The Beauty and The Prick

One of my best friends, D.S., is this beautiful, amazing, kick-ass, intelligent and fascinating woman (and if I sound like a girl with a crush here, bear with me, I love the chick) and yet she still manages to get dicked over by a guy who's so blatantly not worth it that it boggles the mind.

What pisses me (and our other friends back in B'bay) off is that we should've SEEN it somehow…instinctively just known that he was an idiot. Where was my cynicism? Where was N.M.'s go-slow-approach? Where was A.H.'s caution and sixth sense? But no, when we met him, we were ALL taken in by the niceness, the goofy sense of humour, the effort (endearing) to get on our good side because D.S. is important to us, and we're important to her, no negotiations there. One of our own had found love, found someone who could be an extenstion to our group, instead of taking her away from us. So we tried, and he tried, and we all got along and cue the Disney happy-ever-after music, yes? No. After 3 years of togetherness and overcoming parental objections and age differences and insurmountable odds and discussions of marriage, it goes like this: The Prick ends it with a phone call, announces his engagement to someone else on facebook, and D.S. is…actually, D.S. is being stronger than I would ever have thought possible.

I think this post is going to be in honour of D.S. actually - I don’t think I talk enough about my friends, just blather on about myself. But I love showing off about D.S. When she got a 730 on her GMAT and got into one of the best B-Schools in the world, I couldn’t wait to tell EVERYONE…I'm so proud of her! She's lost over 20 kgs of weight over the past few years through sheer determination and (in my lazy-ass opinion) an unhealthy commitment to the gym; as a result she looks sensational in the black wrap dress I saw her in last weekend. She's topped most of the exams she's ever written, or at least cleared them with flying colours (and I always wondered what that meant. What do colours flying have to do with exam marks?). She's witty and incisive and funny and snarky and has men drooling like puppy dogs at her stiletto-heeled feet. And, as I said before, she's incredibly, unbelievably strong.

This is a woman who was there for me when I went through a hideously bad break-up. She cried for me because I couldn't (or didn't know how to, or wouldn't give the guy the satisfaction of seeing me) cry. She went out partying with me pretty much every night of the week if I wanted to (because loud music meant neither she nor I would think about how me breaking up with my boyfriend irrationally led to her losing one of her good friends too). She let me hold her hand in a death-grip when I saw my ex with another woman, basically confirming everything I'd worried/feared/grown paranoid about for 3 years (makes me wonder if 3 is some sort of ill omen…I know of waaaaaay too many relationships going kaput at the 3-year mark. Actually, thanks to her, H.T., N.M. and A.H., I think I managed to get through the whole post-break-up period relatively unscathed and have turned out as normal as I am right now (which most people will testify isn’t much!) Coincidentally, H.T., N.M. and A.H. were there for her too after The Prick ended things with her. We love you guys, have we ever said that?) This is a woman who polished off an entire saucepan of rasperry-jello-and-apple-vodka (we were trying to make jello shots, but there were no ice trays) with me while we watched 'The Grudge' at A.H.'s place in Pune, and then fell about laughing with me 'cuz I wouldn't go to the bathroom alone. Hell, she's put up with my vampire and Coke addiction for 8 years now, and that drives most people insane!

I'm rambling….I tend to do that when I feel strongly about something. What I'm trying to say is this: I need her to read this and know, know with absolute certainty, that there are people who love her, and there will be people who will see her for how truly sensational she is. People so far better than The Prick that it will boggle her mind, because she will wonder at the 3 years she absolutely wasted on him when there was something so much better out there. And until then, if she insists on being too big a person to hate The Prick....

...I'll do it for her.

Played more poker….

And the run of luck is over…went from 15 rials down (which is about Rs. 1,950/-) to barely recovering my 5 rial buy-in. MUST NOT PUSH LUCK.

Oh, who am I kidding. I don't listen to myself any more than I listen to anyone else!

Sitting at work and CRAVING Coke. I'm trying to go a day without one. It's not working out well…have pulled out a tuft of hair and my desk now looks as though the creature from 'The Grudge' has been shedding all over it. Great, a bald spot to add to all my other woes.

On the plus side, going to Dubai this weekend!! Will meet D.S.! Some best friend I am, haven't even met her since October '07….Looking forward to the general insanity that ensues when we meet up. Plus whole bunch of college friends there to catch up with…including Married Ex. One would think it would be weird, but the simple fact is his wife is such a sweetheart (and a genuine one, as opposed to the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer-I-secretly-hate-you-you-utter-bitch-who-had-my-husband-first variety) that meeting the both of them is an unparalleled pleasure…it's amazing hanging out with a couple who's happy and in love and secure and just so fun!

Need a little change in life. I love this place with its quiet, sleepy life and 99% friendly people…but I swear I'm in a rut. Sunday to Thursday it's work and the gym and the occassional meeting up with the guys to play pool or poker. Weekends it's clubbing (at the 3-4 good clubs there are here!) and getting drunk and discussing who did what with whom while drunk. And more poker.

To quote a terrible old pop song: There's gotta be more to life….

I'm Going Home, Back To The Place Where I Belong

So, other than the fact that I luuurve Chris Daughtry (something about the bald head and the gravelly voice and ..um...I think that's it....my taste in men was always pretty suspect), this is all about the fact that, this time on Friday, I'm going to be in Bombay, baby!!!

It's just so strange...I've lived across quite a few cities in India (and now one teeny-tiny one in the Middle East), but there's no place quite like Bombay (yeah, I'm physically incapable of saying Mumbai. Just ain't gonna happen). And, freak that I am, I have an itinerary of EVERYTHING that has to be squeezed into the 2 weeks that I get in my precious city...but then again, knowing my friends, I can pretty much rip up that list right now. Not that I'm complaining, mind...I'm getting to see this lot after a year now, and I miss the days when we all, as my mom puts it, "Lived out of each others' pockets". Christ, in some ways I think it's great that we've all grown out of the phase where meeting each other was as essential as breathing, but on some horribly selfish level, I still want that closeness....well,okay, the closeness is still there, but sometimes, geographical proximity would be good! This whole cross-country nonsense with Oman and Dubai and Bombay and Sydney is just....yucky (yeah, I topped my class in English, can you tell??)

Okay,so melancholy aside, these are the things I absolutely HAVE to do once I'm there:

1. Go to Leo's - And as much as I know the boys are going to grumble...they can stuff it.Leo's is tradition! Leo's is home! Leo's is comfortable and I've been away for a year and I'm the princess and I have to get my own way (there's a little foot-stomping and pouting going on here. I have to practice if this is going to work on them when I get there).
2. Pig out at Britannia's - Mmmmm God, mutton saali boti and chicken berry pulao and caramel custard.
3. Pig out at Trishna - Crabs. With butter and garlic and pepper. And garlic naan. And Hyderabadi daal.
4. Pig out at any place that serves a decent saada dosa with non-sweet sambar and, oooh, medu vadas! And fried idli! Crap, I miss good Indian food...even though there's a massive Southie contingent in this country, not one fucking place that serves a decent dosa. Bah.
5. Pig out at Bade's - Because I miss leaning against a car at three in the morning, winding down and eating boti and naan.

Yeah, I know food features prominently on this list...but seriously...is there ANY place more reknowned for gastronomic pleasure than Bombay? (if there is, please tell me)

6. Frequent Hard Rock, Toto's and Zenzi - The former two for the music and the latter for the eye candy, both male and female. I tell you, I really missed out, living in South Bombay all those years and neglecting the 'burbs. Obviously all the droolworthy men are there (at least, I'm hoping).
7. Spend time with A.H., who will have plenty of tall tales filled with drunken debauchery and devilry, which will no doubt keep me entertained for a good week.
8. Find a woman for N.M., or at the very least keep bugging him about the fact that I get more action than he does.
9. Try and find out conclusively whether or not I.P. and N.P. are, in fact, gay, and if so, WHY THE HELL WON'T THEY JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY. 'Cuz, seriously? They need to be locked in a room. Or clubbed over the head. I'll gladly volunteer.

And that is a fraction of my very ambitious itinerary. Somewhere in there I have to squeeze in Christmas, New Years', and an exam (which I'm trying really really REALLY hard not to think about, but it just won't go away!) and visiting cousins and exes and their wives and fiancees... But, whatever, in 91 hours, I'm hooooooooooome!!!

Wake Up and Smell the Bubble Wrap

So we're moving again.

As a kid, I went through eleven schools in the kindergarten-to-12th years, and I loved almost every one of them (there was just this one place that was an all-girls' disaster...you know, with the rampant desperation and the comparing of boob sizes. Puberty is a tough time). But I think the best time I had was at the last school I was in. I actually managed to spend 3 years there! And it was those all-important years from 15 to 17, so of course there was drama and intrigue and mayhem and men...all very Sidney Sheldon (God Bless his soul), but without the sex.

And, of course, there was the-object-of-affection . Said object was actually someone I knew this time (as opposed to his predecessors, Prince William and Nick Carter), and lord, sometimes I think back to how utterly clueless I was about such things and I want to bang my head against the wall. Oh, I managed to talk to him without stammering and stuttering (I think), but it would more or less remain at comparing English marks (how scintillating!). And, embarrassingly, I think I was rather obvious about the entire thing, you know, with the blushing and the hair-twirling and the gaggle-of-giggling-friends a few feet away. I was a reasonably attractive teenager, but gawd, so low on self-confidence, so back then all the innuendo-laced flirting that I now manage was pretty much out of the question. What I wouldn't give to have projected this calm, cool, worldly image instead of the weirdo I must actually have seemed like! But I guess something must have been in my favour, since I got my first (and second) kiss out of it...And look at that, I still have a goofy grin on my face when I think about it! I guess once a nerd, always a nerd.

I think the strange part with object-of-affection was that my relationship with him only really began after it ended. I remember (once we started talking again!) that I could finally talk to him without the what-is-he-thinking-about-me and the ooh-say-something-hilarious-so-you-can-hear-that-cute-laugh. And as I grew a little older and a lot less self-conscious and, amazingly, so much more comfortable within my own skin, it became easier and easier to talk to him about men and women and college and jobs and aspirations and moving-blues and everything else under the sun. So then he become one of those friends. You know, the kind where you can pick up the phone after six months and start yakking like you just hung up five minutes ago? Love that.

So last night when mom and I were looking at empty walls and stacked packing crates and indulging in our moving-time ritual of curling up in bed and popping the bubbles on leftover (or, well, stolen) bubble-wrap, she asked me what I hoped to get out of this move to Muscat. I gotta say, with the way things have worked out in the past, a little crush wouldn't hurt :)

Plus, it's been a long time. A veeery long time.

A while ago, I read a blog that delved into the nostalgia surrounding meetings with old friends. I've always loved using the word "bittersweet", and I think sometimes that it's the most apt word for such meetings. I met an old friend a few days ago, after two years , and heard about his plans to go abroad and his job and what he'd been up to in the two years since college ended. It was so hard to picture him in a suit and tie and dealing with clients, when I've seen him in ripped jeans and ultra-baggy t-shirts, knocking back tequila shot after tequila shot till he passed out on the bar. In my mind, at least, he'll be forever 18.

God, if only all of us could stay forever 18 and forever where we're happiest. For someone who's moved around as much as I have, I don't seem to deal too well with change...at least, change in the people I know. One of my best friends from my childhood, someone I've known since I was five and he was seven, got married six months ago. It was the most surreal experience in my life. You know you should be happy, you want to be happy; you have a smile on your face as you hear the news, but all you can remember is running in a three-legged race with him when you were six years old, both of you wearing matching red shorts and t-shirts. Bittersweet was the only thing that could come close to describing it. And he knew it too. Things, people, places, situations, even memories change irretrievably as we grow up and grow away. He still calls and we still talk a lot, but that niggling feeling of change is always there, that little curbing and adhering to propriety, which makes me sad, because God knows amongst friends we've never ever adhered to propriety! There's a different set of rules and boundaries that comes in, even if he's someone you always confided in, because he's a married man, and it's been years, and you're older, and everything grows and dissolves and changes and mutates till it makes your head hurt. And you look at this...this man, with stubble, and a leather briefcase, and a wife, and you can barely see a trace of the boy whom you made your queen when you wanted to be the king in games of make-believe. You know he's still there, but sometimes, it's hard to remember.

If life was perfect, we'd still all be in the college canteen, eating the best chinese food in Bombay and figuring out if we had enough money to go shoot a game of pool. None of this MBA, work, marriage and kids nonsense. There'd be this time warp, or a time loop, that would keep us there, over and over again, so we'd never age and never leave. Our own little Neverland, and we'd all be Peter Pan. Realistically, of course, life has to go on, and we have to make time and make way for more people and more memories and more nostalgia. It's never- ending. You keep giving your heart away, piece by piece, to the ones who leave an impact on you, and on some days, it's hard to remember which city you're in, who your friends-in-close-geographical-proximity are and who it is you miss with an ache.

The best thing, maybe, about all of this, is that they're still there. You meet or you don't, you talk or you don't, you keep in touch or you don't....but somewhere, 2 or 5 or 10 years down the line there's an impromptu meeting. And then there's the hugging and the laughing and the crying and the "Oh my God it's so good to see you!" and the little tugging at your heartstrings as you see and feel the changes, and you know that life actually is perfect, because time didn't stop, it went on and it brought you, somehow, to those people again, and you had the opportunity to use words like "nostalgia" and "bittersweet" when you looked at them and saw how they had changed so much, but not so much that you couldn't still love them.