Wherein I Speak Ill Of The Dead

Since the news broke about Amy Winehouse's death, all I've been hearing (aside from "Back to Black" on a constant loop) is how she's the newest inductee to the infamous 27 Club: the group of uber-talented, super-messed-up rockers who all not-so-mysteriously popped it at age 27. This clique includes the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison - all personal favourites of mine (hell, who DIDN'T have a Cobain poster hanging on their walls and "Heart-Shaped Box" on repeat in the mid 90s?).

But everytime I think of their deaths - drug and alcohol fueled to the last - I lament not the loss of human life (cold as that sounds, it's true - they brought it upon themselves) but the unbearable waste of all that talent. All that power and energy and genius - gone. Snuffed out. Because they couldn't stay away from the needle, or the bottle, or whatever the eventual implement of their death may have been (to be fair, it was a shotgun in Cobain's case).

I'm not the first person to ask this over the ages, and I won't be the last, but what IS it about these artistic types?? Why do they have such addictive personalities? Sex, drugs, booze, gambling - is it too much money too soon? Excessive time on their hands? Greater opportunity? Less willpower? Does injecting something in their veins give them the added push to create the magic they do? Whatever the reason, obviously they never heard of "Just Say No", and end result: the world is deprived of decades of musical bliss because these coked up idiots couldn't get their shit together enough to ensure they didn't OD.

Honestly, ya morons. Join a 12-step programme. Pain and suffering and addiction may be good for your art, but your untimely death isn't.

R.I.P.

"...And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked;
I'll go back to black."

Apparently, you did. Rest in peace (if you knew what that was), Amy Winehouse.

Dead at 27 - what a sad, stupid waste of all that talent.

The Perils of Being Unable to Say No:

1. Unable to Say No to Food

- When one of your best friends is pregnant and goes through mad cravings, you run to the supermarket with her in 50-degree weather.

- You try cucumber sticks with peanut butter, carrot sticks with nutella, goats’ cheese with EVERYTHING.

- You gain more weight than she did during her pregnancy.

2. Unable to Say No to Friends Who Are Leaving

- You go out every night with them.

- You go out every night with them and do mad shit that ensures you look like a wreck in the morning (and throughout the day…week...nevermind), but have a blast doing said mad shit.

- You log in late to work every day for a week as a result of only getting to bed at an hour that is both too late and too early to be sane.

3. Unable to Say (a Loud, Rude, Vociferous) No to Guys Who Ask You Out

- Your polite refusal is taken as a sign of weakness.

- They keep pestering you, even when they have a chickie baby on the side (honestly, am I the only one who sees something wrong with that???)

- They eventually turn into psycho loonies who make up mad shit* about you.

(*not to be confused with the more pleasant, enjoyable mad shit referenced in point 2. This mad shit is all bad and bound to earn someone a kick in the nuts).

4. Unable to Say No to Shopping Expeditions

- You get to a point where you’re scared to look at your bank balance.

- Your shoe collection could make Imelda Marcos say: “Whoa there, a little restraint please!”

- You cannot open your closet door for fear of being buried in the fabric avalanche and not being found for a week.

5. Unable to Say No to Books

- Your overflowing bookshelves make your closet look pristine in comparison.

- When an idiot at a club tries to strike up a conversation using the lame-ass line “You know, the dress you’re wearing is the druidic colour of healing!”, you’re actually in a position to say “Um – no, lameass – that’s green, not purple.”

- You can quote William Shakespeare and Pablo Neruda alongside J.K. Rowling and Charlaine Harris, but no one else gets that and you just sound pompous anyway.

So, lesson learned: the new word that I will wear out, and I mean really wrestle down to the ground and make my bitch, is “No.”

Life’s too much bother otherwise.

My Wishes For NV....

....the week before her wedding.

As fiercely as I cling on to my old friends, I’ve come to learn that it’s possible to love the new ones just as much, and want the very best for them always: whether or not you know all their history, their journey, their mistakes and their triumphs.

I can’t lay much of a claim to knowing what true romantic love is all about, and descriptions and best wishes and sweeping hand gestures (that ALWAYS knock over a few wine glasses) don’t seem to do the emotion justice. And marriage – well, never had a clue, doubt I ever will, so how can I know what wishes I’m bestowing on this friend of mine? However, Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVII has always seemed to be the best way to put a voice to my ineloquence. From the moment I first read it, I thought “That’s what I want someday,” even if the thoughts were half-formed and shooed away as wistful and longing. But, for the people who have found that love….

So, for you, NV:

“I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
Or arrow of carnations that propagate fire;
I love you as certain dark things are loved:
Secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
Hidden within itself the light from those flowers;
And, thanks to your love, darkly
In my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where;
I love you simply: without problems or pride.
I love you in this way because I know no other way of loving

But this: in which there is no I or you.
So close that your hand upon my chest is my hand;
So close, that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.”

I hope your love, your wedding, your marriage, and the life after is all of this, and so much more. All the very very best to you and AM :)

Apparently I Was One Of Those Angsty Teenagers

My God, I could not be a BIGGER cliche. How disappointing. Looking through my old stories (Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger fanfiction, how I miss thee), I came across a poem I had written at the ripe old age of 19. It positively drips with love scorned and world-weariness. Sheesh. How pretentious we are at that age, how we think we know EVERYTHING and have been through EVERYTHING and NO!ONE!UNDERSTANDS! I'm quite embarrassed by it, actually!

Of course, chances are I'm going to stumble across this blog post in 10 years' time and think the same thing :)

For anyone who cares, here's the melodramatic goodness:

Waiting and hoping,

Watching and praying;

Replaying the words

Of the rubbish you were saying

To make me forgive you,

To make the lies true;

To make me forget

My trust in you.

Mumbling and cursing,

Smiling and rehearsing

My most genuine fake smile

To keep your lips from pursing

At how childish I'm being;

How naive I am for not seeing

Through the half-truths you told me

To keep me from leaving

When I could have walked without getting hurt;

When I could have left without feeling like dirt:

Walked all over by you

Like I'm not even worth

A proper kiss,

Or a promise you'll miss

All that we had

All eternity, then this:

Nothing.

As Ever...

... Bombay was superb, sublime...beyond words, even.

I'll attempt a few, but maybe next post, when I'm over my homesickness and the horrible wrench of missing A.H. and N.M. and all the others. I honestly can't wait for that old-age home we're all moving into in our 80s ...at least we'll all be together!

Who, What, Where, When, Why, How

It seems everyone I speak to these days has hit a bit of a wall….not so much a dead-end as an obstacle in the road. On the way to where, though? That’s what is relatively unknown. Why are we doing what we’re doing? Is this really what we’re going to do forever (or at least till retirement beckons)? What else is out there? Is this really all there is to life?

I’ve always found it unbearably pretentious to question the why and how of our existence. Sure, answers would be nice – but we’re here, we’re healthy, we’re loved, we’re happy – we should be grateful. All this “What is the meaning of life” business is best left to philosophers and drunkards at 4 a.m. Of course, they tend to wonder about it on a larger scale. As ever, my musings are more self-involved :)

I’m down with the programme – we’re born, we go to school, we go to college, we get a job, we get married, we have kids, we have grandkids, we shuffle off this mortal coil and people boohoo for a bit until they pop it too, and pretty soon there’s no one left who remembers us. If we’re lucky, we’re memorialized in a family tree some great-great-grandkid will create for a school project, or we’re a name scrawled in a few books handed down in the family. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, because I know that in some small but significant way, there’s a piece of us that gets carried forward in time, and even if it’s not recognized or acknowledged, we definitely lived.

But how did we live? Right now, where I am…I want more. Okay, I’m working, I’m doing an MBA (and I’ll probably do another after this), I have a loving family (touch wood) and an amazing set of friends (thank you). Life is routine – good, but routine. But what am I doing that’s going to leave a mark? Is it egotistical to think I can leave a mark? Is it enough that I attempt to be a good human being (and hopefully, maybe, succeed some of the time)? Is it possible that there’s something more out there? Should I be satisfied with okay when there’s a possibility that amazing is around the corner? What if there’s nothing around the corner?

I think what bothers me more than the status quo is not having any of the answers.

Random Musings on a Sick Day

- Is the world really a better place for beautiful people? Do more doors actually fly open, more red carpets get unfurled, more dollars pour into their bank accounts? Or is it simply that people with a modicum of self-assurance (that may or may not come from beauty) make things happen the way they want, rather than waiting for things to happen to them?

- Ever noticed that the people you love will always be beautiful, no matter what? And the more you get to know them (and the more you learn how amazing they are), the more beautiful they become to you?

- Why so much musing in the beauty vein? I don’t know…I suppose I was indulging in the rather rare occasion where I happened to glance at the mirror for more than 5 minutes, and for the first time since adolescent insecurity faded over a decade ago, I was wondering what people see when they look at me. Is that too self-involved? Um, yeah, actually, it definitely is…but anyway. I had an acquaintance tell me the other day that his friend is in love with me, and my first thought was “Why?” He certainly doesn’t know me well enough to appreciate my completely batty personality, and my looks are nothing to write home about…not bad enough to shatter mirrors, but nowhere near traffic stopping quality. And in a country filled with gorgeous women (most of whom are my friends, and whom I therefore cannot hate, damn my luck and scruples), I sort of pale in comparison…okay face (mouth a bit too broad and lips a bit too pouty and eyes a bit too sleepy), okay figure (leaning far too much towards the curvy end of the spectrum but balanced out, somewhat, by a decent height), okay hair (always mussed now that it’s been hacked from hip-length to shoulder length). I’m no serene belle imbued with grace and elegance (multiple instances of my donkey-laugh, tipped-over chairs – with me in them, involuntary somersaults down stairwells and inexplicable instances of tripping over my own feet have seen to that). I mean, in short, I’m kind of a disaster. So my only conclusion about friend-of-acquaintance is that he’s looking for a quick boink and thinks the L-word will help his cause. Sigh. Fool.

- On a completely unrelated note, my mother’s rather good at darts. I was quite shocked when we went to a nearby pub for lunch and she expressed an interest in the game…and then proceeded to thoroughly kick my ass. Who is this woman?

- I also tried to teach her how to play pool. It is now referred to as The Incident We Will Never Speak Of Ever Ever Again. Ever.

- Skiving off work under the pretence of a sick day is MUCH more fun when you’re not actually sick. Who knew? (Well, I suppose everyone except me…must work at being less conscientious and more…useless? I don’t even know the correct terminology).

- My beloved Bombay beckons once again! In eleven days (264 hours, or 15840 minutes, or 950400 seconds) I’ll be back on putrid B’bay soil, inhaling the toxic fumes and possibly contracting cholera from the disease-riddled water. I actually can.not.WAIT.

- The fact that I’m worrying at all about the pollution and water is just proof that I’ve gotten soft living in this place. The thought would never even have entered my head a few years ago, as I chowed down on sev-puri and frankies at Churchgate station, washed down with mineral water of dubious origin (and purity) at a stall that would most likely be gone in a few hours. Ah, youth.

I'm Sorry

It’s hard to grieve the loss of someone you’ve never met. But there are some people you know you would have loved - simply because they come from, are a part of, people you love.

My 2 month old niece (my cousin V’s daughter) died yesterday morning, and I haven’t been able to reach him on the phone…well, of course, who’s going to bother with something as mundane as the phone at a horrible time like this? And even if I did get through to him, what on earth would I say? Everything is so inadequate, so inconsequential, so bloody futile… the words would just be ridiculous platitudes and would make no difference at all.

Growing up, my cousin V was an endless source of amusement and fascination for me…he’s 14 years older than I am, and, at the age of 5, when I first saw him sitting on my terrace early one morning in Madras, in all his mustachioed-dishevelled-engineering-student glory, I ran screaming back into the house with shrieks of “Mama, Dada, thief! Run!” Poor guy, I must have been the most annoying (and shrill) little tagalong cousin in history. But he gamely attempted to teach me my multiplication tables (using toothpicks, no less), and how to crack a walnut shell between a doorjamb and savour the nut (dusty though it was), and took me for my first bus ride (first memorable public transport experience, in fact), and my first time riding pillion on a bike (I’m pretty sure my eyes were squeezed shut the entire time)…and was, in general, the most patient cousin in existence. And the nicest, really.

So it sucks beyond measure that God would let such a crappy thing happen to such a great guy. No one should ever, ever have to lose a baby…and how much worse when you’ve had a chance to hold her, and love her, and name her, and change her poopy diapers.

I’m so, so sorry, Cousin V.

Why I Love Cassandra Clare - Part 1

It's all down to lines like this: "Let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who’s trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.” ~ William Herondale in Clockwork Angel, Book 1 of the Infernal Devices Trilogy.

I'm only on Page 19 and already I've found 84 things I absolutely adore about this book!

All I Need Is A Stormy Day

Did anyone else like blowing off school/ college/ work on a particularly grey, blustery, rainy day to stay home with a good spooky book and a mug of hot chocolate (or a can of coke, in my case)? There's NO sensation that compares to being indoors, warm and dry and snug, while a storm rages outside and the sea and sky are pewter meshing into graphite, until they are indistinguishable from each other. And to indulge in a ghost story while the howling wind and rattling windows provide the soundtrack? Bliss. Geez, I sound like I belong in the Addams family. But anyway.

This is where I lived when I was in Bombay:

A gorgeous apartment on the 14th floor with a sea-facing bedroom. It was breathtaking during the monsoons, and if you opened the windows at opposite ends of the flat, you created a wind tunnel with force to rival a jet engine: I loved it! So you can understand my fascination with abandoning everything else when it rained and curling up on the window seat with 'Frankenstein' or 'It' or 'Pet Sematary' or even 'Edgar Allen Poe's Short Stories' or 'Ruskin Bond's Ghost Stories from the Raj'. Where I'm going with all this rambling is that after almost a decade I managed to stumble across a book that invokes the same delicious little tingle down my spine and makes me look over my shoulder for shadows:

Rosemary Clement-Moore's 'The Splendor Falls' is typically categorized under the Young Adult Section, and why not - the protagonist is a teenage girl dealing with loss, love, jealousy, ghosts and magic. But to describe it so is to make it sound trite and predictable - and there one would do it a gross disservice.

In Sylvie Davis, Clement-Moore has managed to create a character not too many may be able to identify with initially - I mean, seriously, a ballet prodigy who has travelled the world and now finds herself unable to dance ever again at the age of 17? Beautiful, wealthy, world-weary at that age? Difficult to relate, and rather difficult to like - sardonic (I often like that, don't get me wrong, but I generally prefer my sarcasm without a side-order of bitchy), self-involved (okay, I can kinda relate there, obviously), self-pitying and singularly uninterested in anything but ballet (something I've never been interested in, having all the grace and elegance of a doped-up hippopotamus). But her connection to her deceased father, her awareness of the shortcomings in men, her love of the earth and life itself and her internal struggle to stay sane (and prove her sanity to herself, if no one else) make her grow on you - like an annoying roommate you start liking after you read her diary and find out she worries about the size of her butt too.

And the town, with its old-world beauty, down-South homey-ness, and busybody neighbours seems like it could be any town in any country, and that's where one starts feeling a pull: the place, the people, the stories that could be in your neighbourhood, your family, even.

But the real beauty in this book lies in the simple decriptions of chilling places and events: life and loss through the Civil War, floods and yellow fever creating a ghost town, an old prison echoing with the remnants and revenants of past cruelties inflicted, a lover being murdered, a scorned woman killing herself and being doomed to repeat the cycle for eternity, a cold broken man murdering a child. And through the centuries, the Davis family homestead where the very walls seem to hold their breath to stop the gasp of fear, and the woods outside pulsing with magic and misfortune and memories of loss. And superimposed over it all, the very believable and identifiable emotions of greed and teenage complacence. The tone and cadence of the story never veer into maudlin or overly dramatic, always striking the right balance of intriguing and downright creepy - enough to keep your attention from wandering without rolling your eyes and thinking "Seriously? We're supposed to buy this crap?"

The only grouse I had while reading this book is that I live in a desert country where rainy days are few and far between - a little grey light and moaning wind would've set the stage perfectly to go with the shivers down my spine.

Things I Have Recently Learnt About Myself: Part 4,782

- It’s amazing winning a shitload of money during the weekly poker session, but it sucks to take most of it off one of my closest friends.

- It’s gratifying to know my friend hates winning money off of me too. Abby, you’re sweetheart.

- It’s SUCH a turn-off when guys talk about their new Porsche / Ferrari/ Lamborghini/ Any fancy-schmancy car 5 minutes into our first meeting.

- It’s also a turn-off when they refer to said car as ‘baby’. Just massively creepy.

- It’s possible to miss my little brother so much that my heart physically aches. And still possible to remind myself that he’s having the time of his life, so I HAVE to be upbeat instead of mopey when I talk to him. Even if I can’t bring myself to walk into empty room now.

- It would be kinda interesting to have an all-vampire episode of ‘Glee’. And they could cover the songs from the ‘Nosfaratu’ musical, or ‘Lestat’, or even- OOOH, the musical episode of ‘Buffy’. Please, Mr. Producer/ Director/ Writer, hear my plea?

- The thought of a brand-new as-yet-unread book will get me through the toughest, crappiest, most horrible-no-good-very-bad day at work. And if it happens to be the new Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong or Janet Evanovich? Even better!

- I have fantastically pathetic taste in the men I choose as eye candy. This was brought home to me when I bumped into one piece of candy a few days ago and thought “Ew. On a scale of Cough Drops to Godiva Hazelnut Truffles, he’d be a chocolate laxative pill: ergo, so far below the lowest point on the scale, I don’t know what I was inhaling when I thought he was cute.” If hindsight is 20-20, I have Superman’s X-Ray vision.

- I love saying “Ergo.” Why? Dunno, just do.

- I am ADDICTED to fashion blogs! fatsandchints, highheelconfidential, purplepeeptoes and, of course, fashion bombay. And to supplement my daily fix, I’ve taken to trawling Yahoo’s OMG site for their weigh-in on various celebrities’ outfits at appearances. It’s madness, I tell you! The next thing you know, I’ll be watching Joan Rivers on ‘Fashion Police’. Oy vey.

- I love saying Oy Vey, even though I’m about as far from Jewish as a person can get. Why? Dunno, just do. Must be a hangover from a childhood spent religiously watching ‘The Nanny’.

Confessions

Growing up, and attempting to be a tomboy (not very successfully, though…how many tomboys had waist-length hair and were scared to climb up to the garage roof?), I’d rather have submitted to Chinese bamboo torture than admit I had the soul of a romantic. Actually, I’d still rather go through that. And ‘soul’ and ‘romantic’ might be pushing it a bit… it’d be more accurate to say I have the reading preferences of a mushbucket.

In what was an extremely rare occasion in my life, a couple of weeks ago I had dinner with 7 women. I don’t think I’ve ever actually had that many female friends in my life. But I digress. During the course of the evening we all ‘fessed up to our guilty pleasures – ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Glee’ and, of course, Romance Novels. Guilty on all 3 counts for me. I’ll go into my Chuck Bass and Mr. Schu obsession (not together, ew….although, can you imagine Chuck Bass singing? Sacrilege!) another time, but ah, romance novels…

A friend’s mom got me hooked onto them when I was 15 (prior to that I just devoured Sweet Valleys, remember those? Gawd, what with the teachings in those books, it’s a miracle I didn’t turn out to be a sociopath/ kidnapper/ psychotic loon/ boyfriend stealer…oh, wait, nevermind). I was bored out of my skull after the Class 10 board exams in Delhi, and at that age where I wanted to go out and party but wasn’t allowed out past 10 p.m., so I turned my already-voracious reading appetite into something of legendary proportions (out of sheer desperation, I even read cookbooks. But I never tried out the recipes, of course. That would’ve involved people eating my cooking and dying horrible painful deaths). Then Aunty M, ignoring my upturned nose and disdainful expression, lent me The Christmas Special Bonus Edition 3-in-1 Mills & Boon (I kid you not, they actually fit all that in the title page). And that was the beginning of the end for me… forever after I would expect men to have a tough exterior with a soft heart (like baked alaska?), a cleft chin (face ass!), a strong jaw, eyes like melted chocolate/ summer skies/ leaves/ glaciers/ insert-cliché-here. And be at least 6 feet tall (yeah, that hasn’t worked out too well for me in the past. The last guy? An inch shorter than me. Aiyo). Never mind the fact that I hardly had an alabaster brow or a heaving bosom (not at that age, at least).

Anyway, my absolute favourites, without a doubt, were the ones where the protagonists started out positively loathing each other and then, bam! Ended up in love. As a romantically-challenged (read: deprived, stunted, innocent) 15-year-old, I couldn’t quite fathom HOW they got from hate to love, and the whole sexual attraction thing was mystifying in the extreme, but man, it made for entertaining reading! Sometimes I wonder if that basically screwed me up for my early romances, because I have to admit to being attracted to guys I argued with a lot (but I think that had something to do with the fact that they matched wits with me. At least in the past. Nowadays, I just get annoyed). And I expected (and got) a lot of drama in relationships (which is why it’s SO much easier to live the life of a nun now). But the one thing that I’m ashamed to admit prevailed over the years is the dream that there would one day be a man who’d sweep me off my feet, be as besotted with me as I was with him, and we’d live happily ever after. Shocking, I know, since I’ve always stridently proclaimed that the last, absolute LAST thing I wanted or needed in my life was a man. Not that I lied…I’m happier without one, especially of the caliber I generally meet. But oh, to meet one who’s like a romance novel hero? And not gay? I’ll take that!

I read somewhere recently that romance novels have warped women’s ideas of romance and their hopes and expectations of a man. I kinda agree with that, since I now expect all men to be assholes who are secretly good guys. Turns out, I’m only half right.

Here We Go Again

It’s Raksha Bandhan again, and, although we don’t celebrate it in our family, I’m back to taking stock of all my memories of my baby brother. He will, undoubtedly, roll his eyes in embarrassment at my ooey-gooeyness and tell me to get a grip. These are things I have resolved to do:

- STOP calling him ‘baby’ brother. Well, at least not in front of his friends.
- STOP crying everytime something amazing happens in his life – academic distinction,great A – Level results, being accepted to University.
- I WILL NOT cry when he goes off to college next month.
- I WILL NOT pepper him with a barrage of calls, messages and e-mails, and I will let him settle in and make friends and get a bit of distance, as every teenager should learn to do when they leave home.
- STOP lecturing him on all the possible dangers and risks of being a stranger in a strange land, and instead encourage him to look forward to everything he’s going to experience there.
- STOP looking at his old baby pictures. I have GOT to get with the program…I’m 27, he’s 18 and he’s not going to automatically revert to the adorable 2-year-old in the photo just because I miss carrying him around.
- I WILL NOT go into his room and sit glumly on his bed when he’s away, missing him awfully.
- STOP tearing up everytime I write these mushy posts (it’s the hormones or something, that’s it).
- STOP writing these mushy posts (especially in the office).
- I WILL probably end up breaking each and every one of these resolutions ages before he leaves.

Please, God, if you could reeeeeeeeaalllllyyyy slow down time for the next month, I promise to try and be a better person! Or a less weepy one, anyway. I know my brother would be eternally grateful for that.

Happy Rakhi, baby.

Freeeeeedom!

Exams are D.O.N.E!! Bring on the clubs and the alcohol and the mindless celebration of the end of a month of slavery and VERY little sleep.

Oh wait, it's Ramadhan. Okay then, celebrate next month. Sigh. At least no classes till October.

That's What Friends Are For....

I kinda pity N.M....he's a harmless soul really: very into cars, bikes, hiking and busty women. I think he often wonders what crime he committed to be cursed with a best friend like me. Especially since we've started mailing back and forth every day at work, and he's forced to endure (practically daily) tripe like this from me:

I'm really bored and I don't know what to do:
If I get any bored-er I might eat my shoe.
There's piles of paper and work to be done,
But it's almost the weekend; I want to have fun!

Alas, however, I must get home and study:
Exams and assignments are nobody's buddy.
Somebody remind me why I'm doing this degree?
Oh yeah, it's all greed, I wanted more money.

Well, if nothing else, this has helped pass the time:
Boredom is alleviated when I'm penning a rhyme.
To you, my friend, who puts up with my shit:
Thank you for understanding when I'm being a twit :)

You see what I mean? He's a gem, a prince among men with the patience of an angel, a sweet soul doomed to hell purely because of his acquaintance with me, and it's beyond me how he's gone all these years without killing either himself or me!

So here's to you, N.M. I'm safe in the knowledge that you never read my blog (or read anything other than a t-shirt on a particularly buxom woman, actually), so I can be as sappy as I want!

Escapism

I got back from Bombay over a fortnight ago, but I still can't bring myself to write about my trip. Why? Because it'll mean I'm not there anymore .... leaving this time just felt harder than ever. No particular reason why, except that nowadays I welcome falling asleep at night because I get to delve under the covers and pretend I'm in bed in Bombay, where I belong more than anywhere else on earth. Anyway, to counter the aforementioned bit of doom and gloom, I'm recycling an old piece of crap I wrote, ohhhh, 4 years ago. Ah, for the age of innocence :)

A novice's guide to the game
Checking out a member of the opposite sex is a time-honoured, prolific and surprisingly tricky pastime. Time honoured because, well, please, you so know that your great-great-great-great-great granddaddy stood in those ballrooms and watched the waltzing women, waiting for their voluminous petticoats to flutter and expose a thrilling one inch of ankle. La, what a shocking charlatan that woman is, I saw her ankle. Prolific because, as with a lot of things, you can do it anywhere, anytime, any how, in a variety of ways, and the playing field is huge. They ain't kidding when they say there's a lot of fish in the ocean! And I've always rather wondered who the 'they' is who keep saying things. But I digress. Ah, yes, and surprisingly tricky because you don't want to get caught. Unless, of course, you do want to get caught.

As with every other species, human beings have their hunting grounds, and of course, the predator and the prey. This is probably one hunt, though, where the predator and the prey intermingle fearlessly, and often exchange roles as well. There's a secret (well,okay, not-so-secret) language of nudges and winks and lascivious stares and hisses of "Psst! Hottie at 3 o'clock!" Sometimes, of course, the guerilla warfare can get a little confusing. A friend and I were sitting on a hot summer day at Leopold's and I was delighting in a chilled glass of coke while she was delighting in the scenery. Said scenery was a beautifully proportioned German hunk-extraordinaire, and she was getting her jollies watching the movement of his manly throat as he guzzled beer (sad, I know, but we were socially retarded.) To get my attention, she whispered "Pssst. 4 p.m." I, of course, promptly checked my watch and was rather nonplussed, since it was barely noon. Then, again, she said "No, no, 4 p.m." Ah, that made more sense. Cute guy. But whose 4 p.m.? Hers or mine? Giving up on that, I simply swivelled around in my seat till I was faced with a vision that made me go "Hubba hubba". But quietly, of course. And I made a mental note to learn whose side the time zones actually referred to, because we passed quite a blissful, but confusing, hour exchanging hisses of "3 a.m." and "9 p.m." which always culminated in us just giving up and blatantly looking around till we spotted the quarry. Of course, the highlight was at the end of the hour, when the aforementioned German hottie paid for his beer and, before leaving, strode up to us to whisper in his sexy accent: "It doesn't matter whether it's a.m. or p.m., it's just 4 o'clock. And it's more effective if you speak softly." Really, I've never used the time zone technique again.

Another time I was out with my friends at some pub or the other that seemed to have a wonderful assortment of the most magnificent women. For the guys, of course, it was like a box of chocolates, and for me, well, I was just watching the fun (and letching maybe just very little). As women walked past., the boys would mutter "8" or "9.7" or "6.5", an archaic and offensive rating practice amongst men that is nonetheless highly amusing. More amusing, in fact, when one woman heard my friend T.K. say "5.8" and, in a fit of temper, sloshed her drink all over him and said "In your dreams, I'm definitely a 9". Lesson number 2 is the same as number 1: always keep your voice down.

Now, as I've said before, there's an art to this game. Sometimes you don't want to get caught checking out the goods, and sometimes you do (don't play innocent, we all want to get caught sometimes. Isn't it just totally worth that knowing smirk and twinkle in the eye?) Me, I play it rather safe. Never approach men in pubs, or anywhere, really, but I sure do look. Only once, I remember, at Jazz, did I see someone I might actually want to approach, but of course, propriety (and the fact that I'm a total chickenshit) forced me to play it safe. Lots of heavy eye contact, a little toss of the hair (that famous attention-grabbing move of women the world over), slight pout to the lips (damn, where's the lipgloss when you need it?), a little spark of satisfaction when he looked at our table. The boys were frowning in disapproval (of course, it's alright for them to indulge in such games, but I have to be protected. Bah. Hypocrites.), but they did concur that he was looking in our direction quite a bit. The final triumph,I could see, was about to come about, since he had just risen from his table and was coolly sauntering over. I was getting ready to play it coy, maybe accept a drink and haggle over whether or not I'd give him my phone number, when he stopped in front of my friend N.K. and said: "Do you want to dance?" Lesson 3: acquire gaydar, or gay radar. Really. It helps.

While not every person is a willing participant in the game, it does tend to suck you right in. Pretty soon, you'll find you're even checking out men with your mom. Of course, this is a little...er...what's the word...different. Mom and I were at the CCI once, ostensibly swimming but in actuality checking out the ample goodies on display. I spotted a specimen that redefined the term six pack, and was telling mom in hushed (yes, I had finally learned to whisper) tones just how attractive I found the physique laid out a few chaise lounges away. Flash forward a few days, and we were at the CCI again, meeting mom's friends for lunch. The next thing I know, in walks Mr. Hotbody, and, wonder of wonders, he's the son of one of mom's friends. So we're introduced around, and my mom (dear sweet soul) winks at me and says to the guy "Oh, it's you...my daughter couldn't stop gushing about your...what did you call it, sweetie? Six-pack? Yes, that's right. Wow, you must really work out a lot." Lesson 4: Tell your mother nothing. NOTHING.

With the help of these few lessons, I hope others will be as enlightened as I am to the ways of this sometimes treacherous, often perilous, always entertaining game. All the best to everyone out there - to the men, may you find women whose drinks won't stain when thrown at you. To the women, I hope you're more attractive than your male friends.

My Only Thought

...Is that this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Bombay!! As N.M. soooo sweetly and soooo graciously said: “No sleep, no peace, no rest, no alone time…no sleep!” I can’t wait!!

Plus, H.T.’s getting married! Chronicles on one of our own getting shackled…er,hitched… to follow (sure to be filled with biased observations due to my enduring Peter Pan complex).

BUT! Bombay!!

I Won, I Won, I Won!!

...Though not at poker, sadly, where I'm continuing on a month-long losing streak. Sigh. BUT! Even better! I won the competition being held by FriendsOfBooks for Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's new book: Confessions of a Listmaniac. Eeeeeeee. Okay, so I'm being all fan-girl here, but I can't help it... I've followed her blog for..oooh 4 years now, and then loved her first book, You Are Here, and now I'm one of the 3 winners selected to get a signed copy of her new (and undoubtedly hilarious) book. Say it with me: Eeeeeeeeeee!

The competition involved listing the things we love (d) and hate (d) most about being teenagers. After straining to remember that far back, I was able to come up with a few pros and cons of teenage-dom: hardly a set list, but what came back to me with the most startling, laugh-inducing, pain-in-the-chest-in-a-good-nostalgic-way clarity. With a few additions, here's what I wrote:-


LOVED

- The excitement that came with a crush, and the thrill of seeing the object of my affection, however fleetingly!

- Meeting with friends in corridors in the too-short time span between the school buses arriving and the assembly bell, and catching up on what we missed in each others’ lives in the past 16 hours (6 hours, if you count from when we FINALLY got off the phone).

- How EVERYTHING was of vital importance!

- That the little things mattered the most: the biggest concern was whether or not I'd pass maths; the main goal was to ensure my skirt was at JUST the right length to make melook good and not incur the teachers’ wrath; the highlight of the day was when my crush talked to me and didn’t even bat an eye at his friends’ hooting and catcalling.

- The ability to talk on the phone for 5 hours straight and still feel that there was plenty more to be said.

- The single, everlasting moment before my first kiss.

- That "being there for each other” and ”having your back” and ”unswerving support” weren’t just random terms, but actual qualities prevalent in a circle of friends.

- Sleepovers at friends' places and sneaking out for parties - is it just me, or did it make the party SO much more fun knowing you weren't supposed to be there?

HATED

- The double-standard and labeling that was prevalent when it came to romance…no matter how much they did, the boys were studs; no matter how little they did, the girls were sluts.

- Getting my period and having to wear a white uniform in summer…talk about constant fear!

- That popularity mattered so much to some people that they’d treat those who were different (too tall, too thin, too fat, too pimply, too brainy, too poor) with extreme cruelty.

- How easy it was for teachers to judge students only based on marks and not personality, efforts, extra-curriculars…

- The people who'd gossip for the sake of it, with no basis or regard to truth: so at the age of 15 I had a random girl in the school bathroom, who had no clue who I was, telling me of my own purported exploits - boob job, threesome with 2 guys at a party, sleeping with the Head Boy. On the plus side, her face when I introduced myself was PRICELESS! :)

- How emotions were so extreme that a break-up felt like the end of the world (maybe that’s not just a teenage thing, though).

What about you? What did you love and hate most about being a teenager?

I Should Have Saved The Title For This Post…

… instead of using it here. Ah well, I’m not the weather bureau, and hence couldn’t predict that I’d want to recycle my witticism (scant and obtuse though it may be) for commenting on Cyclone Phet, which I lived through unscathed. Having survived 2 cyclones now with minimal damage (I don’t think a leaky bedroom window and TV transmission disappearing for 2 hours counts for much), I have to say this one was definitely milder than Gonu…rained on and off for a day-and-a-half, infrequent wind gusts, and a death toll in the low (mercifully) double-digits (may they rest in peace).

I think it’s just that all the ongoing construction in this place is disturbing the flow of the wadis (dry river beds) and playing havoc with the natural drainage system of the land. Or could be that before this, the land never saw the need for natural drainage, what with being a desert region and glimpsing rainfall once a year, if that. Whatever it is, the place floods up quicker than a stoppered bath-tub, and all activity virtually ceases, with work shutting down, schools closed and international exams cancelled (CFA – boy, are people unhappy about that!).

How different from Bombay, when, far from shutting down, the city would exult in the torrent! Even then, we’d trudge through to college (yay for living town-side and not in the suburbs), go sit at the CCI or get soaked on Marine Drive (of course, gorging on hot buttered corn or pakoras all the while). None of this stay-home-off-the-streets-avoid-bridges stuff. And really, what’s the point? Two days later, and we’re back to 50-degree scorching heat.

Makes me long for the unrelenting week-long downpour of a good old Bombay monsoon.