I'm not the anal girlfriend types but...

...it's been a month and 10 days since we've been dating (dayem, i used the 'd' word!). And of course it's more than just that now. I'm happy, comfortable, excited but also anxious and perhaps, a little worried at the same time. Boy's gone away visiting sister for two weeks, and i'm here trying to be all everything's-alright kind of normal. Like hell it is! Why is it that i don't feel like staying away from him for too long? Isn't it demented behaviour? And why is it that despite all the happy feelings, there's still this fear gnawing at my core telling me things i don't want to hear? Things like, "This is too good to last" or in worse moments, "This is more than you deserve". Umm, excuse me but, exactly what have i done to not deserve this?

We'll have less than a week after he comes back from London to, well, talk about things. Although i don't quite know what we're going to discuss. Left unsaid, it's all so much nicer.

Irony: Emotional Atyachaar on my speakers.

If i could freeze time...

...I would crystallise the last couple of weeks and preserve them for eternity. I'm so alright with the way things are going, it's scary. This kind of peace is almost asking for trouble to happen. (Yes, i'm being fatalistic.)

I had the most awesomest weekend. And i want it to be mine, just mine. Well okay, mine and his. :)

Goaaaaaaa.

A seafacing room with the beach a stone's throw away.
Lots and lots of Breezers, KFs and rolling.
Plenty of sleep.
The reluctance to get out of bed when there was an option to stay in and laze.
Yummy cheese tomato sandwiches. (By the way BJM, if you ever happen to read this, you realise we hardly had any Goan food? Pathetic, we were.)
An all night party with a 5 a.m hello to the beach at Baga.
Conversations, some pointless and some sensible. A little too sensible even.
A sleeper bus journey with the curtains constantly flying.
Dancing.
The coolness of the sea against warm skin.
Changing colours of the sky, and rain soaked greenery.
Three days just weren't enough.

Note to self.

I really must stop stuffing my face with murukku, samosas and banana chips first thing in the morning.

Let the party begin!

Friday night. I go out with ze boy for dinner, stuff my face, he drops me off at G's. I meet R and, too tired to stay awake, quickly go crash. 3 in the morning, my phone rings. R's calling. But why would he call me from the living room unless it was an emergency?

It was - he wanted me to jump out of bed and go join him at the dining table for some cuppas. And when i didn't do his bidding, he came into the room and dragged me out of bed. Some friends, i tell you.

Saturday dawned way too early thanks to a recording. Finished that and went for a relaxed breakfast at Zoe's. Then went home, packed clothes for the party and the next day, then rushed to G's place. Helped S with a couple of things and before heading out to shop with G.

Conned her into staying out till 7:45 and then had to take her back home for the party. By God, she was surprised. Completely. And the party was awesome, not just because everything fell into place so perfectly but also because i've never been complimented so much on the way i look! Black dress with a drop neck, black stilletoes, black chain and pearl earrings. Basically, i sizzled. Looking forward to having the same effect in Goa.

Sunday was very peaceful. Family day gave way to lots of sleepiness which gave way to conversation with ze boy for two and a half hours in the middle of the night when he was drunk and stoned out of his skull in the misty Coorg morning.

Went back to sleep with the sound of rain in my heart and a smile on my lips. Definitely helped me wake up all cheerful and happy this Monday morning.

Sigh. Life is good.

(P.S: Yeah, the writing doesn't do any justice to the weekend, but bear with me. These days i don't much feel like doing my job.)

Thoughts this morning.

How the hell am i managing to stay up with just 2 hours of sleep?
I'd never fogged up car windows before yesterday.
T-bone steaks are dead meat. I happen to be alive and kicking.
Oh.My.God.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven...
Thank God for long hair.
Mysore Road is a nice drive from the city.
I really need to get some work done today.
I can't wait for the day to end.
The Hangover is funnier when you watch it a second time in the theatre.

Been living a dream lately.

It started last Thursday evening, the meeting after 18 years, at Hard Rock Cafe. Spilled over to Friday with a looooong lunch at Cafe Oakwood, UB City. Weekend was a break, but still managed to stay in touch. Monday was maaaaaad, what with meeting for coffee and then deciding to meet again late night for dinner and OH, crazy throwing up of T-shots on an empty stomach in the company of girlfriends, half-an-hour long road mapping for the directionally-challenged half-australian half-bangalorean, a relaxed early morning breakfast (2 a.m is not the best time for French Toast) at Memories Of China with many golden chains-clad Member of the Underground at the next table promising to do something about someone's girlfriend in Toronto, a very charged cab ride back and weirdass messages thereafter.

Somebody needs to remind me not to drink coffee in the evenings. In fact, not to drink coffee at all. My body functions go all wonky and i end up being restless, supercharged and sleepless for close to half the night. The atmosphere in the cab only aggravated the condition.

I feel good chemistry. It's a rare, heady feeling and i intend to enjoy it to the fullest.

I R Old.

So, i was browsing through a blog today when i read of the Golden Quill Award for something like 'excellence in writing'. I went to the site to check it out, and oh my god for heaven's sake what the fish do i see but a copy of Kkrishnaa's Konfessions in the list of must-read books! I R appalled! What the freak has writing books come down to if some average nitwit gets away with crap writing and getting to the top of a must-read list, even if the list belongs to a maybe-not-so-popular awards page? No offense meant to the author with regard to the story - she has something unique there - but her writing SUCKS. Big time.

A writer, in case the world has forgotten and needs reminding, is not somebody who can string a sentence together and make a story out of several such sentences. NO. A writer is someone who can string several sentences together artfully, craft each sentence to evoke a reaction from the readers (okay, maybe not each sentence, especially if you're a Gabriel Garcia or Tolstoy kind of writer because then it'll be an overkill), and uses his/her skill of language to weave a wonderful, fascinating story.

Then i figured, most writing these days doesn't really follow that pattern. That style belongs to the veterans - the Amitav Ghoshes, Naipauls and R.K. Narayans of the world. So then are we really devalueing their skill and mastery by letting pieces of trash get away with publishing? Freedom of Speech and Opinion apart, why would anybody want to be an author known for his/her average writing? Even Chetan Bhagat - maybe he's improved in the last two books - what i remember from my reading of Five Point Someone, his writing was... average. Same thing - nice story, bad writing.

Maybe it's the new way of doing things. Maybe this is how new-age writing is going to be. But why? Why does it have to be bad even if it has to be simple and conversational? Why can't it be like, let's say...a Meg Cabot? She's simple and conversational. Or a Jodi Picuolt. Why does it have to be a terror for the reader?

And that's when i thought, maybe i'm old school you know. I'm fussy about my books and how i like the writing that i read, to be. That's just it i guess - I R Old. And ageing rapidly. But at least i can say that i grew up on books with character and good writing.

What's on my legs right now.

Flea bite marks.
A scar from a healed scratch caused by a midnight walk among the bramble-full jungles of Dandeli.
Another from a motorbike exhaust burn.
A blood clot that refuses to go away.
Veins. Deep blue and mysterious.
A jet black mole.
Stretch marks from lack of dancing/exercising.
Genie pants that cover them all up.

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.