The heat is on

Delhi is radiating heat. I, one who spends close to one-third of the month in the burning haze of Northern Maharashtra (places like Jalgaon etc, where the Jal in Jalgaon can be interpreted as burn and also ironically as water), bow down to the Surya dev and plead with him to leave this city alone. Yes, even if it peoples folks such as it does.

I am on leave and struggling with the concept. The mind is not at ease, it is thinking of all the stuff that is piling up silently and ominously on the side, like a tottering tower of Pisa.

The meet with the parents went well. Actually, very well. Like I remarked to somebody recently, the problem with that boy is that he does not have a bit of vice in him (except for narcissism, which I condone, seeing how it is my Achilles heel) and hence comes across as extremely accommodating and ernest. Well, parents have a liking for that kind of thing and they took a shine to him. Not that I had any doubt, but phew.

Apart from that, have been watching a lot of tv. Finished reading this book called The Unbearable Lightness of Scones - Alexander McCall Smith. Funny sort of book. First hand accounts from various characters, all Scottish, and consisting of mostly only conversations. Next on the list is the Meluha book - having heard so much about it and it being on the premises, how with my sister being gifted with a copy.

Speaking of books, the other day I was thumbing through an Oscar Wilde play (I have made The complete works of Oscar Wilde my read-in-Landmark book. Every time I go to Landmark and that is quite often, I continue from where I had left off) and I came across this intriguing idea.

So basically it says that while men love women with all their flaws and sometimes, because of the flaws, women love men because of the good in them. In fact, most of us play up the men in our lives to be better than they actually are, putting them on a pedestal so to speak (that would explain my comments earlier about you-know-who, heheheh) and then obviously, nobody is that perfect. Hence, women are more liable to feel hurt and such like, when their dream-world comes crashing down. I do agree. I feel we women don't have too strong a grip on reality. We are floating somewhere in between our fantasy worlds (comprising and because of, all the movies we watch, stories we hear, books we read) and ground zero. Every young girl has a version of her Mr Right and some fortunately grow up and realize that he does not exist before there is any lasting damage, some don't.

In that way, women seem to be more impressionable than men. Men to me, seem to be ambling through life, letting all its barbs and stabs slide over their rough hide, simplistic and naive whereas women are constantly hyperventilating all those barbs into a conspiracy by the Universe.

What do you think?

Glee

Things are looking wonderful. (Almost). My parents are getting here tomorrow, we are attending Bua's and Chhote Papa's 25th wedding anniversary and then I am heading off with them to Delhi. But that is not all. From there, I shall go to Patna for a few days. After eleven years. Hard to believe it has been that long. I can picture that place in my head like it was just yesterday.

And still, that is not all. My parents are meeting Ankit this weekend and I am thrilled. It will be good to watch him squirm.

I just finished reading 'The Kite Runner' and I think it is well written, but I failed to experience the protagonist's pain. The protagonist as a child commits an act of betrayal towards a friend, whose loyalty towards him remains as staunch as ever even after the incident, and he lives to regret it everyday of his life. I know only too well how disproportionately big all the silly worries of childhood seem, and this is not even a silly thing that he does - it does have immense grief value, but even so, the ghost of this incident at every point in his life and him thinking that it is equivalent to having a hidden past and a terrible secret, is a little hard to digest. I also think the book drags a little in the end.

There I go, critiquing away to the high heavens. I guess I was expecting more. The descriptions of Afghanistan are breathtaking though. That and the stomach-clenching tales of the Taliban. Cannot believe such violence exists. And such bigots breed in our midst. I wonder what the Universe is playing at? Is there really no concept of divine justice? Nature's fury?

On the work front, this week I had to let a guy from my team go. I mean, I had to sack him. Don't feel good about it. I wish I didn't have such responsibilities. I am not capable of taking them lightly. I work myself up trying to beat the balance between encouraging my guys and kicking their butt when they don't deliver. At the end of it, I just want to have made the right decisions, not just for the business, but also for them. And sometimes, it is not one and the same thing.

Well, what with all this, have started feeling like a million years old. No, really, like there isn't any room for mistakes. Like the phase is past when I could call myself a beginner, a newbie, bound to - nay - expected to, make mistakes. I know that mistakes made by me now are not just going to affect me but many other people also. And the knowledge of that still takes my breath away.

Hmm..let me not end this post on a solemn note, what started out as happy. So here is a brief description of my room.

My room looks pretty. I have a television set, on which I have put my Oktoberfest hat. The television sits on a table for which I am thankful as I have stuffed, no, aesthetically arranged my books on the racks inside it. Had there been no room inside this table, my books would have been gathering dust inside some ugly brown carton. There is a tiny cupboard next to this television-table ensemble (everything is tiny in my room, like it was made for Hobbits) on top of which, due to lack of other places to keep them in, I have kept a few soft toys (all gifts, I find myself clarifying) along with various perfumes (gifts again), massage oils (I bought them - fancy - I know), free deos and facewashes (I do have some perks, few and far between though they are) and other assorted items. This cupboard is a pretty brown color too, like caramel. Next, there is a knee-high glass-topped wooden table on the other side of the television, with an in-built drawer which serves as my DVD store. On top of the table, I have carelessly flung my Red Bull mat (the one that we flicked from Geoffrey's in Bangalore) and a Scrabble set. On the space in between the glass top and the drawer, resides my Shakrukh-Khan-coffee-table-book (It was a birthday gift from him and I am pretty sure lugging it around was the final straw on the camel's back, quite literally as my back started to play up soon after. But oh. Did I forget to mention that I love it and will take that book to my grave and no, not because of SRK?).

So there's a corner of my room, all described. I rather liked describing it. I have always wondered how authors of serious novels describe the simplest of things in so much detail. I don't even know the English (or Hindi) names of half the things around me. For example, what do you call those things that curtains have, the ones by which they hang on rods? I am sure Hosseini could write a page on them.

Just generally

I do some blog surfing nowadays and a couple of blogs are my favorites. One of them bloggers is really into it, she visualizes her blog as a bar and herself as the bartender, serving up posts or drinks for everyone who drops in. What is amazing are the labels under which her posts are categorized - Polls, Bollywood Buzz, Recipe for the month, etc. She is pretty consistent with her content. Her blog is well thought out and well laid out apart from being just well written. And she regularly meets up with the other bloggers taking what is largely for me a way to vent and derive some creative satisfaction at times, to an entirely new level.

Here is the link - http://sayesha.blogspot.com

The weekend has arrived and I find myself incapable of feeling entirely wrinkle-free happy. Well, not true. Friday evenings are like that - not-a-cloud-on-the-horizon kinda happy. The part of me that plays the figure of authority about these things allows me that one evening to put everything on the back-burner. Come Saturday morning and I start worrying about how to plan the weekend so that all that pending stuff gets done and fun is also had. Ironic, huh? There is also a bit of work and my team is working Saturday so I am not completely off. Saturday evening is again a sort of respite from it all, and then dawns the Grand ol' Sunday.

I remember a time when Sunday used to be only about watching cartoons early in the morning, I used to have a pretty busy schedule, then an awesome lunch and a lazy evening spent doing not much that I can remember, leading up to Monday, eagerly awaited. Those were the days when school was the one thing I would look forward to the most. I had to be dragged away from it for holidays and stuff, or even when I would be unwell.

Now? Hmm. Let's see. Sunday brings with it the worst sense of foreboding about the week that is about to begin. It brings with it that feeling of hastily wanting to enjoy the last few moments of freedom knowing that those moments are going to run out very soon. It brings with it the feeling of having wasted the weekend - if worked too much, then wasted the weekend working too much and not sleeping/having fun/ticking off all those other jobs to be done apart from work; and if not worked at all - then wasted the opportunity to peacefully sit and analyze some or the other data, or put on the hold some not-so-important-thing which would come and undoubtedly smite me between the eyes on Monday morning.

Sigh.

No no, Life isn't all this bad and I am not this implacable.

I do sometimes wish I had been wiser fifteen years back and known that those were the Golden days, although that would not have served any purpose really. Well, adulthood sucks. I still see myself as a loafer who does not know what she wants. Still trying to decide what to make a career in. Still at a stage where Lipstick seems too grown-up and hence, does not figure in the scheme of things.

Life is slipping me by and I am selling soap. Albeit in a way that is adding a lot of skills and experience and all that to me. Still. I tell you, that is something to be slisha concerned about.

Porn and Popcorn

Weird thing I noticed today.

I had some time to kill at the Sangli railway station, so I was loafing around. I went to the bookshop brimming with curiosity, and what does five seconds of standing there reveal? Magazines of various names and sizes, brimming (yes, nice word, innit) with pictures of voluptuous women in compromising poses.

Yes, with titles like 'Chulbuli kahaniyan', 'Yauvan ka josh' and lots of other colorful stuff that has slipped my obviously geriatric mind.

Hmmm..

The other day, I needed to go to a cyber cafe in Solapur and all people directed me to one 'Balaji' Cyber cafe like it was the Victoria Memorial. And it did turn out to be quite a place. It was buzzing with youngsters, rather - boys. It was like their regular adda spot. They were playing games on LAN, surfing (one can only imagine what) and generally hanging around and smoking.
Life in these little towns is changing. They are probably at a phase in their evolutionary cycle where the Metros were fifteen years back.

But while some things change, some remain just the same. And one of them is the maybe-uniquely-Indian adult obsession with soft-pornography.

The eight wonders

There is a Hakim-Aalim-Hair-and-Tattoo-lounge near my old place on Carter road and it has since the past half a year sported a hoarding in its vicinity which says - "Javed Habib is pregnant, delivering soon".

It almost sounds ominous. Like who knows what Mr Habib will unleash upon this world and the bourgeois better beware.

So, dear readers!! Tralala..lala..laLALA and all that. I am told that I have eight followers. I see there is merit in not going and checking the number of followers that one has - every hour. One is pleasantly surprised when the number leapfrogs from two to eight. A 300% for those who ingest numbers and unfortunately I know many who do. Although I can derive some solace from the fact that they are probably not among them followers.

I must here insert a statement which umm..states that I am aware of the insignificance of having eight followers. I blog-hob-nob with people who win blog-awards. Eight followers is what their toenails have.

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It is raining like the blazes in Mumbai. I have never been able to decide whether I love the rains or hate them. I guess, both. It is frustrating when you are stuck in a hell-hole of a traffic jam for three hours and it is pouring, and because it is pouring. It is beautiful when you are watching it raise hell and high water, insistently, persistently, from the safety of the terrace, in the company of a good book, or conversation. It activates sound, light, touch - the works.

One thing suddenly came to me though - it has been close to twelve years since I have thrown all caution to the wind, or the rains in this case, and reveled - getting drenched to the bone and not caring. With no worries of where I need to go, what I am wearing or carrying, how I am going to look or whether I am going to catch the cold of my life. It has been that long since I felt all that.

Prisoners of our own device, we are.

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Saw Sex and the City part II and came out with a very happy feeling. All glowy and lovey. And he was wearing specs too. That added to it. The women all look old, no doubt. Makes me wonder, do these American women grow to look older before their time? Or is it just the naivete of youth that made me spake these words? Apart from that, their clothes are as bizarre as ever. Big is domesticated and Carrie, the eternal seeker, is still seeking. Let me not even get started on what Samantha is upto.

On slightly more morose topics, work - that heralder of old age before its time (did I just proclaim to be suffering from the naivete of youth?), is doing its job well. My back is fragile and the dentist says I grind my teeth too much. Weird, the kind of things doctors diagnose me with. Next they will be calling me a hypochondriac.

Harvesting Pain

Breezy is over-rated. I don't want to be one of those cheerful, chirpy, always-happy things, these people who bear any and every one of the atrocious misfortunes that befall them with philosophical stolidity. Also, do they even exist?

I have my own perversity through. I have always chosen to torture myself, thinking, as does Calvin's dad, that it would build character. Laughable.

At this point I feel that character has been built enough and is being subjected to the violent blows of this hammer that goes about calling itself Life. It is starting to wear away - character, not the demonic blows.

If only these years would fly past. I would happily wear the crown of the 'been-there-done-that' as opposed to sitting on this rather thorny throne of the 'here-now-and-doing-it'.

A weird week

I love the coffee culture. More than coffee itself. I treat these coffee shops as 'homes away from home' - taking books and newspaper to read, the laptop on the rare occasions that I am working from home or at those times when I have to work late and doing that from a warm, buzzing, promising-to-be-serving-up-mugs-of-coffee kinda place makes it so much more tolerable, almost cool. I also treat these places as a meeting point, with brokers and the likes. Glorious is life when there is a coffee place nearby!

In a stroke of bad luck, my back played up again. Must be because of all the carrying and lugging that packing and unpacking entails. Also my landlady generously put a pair of plump mattresses on the bed that she also so kindly provided (yea, I have an actual bed to sleep on now!) but that played havoc with my back. Unlike the Princess in the Pea story, who could not sleep all night due to the presence of a pea beneath some millions of layers of mattresses, give me a hard plank of wood and I will sleep like a babe. Not princess-material, me.

So this week there has been no traveling and lots of staying at home and frankly, I am bored. Traveling is now so much a part of my lifestyle that a week of not, makes me feel as if - hmm..mm..hmmm..as if my nose has suddenly disappeared off my face, you know, an improvement for sure in the general scheme of things, but weird.

Also paid a visit to the dermatologist after the recent escapade at the salon, while I was at the hospital for my back. I have never been to one, and I was a bit apprehensive. I had not even checked before paying the exorbitant consultation charges whether dermatologists do look at scalps. However, he did not miss a beat when I told him that some hairstylist had advised me to get my scalp checked. He checked, and told me lazily - Hats off to her that she managed to scare you like this. They are evil, these beauty parlors. While I kept insisting that he check again - well, I had to get my money's worth - he seemed to get more and more amused.

If you ask me, he seemed like a bit of a sham himself, slightly bored, kinda like he was reserving all his energies for the truly meaty clients like hmm..Hrithik Roshan, whom he had a framed photograph with, in his office. Or ladies who have enough moolah and time to go nip-tuck-lift-botoxx!

Anyhow, what with all my visits to Lilavati hospital, I am now a card-holding member of that landmark institution. And by landmark, I mean, actually so. I always use it to give directions to my home.

The television is also part of the paraphernalia that the flat has come with. And I must say, I wasn't missing much. Although when you are a bit lonely and all that, it does help having a television blaring familiarly from the corner.

As part of the grand initiation ceremony into the new place, I tried to whip up some bread pohe. I love the bread pohe. The only thing that has prevented me from making a staple diet out of it is the fact that I don't eat bread. Such is life. But now that there is whole wheat bread, and multi-grain bread, and three-grain bread and an assortment of healthy options to plain old bread, I decided to get back at it. So in went bread, and some onions, and carrots, topped with some thai sauce and Olive Oil (yea, I bought Olive Oil to cook, I am that pretentious!) and I discovered that I didn't have any matchsticks or a lighter. So I put the thing into the microwave, and skeptically put it on 'Auto-cook' wondering how on earth would it cook the carrots, which are about the hardest things to soften.

I was wrong, oh so wrong. After about ten minutes, when I went in again, I was greeted by a delicious aroma and the sight of molten plastic. Yes, the microwave had reduced my plastic bowl to an abstract-artsy-looking thing. The pohe turned out well though.

All's well that ends well though. Will use the half melted bowl for potpourri. Nice and bohemian. Yes, I am that pretentious. I have potpourri.