Crush

There is this blog that I used to read a while back. Then the girl had become negative and her posts were dark. The sun-loving person that I am, I stopped reading the blog till yesterday when I had lots of time to kill and nothing to do.

One of her posts is about crushes. Crushes that I and you have and according to me it's an awesome description of these crushes. You can read it here.

Crushes are great. Atleast I think so. They bring excitement and purpose and smiles and anticipation and palpitations to an otherwise sedate life and don't ask anything in return. They disappear in sometime - 99% of the times. You couldn't ask for more risk-free entertainment. That would be greedy!

chikka mari!!

I remember when my bestest friend Su's dad used to call her "shali mari" and i used to burst out laughing because in hindi 'mari' translates to 'died'. Well, that was not what her dad meant. Her dad was endearingly calling her a sweet little kid, loosely translated from Kannada.

And now 'shali mari' has a 'mari' of her own. The title says 'chikka mari' because having been in bangalore for sometime, I myself have picked up a bit of Kannada and 'chikka' is small. So there you go.



I can't believe that that mad young girl who used to do walk back from college with me is now a mom to a beautiful daughter! And let me tell you Su is pretty mad, the maddest girl I've known. To see her with her daughter is such a joy because this is what she always wanted and dreamt of.

To many more of her dreams coming true!!

Hepatitis E

The illness has kept me company for a month now.

I thought I was having acidity as I had nausea and the mention of food made me sick. Then I started throwing up when I ate and even when I didn't eat. My friend dragged me to the doc who didn't have to do much except look at me to tell me I had hepatitis. He asked me not to go home and get admitted, which I did. That's me, in the casualty ward, getting iv fluid. (I was given a room later)



Many needle pricks, saline bottles, 4 days in the hospital, 4 weeks of home arrest and 6 weeks of teetotalling later, I am doing good now. I was yellow like a clown and I look like a crow after all the weight loss.

The silver lining is that I've become extra careful about the water I drink. Then there is being off alcohol for sometime. Lastly, since I've lost a few kgs, I can eat so many more dutch truffles, chocolate donuts, chocolate croissants, lindts and mithai. Time to honor my sweet tooth.

short sojourn

I went to ISB some time back. I have been there more often than I would have ideally liked to. This happened to be my second of those trips. I had my new camera and loads of time to kill. So I took pictures.

This is the place. That's ISB - Indian School of Business. I've been wanting to study here for a while now.



Thats my humble luggage.



And they had this buffalo statue right in the main lawn. I was touched to see the love and respect for the buffalo. I thought I was the only one. A proud moment in a Haryanavi's life! The buffalo is truly so under-rated.



They have these huge fans in the main atrium, it's not even funny.



And this is the main atrium.



This too is the main atrium and the steps.



The best part was the empty bottles in the girls' hostel room.

My 'Siddharth' moment

No, I didn't meet any Siddharth. Siddharth as in Gautam Buddha before he became the Buddha. Everybody knows his story, right?

So here goes mine. I rarely travel by trains. Thrice in past 10 years or so, to be precise. And earlier when I did travel by trains, it was the rajdhani between Mumbai and Delhi and that cannot be called our quintessential train - let's just say it is nicer and cleaner.

The past 3 times, I have travelled between Hyderabad-Bangalore. Of these also, on the earlier 2 occassions, I reached the station just when the train was about to start. I was very late and I did the whole running on the platform routine and barely managed to get on the train. (Exactly the opposite of what my dad taught us all our lives).

Anyways, long story short, the last time I travelled by train was the first time I spent whole one hour on the platform waiting for a train that caters to the aam aadmi. And I happened to find a spot where the non-ac, sleeper compartment was expected. And to make the story shorter, let's just say, I saw a lot of stuff and lots of people I am not used to seeing. Old infirm couple managing on their own, husband taking such good care of his wife. Small kids crying for treats their parents couldn't afford. And so on. You get the picture.


But what made my heart cringe was this little girl travelling with her sister who was barely 4 inches taller than her and these two were all by themselves. On that station. In a crowd of hundreds of strangers. Waiting for their train possibly for an overnight journey. Hungry. Thirsty. Alone.

I was generally chatting with the girls and they shared my water and biscuits. The high point came when they saw a Ganesha idol being offloaded from the train. These little kids got so excited and ran to look at the Ganesha leaving their one tiny bag behind. And I could not hold my tears back because I was suddenly made aware that these are just children with their tiny hearts and tiny joys. Little kids loaded with so much responsibility, left alone to fend for themselves in a place which can intimidate grown-ups, when they really should be concernless and free to run and play and scream. Especially the elder one - she had to take care of the little one as well.

And THAT was my 'Siddharth' moment. I am not taking off to the forests just yet though. That would make the world a happier place and we don't want that. We want a state of moksha.

Anyways, I had to leave them when my train arrived and I'm sure they are doing well for themselves. They are strong and sensible kids. A little too sensible a little too early.

..and the tan does not go away!

Not that I'm being a girl and complaining about it. Infact, I'm in a way proud of it! I'm happy about it!

Because everytime I look at my arms, I'm reminded of all the trips, all the journeys I've made. I'm reminded of all the treks I've been on, the walks, the bike rides I've taken. All the long drives on which I kept my windows open and felt the wind in my hair. (And the tough time I had de-entangling my hair). I'm reminded of the sun burning my skin. I'm reminded of all the forests, the mountains, the rivers, the highways I've seen and all the moments I've spent with the people I love.

I have been quite a homebody all my life for various reasons at various different points in my life. And it's really since January this year that I've started travelling and exploring, something that I quite enjoy. Since then, I've done pretty well for myself averaging more than a trip a month. The tan is a testimony to that and I'm pretty happy that I've not let the tan on my arms lighten!

As they say, life is a book and if you've not travelled, you've read but one page.

If you want to suggest spf60, don't. I would rather stay indoors than re-apply every 2 hours.

A beefy story

I find it difficult to explain to people that I do not believe in Ram, Krishna, Shiv, Vishnu, Parvati and the gang. To me, they are stories. You know, like batman, james bond, ethan hunt, chacha choudhary and so on.

Some guy woke up one fine morning and decided to write a story. He wrote about a guy named Ram who was supposed to be the ideal man in the society at those times. Ram was the ideal which men in those times should strive to be - respect their parents, never go back on a promise, pack their wives off to the forest and so on. For effect, he was awesomely cool with batmobile kind of vehicles, flying buddies and super powers. This story was passed down through the ages and people were expected to be like Ram.

Fair enough...

...Till I am expected to fold my hands and pray to him. He is an ideal man (that too, not in my opinion). He is not God. I will not pray to him.

Again, this is my opinion and the same holds true for Krishna, Shiv and the gang. For that matter, the same holds true for Allah, Jesus and the others.

At this point, I would like to clarify that I believe in God. Only she has no name or form for me. She does not live in a temple and she would not hurt me if I don't suck up to her.

Coming to the point, I keep having these religious faith discussions with some hapless souls who cannot pour petrol on me and burn me because I'm their friend and they basically love me enough not to do that. (Thankyou Ram, Allah, Krishna, etc :P). One such hapless soul happens to be sho who is a religious Muslim. I keep attacking him with my usual arsenal of questions: why do you have to pray 5 times?, why can you marry more than once?, why do you starve for 8 hours everyday for 40 days?, and my favorite - why can you not drink when you can smoke?. So much so that he wants to name me 'why'. (For the record, sho does not agree with everything his religion says. Please don't kill me, sho.)

And then one day, tables turned and sho asked me - why don't you eat beef? Nice comeback, I must say. I don't eat beef because I'm a hindu. I don't know why hindus give such a special place to cow and not to any other animal. Even buffalos are perfectly nice animals, even goats or even hen. Cow is supposed to have some very special medicinal or curative qualities which nobody uses in today's date. Hell, I don't even like cow milk.

The end result of it all was that now I'm a beef eating Hindu. (I only had a couple of bites and must say it was yum!)

God, I'm sure, doesn't discriminate between her animals. If I'm going to hell, I was enlisted the day I ate my first chicken dish.

Feeling European

The sky's been overcast here for past couple of days. Cloudy and cold. Grey and gloomy. Some people love this weather that makes them wanna sleep till late and sit with a hot chai. I, on the other hand, am a sunshine person.

I love the sun even if it means higher temperatures. I do not like grey and damp days. Clothes don't dry, towels don't dry, the walls are cold, the floor is cold, everything is damp and has that weird wet smell to it.

Well, in the afternoon today, we did have the sun pop out for a few minutes. Instantly, as if on a subconscious urge, I wanted to go out for a walk and soak up the sun. And I did. Enjoying my walk and the mild sunshine, I remembered all those tales that my "friends"* from Europe tell me about how at the hint of sunshine, people dress up in their smallest clothes and come out to enjoy the sun. I never in my weirdest dream thought that I would do so one day. We are in the tropics and the sun here is not funny. And yet there I was, walking outside only to feel the sun and the warmth on my skin.

The whole incident made me feel so Europeified. I didn't dress skimpy, though, but only because no one else around me was europeified.

* The "friends" above is in quotes because though I call these people who are in Europe right now friends, I would rather see them in an eagle's claws. There they are, sitting in Europe and telling me how the place is so beautiful or how they are having so much fun or how nice the weather is. You didn't expect me to wish otherwise.

The fridge and buffalo milk

The weekend before the last one was not particularly a good one. On Friday night, 10 o'clock, a transformer blew up nearby, but not before severe voltage fluctuations that led to my refrigerator compressor getting shorted and tripping my mains. Not to mention that I was forced to go to bed at that early hour on a friday. However, I did not mind it that much because the earlier 10 days had been hectic with lots of partying, eating, drinking, travelling and suchlike.

Cut to saturday morning and still there is no power and ofcourse, no water. Somehow I managed my morning chai and waited patiently for power and water. I had to go out in the afternoon and a bath was mandatory. When there was no sign of water till 11, I went down to get a bucket of water from the underground tank and took a bath in icy cold water. Right then, at 11.50, water supply was back. What luck!

Eventually, when the power was back, I realized my refrigerator was not working. Now, a fridge should be dispensable and a fridge not working should not be a big deal, except that it is. A fridge not working in this part of the world means no milk. How you ask? Well well. That is an altogether different story.

Where I stay, I do not get buffalo milk. The only milk I can buy is some watery form of cow's milk, which I can't stand. I have had buffalo milk all my life. Infact, when we shifted to Powai and the milkman only used to bring cow milk, I pleaded with him and offered him extra money per litre if only he would bring buffalo milk. Here, even that doesn't work because buffalos are not even to be seen here, forget milked.

When I shifted here, I found it quite incredible that in whole of banaglore, there is no one selling buffalo milk. After months of searching, I settled for a store that sells tetra packs of milk. Not quite like the fresh/packet type but anyday better than cow milk.

Hence, I have to travel to far and wide places and stock up on milk because apparently I can't compromise on the animal in the dairy. A one-litre pack is good for 2-3 days and not having a fridge means I have to finish it in one day itself. This task is quite daunting and thus, the fridge becomes indispensable.

Add to it the fact that when and if I cook, I eat the same food for 2-3 days. Again the indispensability of the fridge is quite evident.

All this put together made me quite miserable the next couple of days. I had to live with cow milk, dine on protein shakes (because I cannot cook small portions) and run after the videocon guys to repair the fridge. Finally, after almost one week and lots of cash, they fixed the damn thing.

And I can stock up on milk again! Life's little pleasures!

Rains

It has started raining here in this part of the world where I live after a very hot summer - though less hot compared to rest of India. However, the rains in this place can be quite frustrating.

To put things in perspective, I love rains, I love monsoons. I have spent most of my life in Mumbai and an aversion to rains can make one immensely miserable in Mumbai. And if you have spoken to me for as little as 15 minutes, you would know that I love Mumbai more than anything. Thus, by this chain of reasoning, I love rains. A walk in the rain or just feeling rain on your skin is such a joy-giving expereince.

Bengalooru, is a gift as far as rains are concerned. We have downpours that don't last for more than half an hour usually. That is followed by drizzling, light breeze and lower temperatures, not to mention cleaner air. So there. I love the rains in Bengalooru as well.

What I hate and detest and even fear, however, is the traffic situation in Bengalooru after the rains. Even a 15 minute heavy downpour puts a clamp on the roads. A bad one at that.

The problem is the junctions that do not have traffic lights. Come rains and the traffic cops who man these junctions disappear and, lo and behold, we have a traffic jam. Also, because there are no lights or cops, vehicles from all directions try to force their way out, ultimately ending up in a block through which no one can move. As you can guess, this is a sure shot recipe for disaster. Now, till a frustrated citizen doesn't get down from his/her car and regulates the traffic, which btw can take a long time, there is no hope for respite.

Then to add to the woes, trees fall like nobody's business here (Well, that maybe because these guys have trees to begin with) and water logging happens super fast and people of Bengalooru do not want their vehicle tyres to touch that water. I, for one person, can never get this as I have seen people drive in swimmable water. Hell, I have done it myself. Probably once every year in Mumbai, last year in bangalore. The other option was to shut the engine, lock the car and sleep on inner ring road at 1am. There were scores of cars waiting for the water to recede. As for me, surrendering to water logged roads would have been an insult to years of training. I slept in my bed. There's nothing like it, is there now?

For this monsoon, just last week I was stuck in one of the aforementioned jams. Luckily, it was not past midnight. I could see the place where I wanted to reach, it was just a block away but I was at one of the aforementioned junctions. The level of frustration was unimaginable.

Now I'm only hoping that it doesn't rain like crazy right when I have to go home.

Mini skirt meteorology

Hehe.

**
..research at Internet auction site eBay, which says that the rises and falls in the length of skirts can be used to predict what the weather will be like three days in advance.

...On occasions, the trend is said to have predicted a shift in the weather before any advice has been issued by the Met Office using more traditional meteorological methods.

..."If you want to know what the weather is going to be like in three days, just take a look at hemlines."

**

Reminds me, I bought a mini skirt on Sunday, not from ebay though. Thus, by extrapolation, if you are wise, you would carry an umbrella today.

First impression

Whoever said that "first impression is the last impression" was an idiot!

How is that even possible? People have gone horribly wrong with me and I've gone absolutely horribly wrong with people when it comes to first encounters.

Now, maybe this is true of job interviews or more formal meetings when you know that 10 minutes or so is all you have. But what about when you meet the same person over and over and over again? Don't your perceptions go through one of those huge revolving crusher machines every single time? Well, mine do. Till I reach a stable point where I have figured out the person reasonably well.

Blame my geminian fickle-minded-ness. My opinions about a person can go from one end of the spectrum directly to the opposite end in one meeting which maybe the 2nd or the 12th. That doesn't matter. What matters is whether that person is buried so deep under in my 'good books' that one/two actions or statements will not make me tear up his/her page.

There have been times when people have not even registered with me after I have been around them for over months. Then stuff has happened, we came close and we became best buddies and continue to remain so. There is no scope for a first impression when I don't even remember my first meeting with them. Su, God gulty, abs, Rajesh, Suzie, Sho all fall in this category.

I have always grown fond of people or un-fond. I have drifted towards people or away. Gradually. By the time I realized how much I love these people, I have forgotten what my first meeting with them was like.

What should also be noted is that my finding a person so-damn-cute/attractive/ohh-m-g is invariably always followed by my asking myself "What the eff were you thinking?". My people evaluation kit is grossly under-stocked.

To make things better(??), I have consolation in the fact that other people too have been wrong about me before they got to know me better. I have been thought to be a snob, a loner, a spoilt brat, irresponsible, not-interested-in-studies, callous...I should stop. Well, these opinions have changed over time and that is the only reason why they are mentioned here. There is no place for negativity on this blog, especially if it's about me.

Now, whoever said "All that glitters is not gold" made so much more sense. There is an entire science to understanding people. People are complex and there is so much more to them than just first impressions and first hand-shakes. If it was not the case, I would be highly unpopular!

Cinderella's deadline

FUGA - That's where they play bollywood music every Friday night. And that's where you'll find me most Friday nights.

Infact the place has become my second home for Friday nights. So much so that last Friday, I got out of office, changed into a t-shirt and headed straight to Fuga. I mean no bath, no hair wash, no make-up, no dressing up. People would refuse to have a coffee with me in that attire. Yet, there I was at a nightclub.

So there's nothing new - it's always the same place, the same drink, the same set of friends, the same music. Hell, the dj has one set and ofcourse, I know it like I know the cd in my car. And I'm not complaining. No No that's not what I'm doing. I like the familiarity, the comfort, the zone. Though I always want to kill dj Jasmeet when he plays 'roop suhana lagta hai' and 'sajna ji'. C'mon what're you thinking! But then this time he played 'amplifier' and got his lifeline back.

And adding 'amplifier' to the dj set was not the only new thing that happened last time around. We were all dancing, glancing at our watches, and when it was around 11.20pm, we braced ourselves for the last song announcement. Yes that's how early it is and I always hate it but I've also learnt to live with it. This time too the dj plays his trademark concluding song, makes a last song announcement and turns on the lights. However, unlike any other time, this time the concluding song is followed by yet another song. Magic!

Yup. (Bring on the drum roll) The dj played for 20 minutes past the deadline.

At 11.54pm, when he finally wrapped up there were still some shouts for more music. The condescending dj then asked people to look at their watches and reminded them that never before have they partied till this hour. Atleast in Bengalooru, may I add.

Again I'm not complaining. This was a night of no-dressing-up, amplifier and 20 extra minutes of partying! Much fun and paisa vasool!

2nd touchdown at Auroville!

Quite amazing considering my non-travelling track record. The place is bliss and the fact that I would be allowed to sleep in the car made the offer too tempting to resist.

We stayed at Sharnga guest house. This place and its people have now become so familiar, it feels like home. This time around it was off-season (translated as heat and humidity) and Sharnga was almost empty. The last time around, it was teeming with people and that was when I fell in love with Auroville and Sharnga.



I had a good 4 days at Auroville last time. Like I said in my earlier post, at the time there was a general lack of clarity in my thoughts. (A very handsome man I met, and I mean very handsome, once said that I should look no further than a bacardi if clarity in thoughts was what I was looking for. But in this case, no amount of bacardi helped.) And so I was there at Auroville, looking to spend sometime on my own and think things through. What I did experience in those 4 days was way above expectations.

The place is absolutely breath-taking - acres and acres of man made forests and no sounds except for the birds and the occasional peacocks. People there live as one community, everyone contributes to the community as per their capabilities.

I saw teenagers plucking oranges to make marmalade and taking care of birds and chicks. Their concerns are widely different from our concerns of traffic, noise, latest gadgets and designer clothes and shoes.

Peter Choate, a Canadian professor and social worker, was also staying at our guest house. Random discussions led me to discover that he is a psychologist and I jumped at the opportunity and asked him to help bring clarity to my thoughts. He was immensely sweet and agreed. How he must have hated that moment because I behaved like a color blind person who is being told about the beauty of reds and greens. Despite the block, he persisted and drilled a few things in my self-consumed head.

The most important lesson that I came back with is that there is no use of wasting any emotion on things of the past. What has happened, has happened and nothing can change that. What we should strive for is to do our best given the present circumstances. Maybe we all know this at some level but when something goes wrong we do tend to think about it and there are a lot of 'what-if's and 'why-me's. Peter explained to me the futility of letting the past dwell in your mind - not only is it completely futile, by staying in the past you miss the present.

So now I have been going on and on about the 'present' and the 'now' and very soon I will be left with no friends. Then maybe I can again go back to Auroville and probably never come back.

Its been a while

...since I posted last but it was only because after 15th Feb life was fucking with me. First, ISB didn't want me and then just when I got over that slight, something far worse happened. Actually, it was happening for sometime, only I was not aware. And it took immense amount of time and effort to emerge out of this one. Can't say I am still out of it, but I am getting there!

One belief that has been reinforced in the past 2 and a half months is that God does look after me and everytime he screws with my life, he sends someone to pull me out of the shit. Either that or I am a very 'go-along' person and I can get along with almost everyone. Nah, I think the previous option is correct. God is calculating to the nano scale and maintaining a very fine balance in my life. He's like, I screwed with you for 15 nano units so, let me show you a good time of 14.5 nano units. Something of that sort.

And I say this because initially I was a mess. I wouldn't go out, I wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, would drink a lot (almost everyday) and wouldn't stop crying. I was a beeyach basically and I would just curl up at home and scream at anyone who tried coming close.

Then, very dramatically, just like that, one fine day, I found my happy streak. I cannot pin-point to that moment but I can definitely pin point to the person who indirectly, just by being there made it all happen. Here is one more person who gets credit for being at the right place at the right time. (I have a few more of such persons and I give them too much credit which some other people feel is undeserved).

I managed to be quite a fun person in the past 2 months despite the painful incident. I visited Auroville and Pondicherry. Auroville was awesome beyond words and also helped me clear my head of a lot of mess. I also drove to Ooty and Coonoor and saw the most amazing forests. I made a very good friend. I had some crazy party nights and some absolutely amazing evenings. I did not sleep for one entire night purely out of choice. I was having coffee at the airport instead. I also managed a week of vacationing in Mumbai. I finally went to Blue Frog at Parel. This was something high up on my list of things-to-do. And I had an amazing evening filled with humidity and salty sea breeze at the Aer lounge in Four Seasons Mumbai.

When this one lady walked into Aer at 12.30 in the night and asked for a table, I, for the nth time, felt that maybe Mumbai is sticky and smelly and hot, it is so much cooler. In other places, such as the one I stay in, I can only wish to be served after 11.00pm. And that wish doesn't go down too well with the waiters and I am threatened with police action. Way to go Mumbai!!

I do not know how the chain of thoughts has made me end up praising Mumbai. I guess its out of habit. Its also a good note to end this rambler of a post.

valentine's day

Anish got me these flowers on sunday, valentine's day.



He said that no woman should go without flowers on valentine's day. Isnt that so sweet?

God gulty strikes again!

God gulty called today morning and as always was going on and on about he is the don of warangal and the sexiest and most awesomest man on planet earth. Yeah, he does that in the most non-creepy sort of way.

I, then, very humbly interrupt him to share some of my mortal concerns such as: I am very tensed about my interview results which should be out in a couple of days. The pravachan that I get in response can only be expected from him: "What happens is not important. What is important is that you are happy. Even if you get into the MBA, what the hell are you going to do? Are you going to become the President of India?"

I was a little offended that he didnt think I was going to become the President of India but that's not the point. The point is that instead of saying "Dont worry, you'll get in." (which obviously does NOT make me feel better), he said this! He made all the MBA shit seem so insignificant. And made me realize that I'll be fine in any case.

And it is true. I have a thing for being happy. I can't stay in the dumps for long. Sad people don't look good.

Victoria might have started like this!

Was browsing and stumbled upon this. Ain't it lovely!

Honking is a sport in India

My trip to Hyderabad confirmed it. It was early morning, there was very little traffic and everyone was following his/her lane and all that. But my cab driver would start honking from 100 mts away as if he is possessed.

I could take it no longer - this guy honking in residential area at 6 in the morning. It reminded me of all the disturbance below my bedroom window when I try to sleep and I politely asked him if he could stop honking so much. The guy was like at this hour nobody follows traffic rules and the villagers come on the road from opposite directions and "agar unko thoda bhi touch hone ka toh main toh mara samjho".

What was really funny was how the guy tried so hard not to honk after that, but I could see his muscles reflexively twitching to honk and it was killing the poor guy to stop himself.

But then anyone who has spent 10 mins on our roads knows: honking is a much loved sport. That is how we entertain ourselves while driving. There is no such thing as 'a reason for honking'. Now, that would be blasphemy.