the least effortless of the lot - when compared to folding the hordes of clothes tucked into every orifice of the house i live in, or dusting everything - this seems easy peasy. Besides, i was cooking at a friend's place, which meant that i wouldn't have to clean up after my cooking. (Snickers.)

W: What did you cook, and how long did it take you?
B: (Thinking) Let's see now... i made Dal, Ghee Rice and Stuffed Capsicum on Friday night, my trademark Maggi on Saturday morning, and Chicken Curry on Sunday afternoon. Yes, that's about it.

W: Trademark Maggi! That's interesting. Any chances you'll be seen on the Maggi pack soon?
B: (Tinkling laughter): Oh no no no. I'm above all that. Although i might strike a deal with them and get a trademark masala made... perhaps earn some royalty and stuff you know...

W: Why, you don't plan to get married? You deprive a very lucky man of a lot of happiness if you don't.
B: (Laughing out loud) Trust me, i'm giving some man a lot of happiness if i don't get married to him. Although my friend's husband, when he tasted the food i had made on Friday night, immediately began to think of all the eligible men he knew that he could set me up with. His logic was slightly similar to yours: why deprive a man of good food? (Laughing loudly) Men, i tell you. Such chauvinists.

W: So you're pretty good at cooking, huh?
B: Well, i'll pass. I guess i could safely say that there are some things that i'm pretty good at, and some that i'm a novice of sorts at.

W: So what are you good at?
B: The basics - eggs, rice, daal, vegetables, curries. I'm still coming to terms with Biryanis and Pastas.

W: That pretty much covers everything, doesn't it?
B: Not unless you're talking about my clothes! (Laughs out boisterously.)

W: Err, umm, he he. Well, it was a pleasure chatting with you B.
B: The pleasure's all mine, hon. (Winking.)

You know what's funny, F?

That you called me a close friend, and then vanished when you knew about the crush. It was a crush for heaven's sake, not love! And i haven't even been crushy about you for a bloody long time now. Dayem, mister, you got some serious misconceptions nursing themselves in your head! Oh, and if you're still holding the grudge of me calling you a cradle snatcher, then it was meant to be as serious as you calling me a Paedophile a long time back. So that sort of makes us even now.

But that's not the point. The point is, you vanished. And that makes me feel like shit, you know. Like i was never really as close a friend as you made me out to be and all that. Ignore. That's what you've done.

And i'm cool with that - it was a choice you made, not me. Makes me respect you a little less, but what the hell. It's not like it makes any difference to my life or yours.

Bad Directions Day.

Yesterday was terrible. I screwed up miserably on directions not once, but thrice in less than five hours. For the first time ever.

It began with my going to K's place for the evening (after sleeping the whole day because i worked like a dog over the weekend till 11 on Monday morning), and got the autowallah to turn at the wrong left. Where i was really close to her place, the wrong turn took me really far away from it.

Much later when it was time to head home, we called for a cab. (By the way, what is it with all these guys? They're fine the first couple of years and then just deteriorate.) So call comes from Cab No. 1, asking for directions. Half an hour. That's how long we kept directing him to the place. He got thoroughly lost on his own, then got to a place and asked us to walk it there. K lost it then. She yelled and yelled at the guy, and we cancelled the cab. B called another cab, and that one too, we kept giving directions to for at least 20 minutes. He managed to make it to K's home, though.

I think i must have been affected by lack of sleep for the directions to have been so bad. And it must've been a serious lack of it, because it's never happened before. Ever.

By the way, have i confessed how much i like Jezebel by Sade?

That's not quite what i meant.

Last Friday night.

G: So, what's happening on the love front?
Me (getting into the mood with a dialogue i was long waiting to try on her): See, it's like this. I'm like this fertile field and...
G (before i could finish): ...and nobody's sowing? (And there follow raucous laughter.)
Me (disgusted): Eeeyuuuuuu. That wasn't what i was going to say at all.

The damage was done, though. I have removed the dialogue from my Encyclopaedia of Witty One Liners altogther.

A movie marathon weekend.

It started late Friday night with The Reader and went right on through Sunday. Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes were followed by Remy Girard and his troupe of mistresses n' friends in Les Invasions Barbares (Invasion of the Barbarians). Sleep knocked at the doorstep of our eyes only at 6 in the morning. Day dawned at 12 in the afternoon, and was soon washed down with finger-licking Ajwain parathas and Egg curry. A crazy game of table hand ball came after, and then i went over to grandma's. Watched Things We Lost In The Fire on Star Movies that night, followed by another movie, the name of which i don't recall.

Kept Dad company on Sunday as he watched Namastey London. And then channel surfed into Nigella Lawson's kitchen, Samantha Brown's hotel rooms as she took a trip across London, peeped in on Benicio Del Toro to see what he was up to. Started reading Love In The Times Of Cholera, not sure if i can keep up reading prose like this any more. Seems like my days of Classics are drawing to an end. Worked a little, slept a little. Put my culinary skills to use by churning out colourful pasta and some cheesy, herby white sauce. Picked up clothes from Peter England for an uncle, paid my credit card bills, made a couple of long-pending phone calls... and felt good about myself.

Gosh, i love being domestic.

Alright then.

Dear God,

So, you've had your joke. Now can i please have my old self back?

Yours sincerely,
Me.

On what i could safely call a relaxed weekend.

After having worked all these years, i figure that Saturday and Sunday have been redefined for me - any weekend that does not involve work is a relaxed weekend. Even if it means that i end up doing long-pending personal chores. Which i didn't this weekend; rather, i ended up doing some good reading and movie-watching.

Let's call the book reading a Neil Gaiman Dash. Late Friday night, i finished American Gods and then got on to Anansi Boys. Somewhere in the middle of the latter, i figured that i knew who Anansi was because i had a storybook on the spider in my childhood days. Surprising for one so petrified of the Arachnids, but there you go. And i also distinctly remember being besotted with reading the story again and again. So that memory somehow brought the book closer to me. Good reads, both. Anansi Boys more so, because it does have its dose of humour and (Forgive me Mister Gaiman) chick-flickness. The problem though, is that if you've just finished reading a book of his like American Gods, it gets a little hard to shift gear (see, i'm finally driving) and see him in the sort of light that Anansi Boys is cast in. (In short, it's a little difficult to not take Anansi Boys as another piece of sci-fi mind boggler, even if it is more to do with mythology and stuff.)

Then, when i was done with the two, i flipped over to something flippant like a floosy Mills & Boons about a filthy rich female forlorn in a ferocious forest full of furry grizzlies, and how she finds someone frikking hottie in the middle of nowhere to take her under his roof. That done, i got bored and switched over to television.

I managed to catch the last bits of Sweet Home Alabama and caught sight of the extremely good-looking Josh Lucas. Ooooh, he's hot. Then i watched Juno. Nice movie, although i don't see why everybody was raving about it so much. I mean, yeah, it would have been melodramatic if they had shown Juno's parents hitting her and cursing her and asking God to take her away - or her walking in the rain and trying to kill herself and all that - typical Bollywood style, but then underplaying all of that so much just killed the reality of it for me.

Oh, and then on Saturday night N and I braved the mall crowds to go watch a movie in a theatre (because i haven't been to one in the longest time), only to find that we had:
a) Missed a show by half an hour
b) No movie screening for the next one and a half hours or
c) No movie screening for the next one and a half hours that we wanted to watch.
So quietly, we went to Allianz and had some terrible Ginger Tea, saw a very average Photography Exhibition and then headed home to pick up DVDs so we could watch anything we wanted.

We watched Choke. And we almost choked ourselves to death. I also sort of arrived at certain conclusions about Chuck Palahniuk and his writing: he's like Whiskey - you need to develop a taste for it before you can enjoy it, and i certainly haven't reached the enjoyment stage with either. As for his writing, well, i found it easier to watch the book-turned-movie first and then read his movie-turned-book. It increases comprehension levels about what he's saying, greatly. (Or maybe i'm the only loser that thinks this way.) Which doesn't go to say that i read Choke - no Siree, i didn't. Like reading an M&B, i let my eyes rove over the juicy parts and skim through the rest. And what i roved over, i didn't like. So obviously i missed the whole story (unlike an M&B).

So yeah, this weekend like i said was pretty chilled out. No stress. No commotion. A little heartburn, but that i can live with. Four more days of this sort of chilledness and i would have started-finished Shantaram. A book that i have been preciously saving up for the last two years so it can be perfect beachbum fodder when i take that extended vacation to an under-populated beach with gently swaying palm trees and clear blue waters that are not too deep.

Ah... i can taste the sea on my tongue already.

Now who might this good-looking woman be?

And at the insistence of dear F, who is THIS not-so-bad-looking babe?

(P.S: I put up the first picture cause that is what i was wearing to office today - cool-looking Genie pants and a short Black kurti. Paired up with chunky midnight blue earrings that are hardly visible, like my face.)

Kodai ke naal holiday sholiday.

Kodaikanal does not disappoint. No matter how much you expect of the place, it invariably proves to be even more beautiful. And this i say after holidaying there just once.

Four days of idyllic chilling, reading, rains, sunshine and skies that change colour every other hour. Lush pine forests, mushrooms, chirping birds, cicadas, waterfalls, soothing breezes, piping hot idlis served at 7 in the misty morning, wooden benches overlooking a deep valley playing hide and seek in the sun, amblings down Coaker's Walk, a lake festooned with water lillies, colourful flowers, the warmth of a fireplace fragrant with burning pine cones - this is what my days were filled with.


Many thanks to my personal vacation planner for organising the trip, and to my workmates who made it possible for me to take this holiday with my parents. Now i have the consolation that i spent some quality time with them, even if there were moments of psychological fatigue involved.

Pictures will be up soon. Almost all 450 of them.

Here i go again...not on my own, though.

It's time for a long overdue trip. A teensy weensy holiday with my parents, the first in over 10 years.

The destination: Kodaikanal. Ever-organised mom has all her bags as well as dad's packed. I need to go back and finish mine. The camera: Nikon D40 DigiSLR.

Four days away from the office. With a beautiful place full of scenic settings, and a Nikon camera to boot. What bliss.

27 Dresses and Once.

Last weekend, i watched three wonderful movies. Feast of Love starring Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear and Etcetras; 27 Dresses starring James Marsden, Bridesmaid Heroine and Etcetras; and Once, starring singers/composers/musicians/actors Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. The latter two are what i want to talk about. Rather, touch briefly upon.

27 Dresses, a story about a woman who's been a bridesmaid 27 times, but never a bride. Till she meets (ta dah!) Mister Hot Commitments-Column Writer. Fairly chick-flicky, but so well-made, so witty and so... everyday. I like the way they've kept it real - except for the happy ending, but even that is nicely done. The lead actress - i forget her name - has done a pretty good job. James Marsden, sigh. They don't make specimens like him this side of the globe, i'm sorry to say.

Once, on the other hand, was what would typically be classified as an Art Film. But that again was so real, so everyday and so normal. I like movies of this kind, i figured. This one, Breaking & Entering, Chungking Express... i like the way they use stories of random people meeting out of the blue, experiencing some explosive chemistry and then falling back into patterns of normal life, the encounters vivid only in their memories. And again, i understood why it is that some people make the choice of giving up new-found love over an established one.

And by the way, i'm looking quite desperately for the soundtrack of Once. There's something so melancholy yet beautiful about those soundtracks. I'd really like to have them, to listen to anytime i want.

Is it okay to be ashamed of your friends? Because i am. Of some of them.

I never thought i'd have the kind of friends everybody thought to be evil. I always thought i was on the other side of the line. I was wrong.

Weapons of Destruction. Episode 1: Restless.

This is going to be the ride where things will change between me and Roy, thought Anjali smugly. Vivacious and overbearing, she thought she had her boyfriend right where she wanted him. Today, she was going to tempt him, tantalise him a little: much like those other women riding with their boyfriends on bikes and strategically placing their hands just above boiling point. Yep, she was going to teach those women a thing or two about how to play these games.

Unfortunately, Fate had other plans for her.

Anjali was travelling with her boyfriend on his bike, long straight hair flying in the wind, arms around his waist - maybe even a little lower - when it came and struck her like a whiplash. "Yow!", screamed Anjali, as her insensitive boyfriend kept riding on, mistaking her howl of dismay and pain as pleasure. (But then, isn't that what men usually think anyway?) Vroom vroom! the bike went, and Anjali flailed her hands to and fro, losing her grip on the nether regions of her boyfriend in an attempt to save herself.

Fuck, muttered Anjali under her breath. Fuck, fuck, fuck. For, had she known that her own long strands of Sunsilked hair were going to turn against her so brutally in the wind, she would have come prepared to battle them. With a scrunchie. As luck would have it, though, there was nothing to curtail their free sway.

Who could blame her hair though? Poor things, when they got out of home, they were calm and cocooned on Anjali's scar-free back. They were alright till her stupid boyfriend started riding into the wind. Gusts started teasing the hair - and really, they're quite peaceful beings, these hair; what can they do though if somebody needles them endlessly? - and so they retaliated by spreading their tentacles and slicing the wind into atoms of non-existence. The more stupid ones flew aimlessly around and just got tangled up with each other. One strand, though, went flying like the bullets in The Matrix, straight at the wispy wind lurking at the corner of Anjali's eye, missed by a hair's breadth and poked her where it hurt most - her retina.

Anjali's eye started watering immediately, and she tried to push back the strand of hair. But oh no, this was no ordinary strand. This one had been awarded 'The Long and Strong' title by the Royal Heirs of the Keratin Kingdom, and was bestowed with exceptional powers of resilience in the face of adversity. So it stood its ground (or rather, flew it) and dealt merciless blows to the wisp of wind that sniggered at it from the other corner of Anjali's eye.

Anjali kept screaming, but she couldn't very well pull her hair out of her scalp - that would hurt even more. Even her attempts to restrain the sliky-smooth buggers were in vain - they were not short enough to scrunch up and hold on to, or long enough to tie into a resplendent bun. So she just kept screaming as her boyfriend just kept zipping, grinning from ear to ear.

Her eye throbbed, but she held on. It turned blood red and teared up while she silently hoped that the idiot at the handles would slow down. This was so not going the way she had intended it to.

Unable to bear the injury any longer - an injury now suffered more by her pride than at having her hair flung at her eyes - Anjali dug her nails so deep into her boyfriend's back that he howled in dismay and braked the bike so hard, that she flew above him and landed at the front wheel. Of course, in the process her heel caught at her boyfriend's eye, and he toppled off the bike as well, yelping in pain. All in all, it wouldn't have been a serious accident if it wasn't for the speed with which this entire sequence took place.

People thronged all around them, a press van materialised out of nowhere, and the accident made it to the 3 o clock (as well as the rest of the day's) Breaking News on TV9. Anjali's parents - avid Jai Karnataka supporters and 24/7 watchers of the TV9 news - found out what she was up to, put her under house arrest and got her married to a strange looking man with lots of money within the next three months. Anjali was not too happy with the outcome, but the money more than made up for everything else. Besides, what was her Gym Instructor for, if not to indulge in extra-curricular activities with?

As for her hair, she shaved it all off out of spite, and wore a bouffant wig thereafter. Her hair were not too sad - they did what they had to, in the line of duty. If it meant that they had wreaked havoc in Anjali's life, so be it. After all, with great victory comes great loss.

Nothing makes you regret being single like the rain does.

It's pouring here in Bangalore. Almost like the clouds have been holding a full bladder for a decade and finally decided to let go.

And i'm single.

I mean, really. This is pure long-drive-out-of-town, get-wet-in-the-rain-with-someone, get-cosy-and-lovey dovey kind of weather. And i'm single. Great.

So i went. And i downed my sorrows. At a place called, get this, Couch.

Nope, this is not a good day for single me. Not at all.

Coming up: A new post series...

... called Weapons of Destruction.

Much as i would have liked to post my first in the series right now, i have way too much work to let this distract me. Will be here in the next couple of days, for sure. Here's something to keep you looking forward to it, though:

Anjali was travelling with her boyfriend on his bike, long straight hair flying in the wind, arms around his waist - maybe even a little lower, when it came and struck her like a whiplash. "Yow!", screamed Anjali, as her insensitive boyfriend kept riding on, mistaking her howl of dismay and pain as pleasure. (But then, isn't that what men usually think anyway?)

To be continued...

Free Radical.

It entered within, i know not how.
It wiggles here and there, then and now.
Bites into my flesh, sets my cells on fire.
Unleashes its dissatisfaction, makes it my need, my desire.
Possessed become I, infested by an unquenchable pain.
Here I am, restless for something rebellious again.

"Kill Me" for the day.

Q:
What do military men grow on their farms?
A:
Grain aids.

UNO? Oh, i didn't know!

Facebook has this new application right. I mean, it might be new to me because i've seen it just like, a week ago. It's online UNO, and it's darn fascinating because the invisible powers that be randomly choose three people from random places on the map who happen to be on FB and put them together to play UNO with you. There's a chat window on the side for the players to communicate with each other if they like. So one minute you're in your chair and the next, you're globetrotting, exchanging hellos with perfect strangers from obscure (and not so obscure) places. I find the whole thing extremely cool.

So the first time i played, i had an Egyptian (a very good looking one at that) as one of the players. I don't know, maybe he thought it was a good forum to get chummy with a stranger and ask them their age as icebreaker. My instinctive response was to chat back saying "Shove it". Then good sense prevailed and i gave him a smart one: "Old enough to play UNO." That got a few laughs from the others.

Then i met another guy from Jordan. And this conversation, i have to, have to paste here. (The names have been changed, just in case. Everything else is just the way it happened.)
Mister Jordan: hi everybody
Miss Vietnam: hey
Lousy Mary, i have no idea from where: hi gl :)
Mister Jordan: nice to meet u both
Mister Jordan: ;)
Me: hello
Mister Jordan: and u too OK
Mister Jordan: where u all live
Miss Vietnam: vietnam. and u?
Me: i'm an indian
Mister Jordan: JORDON
Mister Jordan: nabila so u are hindu
Me: nope
Mister Jordan: muslim
Me: yep
Mister Jordan: i live in jordon but it doesnt matter whetter i am a muslim
Mister Jordan: nabila
Me: yeah, so why the assumption that i was a hindu? just because i'm from india?
Me: :)
Mister Jordan: yes
Mister Jordan: ;)
Me: ah.
Mister Jordan: u live in bombay or in calctta
Me: no
Me: there are other places apart from that
Me: like bangalore
Mister Jordan: nabila
Me: or chennai
Miss Vietnam: or trivandrum
Me: absolutely! thank you!
Me: :)
Mister Jordan: so where do u live
Me: bangalore
Mister Jordan: oh

And that was that, he didn't chat after the "Oh". It was amusing, but irritating at the same time. I mean, what rationale did he use to come up with my religious identity? How does it even matter when you're playing a game of UNO? Dork.

Some day i'm going to make all of you stand in a line...

... under enormous spotlights, and ask you the questions you would have dreaded all your life:
Why did you do it to me? Why was it so easy for you? Why did it have to be me that you got selfish with and decided to forsake? Was i not worth any effort at all?

And then i'm going to cry. Like a banshee. Just to show you how terribly you broke my heart, and carried parts of it when you all went away, leaving me incomplete.

Gibberish.

Blah blah urk ick eeyugh mwah sssss meow wooff woof aaaarrrrrr ah ah ah khaak ptuii urp ugh hic hic hic hic hic hic hic hic eenhaaw eenhaaw.

Bleagh burrr bvak feeeeeeee blink blink blink blink flip flop hmm mmm mmm hmmm mmmm la la la la la la.

Sip sip slurp slurp gluglugluglugluglugluggggg! Aaaaah! Shake shake ha ha ha ha, mmmf pffffft prrrrrrr!

Ummm....drrrr drrrrr zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...