Lemondrops and Norwesters

Peppa and Timmy - Bad Match Indeed!

2012-01-13T02:44:00.001+05:30

(Perfectly able-bodied humans have been given an animal makeover in this story, to keep human relationships alive)

Peppa Pig and Timmy were walking down the road to a friend’s place. Let’s call him Bob for now.

Right. But both Peppa and Timmy had forgotten about Upsy-Daisy who lives just across the road. Upsy is Bob’s neighbour, and also a common friend. What a terrible miss!

It was Christmas time, and Timmy had a bottle of Merlot for Bob. Just as they were crossing Upsy’s house, Timmy noticed Upsy sitting on her couch in the lounge and watching the television. Timmy panicked, and ran, so that Upsy wouldn’t see him at all. Poor Timmy! He banged against a lamp post and had a nasty fall…the bottle of Merlot broken, with the red richness trickling out and spilling on to the road. Upsy wanted to see what the commotion on the road was all about. ‘Oh…just another drunkard who has lost his way’, she thought!

And while all of this was playing out, what was Peppa up to? Busy saying a warm ‘hello’ to Bob, conveniently oblivious of the fact that Timmy had a blue forehead.

Moral of the story: Don’t hurry, don’t panic, and learn to recognize a true friend. Peppa for sure wasn’t one.

It’s been a week since the fiasco. I am nursing a sore toe and a blue forehead. Amitava, of course, is his usual Peppa self!!!

The Cold, the Dark, the Bad, and the Criminal!

2011-12-09T02:05:00.001+05:30

What is it about winter that makes me devour mystery novels? Maybe it's the bizarre cold and the simple thought of curling up toe nails under an exaggerated blanket, with the big bad world going on a killing/looting/tricking spree outdoors? Possible!
Last winter it was McDermid's Fever of the Bone, and this time it's The Mermaids Singing. Not that I am particularly biased towards lesbian mystery writers. I've predictably had my share of Holmes and Poirot as well. It's just the thought of indoor warmth and outdoor mystery that I fall prey to...time and again.Is this not a very normal behavioural trait? The man tells me, it isn't. I think he is faintly of the opinion that I have all the possible germs of a grotesque criminal in me...it's just the shards of a gentle bourgeois society that keep me in a leash. Really? But I've always enjoyed mystery in winter.
I've spent countless winter afternoons, sitting on sunny patches with Famous Fives, Secret Sevens, and shaky milk teeth...blatantly scared of the infamous tooth fairy.
As I grew my adult teeth, my tastes in mystery became more grown up, and I started reading Nancy Drews wrapped in obscure newspaper covers, enjoying every bit of the adult romance between Nancy and her Emersonian boyfriend, Ned.Then came all the classic Conan Doyles and the Agatha Christies this world could think of.
I guess, this hankering for mystery is just my love for imagining things. There have been times when I have been in bed, just imagining that a killer is picking up my scent and trying to track me down...all the way from the busy railway station, past the old brick-coloured houses, across the motor way, past the grocery shop....getting slightly confused at times, but approaching me nevertheless....isn't that supposed to be thrilling? Of course the killer cannot enter the building and kill me in the end. My reality is way too secure for that kind of thing. But what if?
I guess, it's the 'what if' that makes me Kindle™ under a warm duvet, in soft yellow light.

Oh come on! You can’t have it all!

2011-07-27T01:07:00.003+05:30

Nobody…absolutely nobody stopped you from day dreaming my dear man…kind of your birth right, sure. But your dream has to have an iota of semi-truth about it. What’s the point otherwise?

Let me explain. The man now wants his wife to be a bit of a trophy…shed her flab, be agile, eat less junk, go on a chocolate strike etc. The man forgets very conveniently that a banyan tree, even if you don’t water it for a year, remains as ample and robust (Really?? Who cares?).

The bright new spark is that he’s going to teach me tennis in the neighbourhood park…the place that’s quite obviously frequented by cute blondes in their fluffy, pointless, polka-dotted hardly theres, and skinny males, in their physique-accentuating tights and waxed bodies. OH COME ON!!! You can’t be serious? I’ve never held a tennis racket in my whole butterball life!

Flashback:

It all started, when I was this well-fed kid, still managing to run across packed school corridors in break time under Mrs Solomon’s watchful eyes. She howled at me first, and later at my father, during a PTA, saying that I was going to invite an unnecessary casualty by playing so dangerously.

Thus, the Marion Jones in me was nipped in the bud by a concerned and near-neurotic father, who preferred having a sizable daughter to running to the emergency ward with a gorgeous and skinny child who had three broken teeth and a fractured torso.

Getting back to reality, nothing’s stopping my man. My Yonex rackets have arrived. God help me, coz I am terrified.

Looking for the Silver Lining

2011-05-14T10:00:00.004+05:30

No matter how much you crib about the pitfalls of a middle class married life, it’s never a nice thing to battle it out on your own in a lonely city (for official purposes) far away from the man. I genuinely cannot believe I just said that…but there you have it. Loneliness does cruel things to your left brain.
So while I was battling it out on a sultry May evening last week, feeling weepy and helpless as always, a surprising silver lining appeared, so completely out of the blue! It’s a pity I’ve ignored it for so long…the unintentional humour on Indian roads.
I was in an auto rickshaw, mindlessly screeching across the city, through a sea of angry traffic, feeling the moisture in the wind. And then I noticed it on both sides of the road…the names of the shops, and the unintentional humour that goes with them. Here are some examples:

‘Anbu Tailors, we make gentlemen’...I am frightfully serious. Dear old Anbu, I presume has decided to make a gentleman out of every living male, through his Armani-esque finish.
‘James Bond Laundry’…I have no freaking clue about this. Why would the sexy spy want himself to be synonymous with soiled clothes of everyday people?
‘Jam Jam Biriyani’…whatever! A dude sitting inside, surrounded, almost gheraoed, by super oily woks and loads of empty egg shells and onion peels, waiting to serve a sticky lump of yellow rice.
‘SMS Nursing Home’…considering the fact that I am in a southern city, this could well be an abbreviation for Saravana Muthukumar Subramanian. It was a pink mezzanine building with three windows, all of varied shapes and sizes. The windows were at such close proximity that I almost expected to see the head of a patient from the first window, the torso from the second, and the feet from the third.
‘Cool Joint’…’Cool’ is as cold as it gets. Everything in this city stops at this sad temperature, despite the soaring mercury. These ‘Cool’ places usually reek of stale pineapples, jack fruits, mangoes and the occasional kiwi due to the advent of the IT nouveau riche. They are almost always full of sticky tables with half-eaten ice cream blobs on them…sometimes mangled with the remains of smashed ripe bananas.
‘Born Babies’… meaning what exactly? Does it mean that this place sells clothes for all humans who are born babies? Do we have humans of any other kind? I am still guessing.
‘Sri Shiddeshwara Tiffan Centar’…need I say more?

Conclusion: No matter how completely unbearable live and living gets, it’s never too difficult to find fall guys, misplaced humour, crude jokes, and silver linings.

My Postmodern Traumas

2011-02-24T22:31:00.002+05:30

I’ve always believed I have a penchant for the odd…not that it means anything to anybody…but it’s a belief that comes to my mind time and again. It’s a part of growing up and thriving in sad times…makes a person odd.

To describe ‘odd’, well…I have a penchant for saying the wrong things at the wrong time to begin with. In a life that is cruel most of my waking hours, a job that regularly puts Sisyphus to shame, a salary that makes we want to get things from charity shops, a back problem that would lead the simple minded to believe that I lead a secret life of an acrobat and run a circus…oh where do I begin!...it doesn’t help when I end up making one of the biggest errors in modern times, in a high-profiled client meeting.

Like most things in my strange life, this meeting wasn’t predecided. I just happened to be the next in line when the boss fell ill. So here I was, set to travel 4237657 miles (a mild hyperbole) to a client meeting one usual drizzly morning, with an outdated laptop and a broken umbrella…a rather sad picture isn’t it…makes we wanna take a bereavement leave.
Jojo, the landlady’s beast of a dog has taken sudden pity towards my state of affairs here. He doesn’t scream for my blood anymore. Perhaps he has started to respect the general despair of a post modern woman…how Satre-esque!!

So old Jojo watched me dispassionately as I trudged along with my broken paraphernalia towards the railway station; off to Crawley, on a career-making (acute chances of being quite the opposite) client meet one February Wednesday.

After a couple of hours of toil in unbelievably overcrowded trains, random big blue buses, and trundling along in the slush, I reached the coveted premises. The hair that was carefully straightened in the morning to look mildly sexy had curled up into winterberry shrubs…the eyebrows that I hadn’t had time to shape, looked tropical…and my black trousers had Andy-Warhole-ish mud patches…perfect!

Hopefully, I’ll talk such a lot of sense in there, people wouldn’t care a damn about how ghoulish I looked. Nice, comforting, self-induced halo.
So with crossed fingers and a thumping heart I began. This was a room full of tight-lipped, zero-inclination-to-smile men, staring at me...waiting for me to tell them I had a lousy solution that wouldn’t meet their needs, but I would still make them believe that it would…then I would run off with their money, grinning impishly through my spagetti hair.

Ahem! the first reaction to what I had to say wasn’t as bad. The men warmed up to the idea that my solution wasn’t completely unbelievable. The session went on.

I had said earlier that I have a penchant for the odd. To clarify, I watch too many movies, I am definitely in the wrong profession, and this realization makes me think of movies all the more, especially at wrong times. So in the middle of my rather sombre presentation, I gawked right at the client on the opposite end of the table and asked the most improbable question of my life…’Are you related to Robert De Niro?’ The poor man choked on his evening tea. The group burst out laughing at this Bridget-Jones-ish attempt to look retarded, and I knew my job was on the line.

It’s always been. Will refrain from documenting what went on after that in the meeting. It would suffice to say, I am on hiding since then.

Dhobi Ghat...a Story Well Told

2011-01-29T17:58:00.000+05:30

The complexities and hidden mental kinks of a throbbing metropolis make for thought-provoking cinema...and debutant Kiran Rao makes no mistakes with this one. Of course you wish Prateek Babbar kept reappearing on screen...but that's hardly Rao's shortcoming.

On a bleary Saturday, having been bitten hopelessly by the stay-at-home syndrome, I thought I'd catch a movie, and I was left with this brilliant spin-a-yarn...

Rao weaves the various layers of the story with superb dexterity. So you have Munna, the immensely talented Babbar, stuck in a profession that is obsolete in the west...the eponymous dhobi. Munna, like many, wants to make it big in Bollywood. But perhaps he doesn’t take himself seriously, until he meets Shai, the fresh-faced Monica Dogra.

Shai is an amateur photographer, and like many from the west, finds India’s poverty to be the country’s glamour quotient, something she can perhaps talk about over Caviar and Chardonnay with her Picasso and Botticelli-loving friends back home. What she doesn’t realize is that life in Mumbai or even Manhattan is a lot different from arty monochrome moments captured in film.

Then you have Arun, the reclusive painter with a mercurial mood. Aamir’s stardom is wasted in this movie. Even if he was Aamir Khan, just an actor, he would have carried off the role with aplomb…if you know what I mean. Arun looks for inspiration from Mumbai…as he says, ‘Mumbai is my muse, my whore, my beloved.’ For Arun, the squalor of old Mumbai, the claustrophobia of the dingy alleys, and the paleness of the sad horizon are points of inspiration. He is well-placed in life…well-placed enough to think of the squalor as an element of choice…something that he can run away from in a jiffy and be surrounded by ripe women, stiff-collared waiters, Bach, and champagne.

This squalor is reality for Munna, a photo-project for Shai…and oh! We have Yasmeen! I shouldn’t give it all out. This isn’t a film review after all. It’s just a simple appreciation of a story well told. Well done, Kiran.

An afterthought…Prateek Babbar is good…but in a brotherly way. There is something ridiculously wrong with me lately. I am starting to think of all men as brothers...Imran, Shaheed, Ranbir...the whole lot. Surely, I must be getting old!

2011...

2011-01-15T17:17:00.001+05:30

Finally 2011! Not that we’ve been waiting with bated breath for this one particularly. But the hope’s always there that a new year will usher in better days.

A lot has happened since I last blogged. Chorki, my pet hamster is no more. London winter is waning (or at least I hope it is), the horizon carries the usual cloud blanket, the leafless trees like a string of busy hedgehogs…we’ve been through a 5-day Christmas holiday and a 5-day flu after that…whoa! Seems a real eventful end to 2010.

So now what?...nothing really. Just reflections, memories, reminsince…I am getting old. I sure am...

How did each of you begin your New Years? Scribber? KG? Ritz? And what according to you should shape your year? Mind writing a post on this? Each of you? Looking forward to it.

My Metaphors Letting Me Down

2010-11-24T12:52:00.001+05:30

Now that we have the weather man predicting snow for Thanksgiving, my dear old lemondrops and the wild norwester seem displaced metaphors.

What do you do when your metaphors let you down? You look for new metaphors, do you? Like icicles and a low cloud…or something like that?

It’s just been six months that I came here, and I am a confused diasporic Indian already. Not really sure what that means either. Should I just say I am a bit confused? Right, I used the word ‘diasporic’ just to sound important.

The other day, we had this usual party at a friend’s place. And people were dancing. Just like (some) people do at parties. To some of our popular Bollywood beats. ‘Our’ Bollywood…right.

So is it really? I mean, sure. A Shahrukh, or an Aishwarya, or a Mani Ratnam, or a Rehman…sure, Indian, ours. Absolutely. But what about the huge rest?

I apologize here. In my last post, I had unceremoniously dumped a Julia Roberts movie because it stereotyped my country. I never realized, it’s an internal conditioning that my breed suffers from. You cannot really blame a random American like Ryan Murphy for portraying all the wrong things about India, when you have your own people letting you down…so often.

The other day, a friend, quite good naturedly asked me who my favourite singer was. I said, well that’s a whole lot, different countries, different languages. The friend replied ‘I’m talking about normal, Hindi stuff’. I presume then, liking something other than standard Bollywood fare is a tad abnormal!

Don’t get me wrong here. I have nothing personal against Bollywood. I mean I am a fan of Big B just as one of our neighbourbood panwallas, a youngster, or an aunty is. But I have so much more to me to share with a larger audience than one of these movies. I have an Amjad, or a Shivhari jugalbandi, or a Tagore, or a monsoon raag, or just the thought of monsoon….some home cooked food, the thought of a sunny afternoon in a Kolkata bylane, the thought of Pujo, a trip to the reserve forests for the big cats….

I am confused, as I said. And my metaphors are letting me down.

Eat, Pray, Love...Bore, Kill, Move On...

2010-11-03T16:18:00.003+05:30

I haven’t read the book. That’s a fault, if I really want to judge, and I have no personal enmity with Elizabeth Gilbert. Chances are she doesn’t really know me.

But the fact of the matter is, the world missed out on another great book and a greater movie. I’m not talking about Gilbert’s apparently revered piece of literature here. I’m talking about my life, which I could have written about, and then gone to Hollywood with.

Why not fellas? I spent my entire life, eating, praying, loving, and doing a lot of other action verbs that Gilbert seems to have missed out on. Maybe Gilbert forgot. Why didn’t someone remind her? She could have written about cooking…but Julie Powell has already written about that kind of pointless stuff…or maybe singing and dancing…and all the other INGs….

My point here is…I often have no point, and that’s part of my charm ( a la Demi Moore in A Few Good Men)…WHAT A POINTLESS MOVIE!!! I sincerely hope the book is better. No hard feelings, Gilbert.

Okay, so she leaves this guy. Is that supposed to be a huge deal? Worth 70mm? Not to say anything about the good 40 Pounds that we spent for this. Now how hard a slap on the face is that!

And please for whoever-you-care-about’s sake, stop stereotyping my country. This is not the sentimental patriot in me speaking. Not really. I am just a very ordinary, urbane Indian talking here, and I am just starting to get a little sick of the usual cow dung, and the flies, and the running children in traffic jams images that are passed off as India, the only India a western film maker sees money in.

I mean come on…and that’s a big ‘come on!’ Do you really have to show a rogue elephant when you talk about India? I have spent 29 years of my life in India, and I just touched the 30 mark…I haven’t seen an elephant on the road, and I didn’t spend my life in super affluent neighbourhoods.
And trust me…we don’t really get nubile 17 year olds in India anymore. The society has gone to the dogs, just like it has in the rest of the world. Why should it be any different? Teenage pregnancies are on the rise, (I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but hear me out) we have a very young workforce, most of which does not want to settle down early in life, the economy is doing good…I had raised this issue in Slumdog days as well…can somebody please make a movie about an India where we have decent roads, a healthy urbane populace, sexy beaches (like Bali)…go to Goa for crying out loud!!!
But of course, maybe I need to review the whole movie and the book with a bit of latitude here...some creative latitude! Gilbert, no hard feelings, but don’t miss out on Goa in your next soul searching oh-what-a-wonderful-revelation trip.

London Tubes in Winter...

2010-10-29T15:11:00.000+05:30

We walk the roads...sprayed with the dry autumn leaves...some orange, some brown, some a pale black.
It's the wind that distracts...my lips a wee bit numb, and the tip of my nose, a faint tribute to Rudolph...
Jokes apart...it's nippy...a little too nippy for comfort.
We get into the train compartments...cars, as they are called...nicely thawed...welcoming the break from the naughty wind...
And then we zip past buildings, turrets, lone trees, walls...into the deepest tunnels...ah! the tunnels, they've got stories to tell!
The cars are packed...till the doors shut forcefully, and you are trapped in your woollens between tall Englishmen, in their woollens...there is the busy rustle of the newspaper, the exciting turning of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the whiff of an Elizabeth Arden from somewhere in the crowd...Swiss Cottage...Baker Street...Westminster...London Bridge...it zips past them all...
Till I reach the Thames...the wind again! Will I make it through my first winter or the arrival of it, in London?
Only time will tell.

A Wink from the Window at Work on a Wednesday

2010-10-07T01:19:00.002+05:30

It’s been some time, yes. I’ve been caught up with ineffectual things...like travelling on crowded trains to mysterious locations...where eagles dare! I wish. Nothing as adventurous. Let’s just say I’ve just been busy.

London has been terribly misty lately. But this afternoon, a busy sun’s come out, and it’s got me writing. From where I sit, I can see the Thames down below, it’s otherwise murky waters glistening in the autumn light. Suddenly with the sun out, I can see pretty sailing boats, with their blue sails fluttering in the light breeze...they are cruising along in the Thames...isn’t that a darling picture?

This futuristic gizmo-hugging workplace, gives me a stiff complex. People are too prim for my taste, and I feel like a black tree-trunk in formals. This is completely out of the point of course, and completely out of that darling picture that I conjured up a while back, but I thought I’d say it anyway.

Just because the world outside is pretty, I cannot forget how things are with me. I have become so obese (what you call a shipping hazard), I fear, one of these days, somebody is going to offer me a priority seat in the tube....lady, are you pregnant?

I digress such a bloody lot!!! Excuse the profanity. Let’s just come back to the darling picture.

The boats are sailing, and there is a red train that has somewhere to go. To fit this jazzy, gizmo-hugging crowd, we have these mammoth glass buildings from which, I can, on a bright day, see Scotland...I am just faking that...you know it, right?

Anyway, the red train’s moving...and there are people trundling across that old pretty bridge. But who has the time to sit back and stare? I’ve got places to go myself...to mysterious places, as I said...where eagles dare.

Talking About Idiosyncrasies...

2010-09-18T23:56:00.002+05:30

Come to think of it, I am unimaginably odd. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t make me a genius at all because otherwise, I would have given all the Albert Einstines within the troposphere a good jog for their money.

Coming back to the point, I am so freaking odd, that sometimes I find it completely unworkable to identify with myself. That’s a first, isn’t it!

Some examples of my celebrated oddity:

I like to flutter my eyelids when I am in prayer. (Completely no idea why…makes me feel that the Gods are listening!)
I like to wash my hands after I have handled metal. The smell makes me nauseated.
While eating a cookie, I like to shake it in my mouth so that the crumbs don’t fall on the floor.
I don’t have aerated drinks before I have a client meeting. Of course, this has a practical side to it…to stop me from burping and belching all the way through the Tête-e-Tête!

Let’s leave alone my idiosyncrasies here. We can spot enough idiosyncratic behaviour in the average Indian. For example, why does an Indian hold his elbow when he’s serving the Gods? Why does an average Indian make a guttural explosion while brushing his teeth or washing his mouth? Why does an average Indian, especially a Bengali, wag her (in this case) tongue accompanying it with a tribal sound? Good luck? Warding off the evil? Yeah right. With the kind of noise, the good spirit would usually run off too.

The fact of the matter is, we are all idiosyncratic in our own ways. Some of it is a mark of our personality, some of it is deeply influenced by the culture we are exposed to, and some of it comes from severe and incurable OCD, as it is in my case. But then again, it’s good to find humor as you get along in life. And what better way than to find it in yourself!

Julie & Julia...I'm done with girlie books! For the time being at least!

2010-09-06T14:05:00.000+05:30

Finished Julie & Julia…at last! I had begun on quite an upbeat mood…things went horribly wrong in the middle. Well, not horribly wrong really…but a little wrong (I am faintly in love with hyperboles).

Julia Child, I agree, must have been a great cook. Her book therefore I’m sure, must have been quite awe-inspiring. Or so says Julie Powell...in Julie & Julia. But where’s the inspiration for the reader?

Am I supposed to believe that a thirty-something woman, cooking up 500 recipes in 365 days is bigger than issues in Afghanistan? Or is it that American women have such inconsequential things to bother about, so much so that some wisecrack actually makes a whole goddamned Hollywood movie out of it?

I mean come on! (Yes, I have been mind numbingly blatant and politically incorrect here…but the reader deserves a break!) Sure my vocabulary is a wee bit richer now…thanks to cool phrases like ‘a stratospheric fuck’. But is that what a true blue reader reads a book for? In these mad times when you are hankering for some inspiration, is this the best that Julie Powell can come up with? Not that she is expected to be a Jane Austen or even a Helen Fielding…but excuse you me!

Don’t get me completely wrong here. I mean, the book has its moments…funny anecdotes and comfort notes for aging women who feel hapless and vapid most of their waking hours. But is that all that a book should be?

Maybe I should have written about this a month later. The bitterness would have subsided by then. Right now, I could go on and on about how pointless the book is, and how painfully let down I feel after page 309.

It’s clear I should have looked for inspiration elsewhere.

And Meryl!!! You should have known better.

On a Lonely Neighbourhood Road

2010-08-24T18:26:00.001+05:30

And the leaves rustle…soft brown, completely damp from the rain…

There is a flicker of the wicked August sun from somewhere beyond that bungalow…painted a nice warm red…perfect autumn colours!

I walk by the sidewalk…have some clothes to pick up from the laundry…do I just walk on further?

Take a break from regular living and just walk in my joggers till where the greens of the horizon get lost in the browns of the road?

Let me sit by that private garden a bit…can I? I hope there isn’t a jazzy security camera somewhere…

Can I just sit by that private garden a bit, and enjoy the soft breeze?

Or maybe, I should whistle a little…an old Rip Van Winkle-y tune, and the elves will come running…

Maybe I should sit and watch the blue jays a while…and that lone seagull that’s lost its way…the sea is very far off dahlin!

Leave the seagull alone. Maybe it’s not lost. Or maybe, it’s lost, rather deliberately, just like you.

Maybe the bird wanted a break from coastal life, and whizz past the Victorian turrets in this lonely afternoon road…

From the Right Side of Age to the Wrong!

2010-08-19T15:00:00.000+05:30

Nothing’s changed. I still love Anthony Hopkins. Was that supposed to change anyway!

As I look back on the three decades, nothing seems to have changed really…except a few friends here and there…a few extra pounds of butter fat…a companion to share a life with…that’s something though!

Nothing seems to have changed…except that I use Olay anti-wrinkle…is that a big deal? WTF!

Nothing’s changed. I still love Anthony Hopkins. Last night, when Amitava walked in with a bottle of Chianti, I told him I need a human liver and fava beans to go with it. My man then came up with the cheesy line ‘Eat Me’. Dear Anthony…please don’t wince. I turn thirty today…my man’s a little older than that. Such display of imbecilic behaviour happens at this age anyway. Nothing other than the degree of idiocy seems to have changed.

Life's a Yawn...or is it?

2010-08-10T22:58:00.002+05:30

Light years back, I had read in one of the general knowledge books (the kind that has pictures of the Dalai Lama and Merilyn Munroe together in the 'Fun with Pictures' section) that yawning is contagious.

On a drizzly August morning, I decided to add some colour to my life and try out this piece of lesson learnt…in one of the most unsuspecting of places…The London tube.

If you ever board a London tube during rush hour, you possibly cannot miss the archetypal Brit. Proud to the tip of his gelled hair a la David Beckham, he’ll be a picture of stiff composure in a grey Reid and Taylor. Juggling a copy of The Times (casually folded) and a Prêt A Manger cappuccino, on most occasions, he’ll look through you as if you were a glass door. Even if he bumps into you for lack of city space, he’ll usually say a crisp ‘sorry’ and not twitch an extra muscle (for fear of getting a ticket?). To my incredible prankster-luck, all my co-passengers were such archetypes.

So I started…one ugly yawn (showing off my tonsils…at my uncouth Indian best) and then carefully stifled another. Soon the whole bunch had their jaws aching. Life’s such a drag otherwise. You need to add some jazz to it occasionally, don’t you?

Lesson learnt: Approaching thirty at breakneck speed doesn’t stop the prankster in me. Is that a pity? At the cost of getting arrested for creating public nuisance, let me put it in print…I couldn’t care less.

Random Thoughts On a Friday Morning

2010-08-06T16:32:00.003+05:30

“Ma, amaar bonobaash shomapto ekhon, ebare boner baash amaar bhetore… “

(Roughly translates into ‘Mother, I’m done with my exile, I’m quite beyond it now’)

Haunting lines written by Nobonita Deb Sen on the sufferings on a Leninist revolutionary…something that was quite a cult during the 1970s in Bengal.

No, I am not getting a sudden dementia attack on a Friday morning, or getting particularly nostalgic about a warm ethnic past. Not quite.

It’s just that I watched a short tele-film called ‘Robibar Bikelbela’ yesterday, over tears and homesickness, and it got me thinking.

It’s just the other day that I was discussing with Amitava how the current generation, or ours for that matter, lacks a drive to do something even close to revolutionary. Forget the big ‘R’ word. Do we even live for a good cause? Jobs, money, beer, grilled meat, Marks and Spencer’s is probably all we can think of. What caused things to donkey down so much? Any answers? I’m waiting…

We can crib, yeah. We are absolutely fantastic with that part. But who amongst us is willing to do a bit more than that? Not me. I love my corner and my couch and my Stella…thank you very much. So do you, I’m sure, and they over there.

I’m just meandering here probably. But on a serious note, when does this world become a better place? When do the tables turn? When do we all ‘change places at the rising of the Moon’?

I’m worried about the generations to come. Will the awe-inspiring stories of the independence movement make any sense to them? Stories that made a chill go down our spine when we were young? Will I be able to explain to them why Tagore refused the knighthood? Will I be able to explain why we got colonized once upon a time, why we got affected by socialism, why Lenin, Marx and the whole lot? More importantly, will they be interested? Or will they be too bothered about who Carla Brunei is, and how old Hugh still grunts and is such a charmer!

I am worried. Do fellow bloggers share any of my random feelings? KG, particularly, coz you’re bringing up a child. Are you worried?

Image courtesy: Florian Freundt

My Latest List

2010-07-23T16:04:00.001+05:30

This one’s on KG’s request…so here goes. Right at this moment, I want to:

- Eat fish and chips…heaps of it actually (It’s majorly disgraceful how all my lists start with gastronomy)

- Get on with life…turn on the heater just a little bit and shun the rain outside

- Get a plush job that would pay for all my planned trips across Scandinavia and the Isles

- Get a paraffin dip pedicure

- Get a membership to Charles Dickens Society

- Feed pigeons (it’s officially banned) at Trafalgar Square and watch an idle London day go by

- Hug a labrador

- Make some lemon tarts at home

- Host a barbecue party

- Write the oh-so-planned-for-but-completely-illusive-so-far novel

Lists of course keep on changing. And mostly, things in the lists remain unchecked, if you know what I mean. But it gives you hope…hope that one fine day, you’ll be the proud owner of an all-checked dream list…just the thought of it makes life go on.

Conversations

2010-07-16T16:09:00.000+05:30

-I have to write…because the world is ending.

-??? Now what is that? A new obsession with the Biblical myth?

-Not an obsession. But they tell me, the world is really ending. I have to write that novel I always meant to. I have to….God!!!!I have to put the clothes in the washing machine, the dishes in the dishwasher, and the half-baked weekend lemon cake in the oven….how completely prosaic!

-I mean….

-You know what. Don’t stress yourself. Take a break. Enjoy the weather. Soak up some of the sun. Look at the clouds. Listen to the pigeons. Watch a movie.

- But what happens when the world ends? They’ll find me out. They’ll see through me. The would-be-writer who never went beyond the cleaning and the sweeping and the baking! That’s not how I’d like them to remember me. Not at all.

- So you want to be this writer! Dream on.

- Not a writer particularly. But someone who writes well…can cook up a novel in no time…collects deep purple evenings and keeps them in her apron pocket, and admires the collection while making a nice summer drink with blue curacao and angostura bitters…watches the pigeons and does some good oil on canvas….not a hag who works like a household ox!

- So what’s stopping you?

- The world is ending….that’s what’s stopping me!

- Carpe Diem darling…carpe diem…it’s never too late to begin.

(My sincere attempt at positivism)

Life...Sunny Side Up!

2010-07-09T19:08:00.007+05:30

Last week, a well-wisher told me, and very good-naturedly at that, that mine was a crib-blog, more than anything else…as in, I howl through most of my posts about the magnanimous number of things going wrong in my life. Crib, well yes. Right now, with the state of things, I probably need a Greek chorus. But maybe, just maybe, I should try looking at the brighter side of life…sunny side up.

Let me see…I told my readers (My readers…this one’s a joke…who am I? Rowling’s niece???) in one of my posts that my kitchen window overlooks a maple tree. Right. And beyond the maple tree is somebody else’s window, where most of the times I see a senile old fellow standing stark naked. Absolutely…and yes, I love that. I have to tell you this, I love the sight of naked old men while I am cooking. Makes my day…and makes my lamb curry tastier.

Point number two…my bedroom window overlooks the London skyline. Yes, that’s wonderful. And it makes me feel left out with the rest of the world buzzing and pubbing all around the place. And yes, I just realized, feeling left out is a million dollar feeling. Better than the million dollar itself.

Point three…a problem…well not a problem really, a wonderful thing has happened with the bathroom sink. The water gets stuck. Isn’t that uber cool? So even as you finish brushing your teeth and taking a warm shower, the phlem and the catarrh is still winking back at you. I am so thrilled about this, it gives me goosepimples on my a**.

Point four…my landlady has a pet. Yeah that’s really nice. A roaring bullie of a dog. That’s even nicer. So everytime I walk down the stairs to collect mail or let a service engineer in, the four-legged beast screams for my blood. Now how sunny and positive is that?

Point five…the other day, my husband got into a train without me…me carrying half the grocery…and I followed in the next train. That’s romantic…isn’t it? Playing a Bollywood chase game? Well, I was the one who was chasing, and feeling hopelessly romantic. He didn’t have an inkling that he had left me behind. That’s even cuter…right?

Point five…eversince I came to London, there is more hair on the floor than on my head. With the way things are going, I’ll soon put the spirit of Mata Hari to shame. How’s that?

There’s of course point six, and then point seven and eight…I could go on and on and on…

I am sure you are freaking jealous of my goodlife after you finish reading this one. But that’s okay. May the best things in life happen to you as well. Adios.

Maybe It Isn’t Really the Birds…

2010-06-26T13:34:00.002+05:30

When the world is quiet, which is most of the times, I can hear footsteps on the rooftop.

— Footsteps? It’s just the birds.

—Birds…yeah the pigeons and the blue jays…that’s right. But what if?

—What if there was someone? Someone trying to get a better view?

—Someone? Now how ridiculous is that part of the story?

—No…really, what if it was a little girl, trying to enjoy a better view of a June morning? That pink boulevard across the elms. I’m sure it’s a little girl because they are very soft footsteps that I hear…

—Oh forget it…you are not a raconteur…not one bit.

—Oh all right then…forget it. But it just makes me think…the sounds on the rooftop. What if…What if the girl could see that beautiful lane, carpeted with mauve flowers …the sky coming down to meet the end of the road…what if she wanted to deny gravity and take to the skies, like an ambitious Icarus?

—Yeah with wax wings…you know, you are so pointless…most of the times.

—No please, let me complete this…what if she didn’t listen to her father...she wanted to run away from that cruel king and his dungeons anyway…and she decided to fly off from the castle rooftop…possible?

—Ha! Castle? When did this old house become a castle? You gotta give it a brake dahlin!

—Oh come on! Listen to this…The little girl flies…

—Okay…she flies to Honah Lee and rolls on the beach with Puff, the magic dragon…what else do I need to hear?

—She doesn’t make it…Her wax wings melt…just like Icarus’. But she can’t give up, can she? She is so young. So every perfect summer day, when the world is dressed up, and the fruits are quietly ripening in the trees, and the birds are singing a nice one, she takes off….again, and again, and again. She has got stories to tell, places to see…it’s just her footsteps I hear.

Just Another Feeling?

2010-06-24T16:08:00.003+05:30

Just this other day, a friend was saying something about being depressed most of the time in a twenty-four hour day, and the damned thing having something to do with age. Now that gets me thinking a little. Why do we look at getting depressed as a bad thing? Or as something forlorn? Can’t it be as insignificant as a bruise or a pimple?

If we, these vroom-vrooming-towards thirty-and-beyond- and- therefore-sad women are wistful most of the time, can’t we just look at it as a really insignificant frame of mind? But there is a problem in that too. I treated depression as trifling, and ended up cramming crisps, cyclopean chunks of coffee cake, and cheese cookies last evening. Maybe this whole brouhaha about depression, or for that matter, my attempt to dilute the feeling isn’t worth it at all. I should just lay back and try one or all of the following:

Life dipped in Jojoba
Life dipped in cash
Life dipped in french fries and cold cuts
Life dipped in FIFA
Life dipped in cash and therefore Harrods!
Life dipped in….I’m running out of life-dipped-ins….maybe fellow bloggers can help?

Tagging KG, Scribbler, and Yada. Get back fast with your lists.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

2010-06-22T13:48:00.002+05:30

I am reminiscing all over again. And this time, it’s about Chorkie my pet, whom I couldn’t carry with me while I changed continents and changed lives. The vet said she’s so damn tiny, that she wouldn’t be able to take the stress of air travel. Yeah…that sounds outrageously funny, and the first time we heard that, we broke into mad laughter. But I couldn’t risk it anyway. So I left my pet hamster with a friend back in Bangalore. And this post here is a reminder of how wonderfully Chorkie gets along with Duke, the Basset Hound. Duke, needless to point out here, is my friend’s pet.
Before I begin, here’s a quick round of introduction. Chorkie is several months old, happy with a shiny peach coat, and happier with her extremely shady sense of hygiene. Handpicked from a pet flea market in Bangalore, I’m not quite sure of her lineage…but of course, she doesn’t give a shit to that.

Duke on the other hand, is as elegant as a Basset gets. The only son of Elvis and Freckles who have an authentic Scottish pedigree, Duke treasures a warm belly rub and a loving pat on the head. Strangely though, in spite of being a hound, Duke is a couch potato, averse to any form of challenging exercise. And in spite of being a hunter, the only things we’ve ever caught him with, are sad, crippled ants.

So here goes, a regular conversation, between Chorkie the hamster, and Duke the Basset Hound...

Chorkie (C): (Scratching her right ear with her tiny pink fingers) Hey big ears…Hey hey hey… wanted to tell you something…these imbeciles keep stuffing me with lettuce and cheese and nuts. Want a serious change of taste…need help.
Duke (D): (Huffing and puffing in true disgust) Did I tell you, you are particularly obnoxious when you cuss?

C: Oh come on. (Looking at Duke with her peachy charm)You spend a good part of your waking hours munching on a bone…not to say anything of the freshly boiled chicken. And all I get is a lettuce leaf? Jesus Rude Christ!
D: Now that’s enough! What did Ma tell you? No cussing in this house….and I mean no cussing. Oh and by the way, how dare you call Ma an imbecile?

C: Coz, simply put, she is one. Going about in a slim fit denim and a sexy bodice doesn’t make her intelligent. And Pa’s no better. Moving around this place with his air of vague Goliathian grandeur! Can you believe we are stuck for life with these people? You on your smelly blue rug, and I, in this kitschy pink cage!

D: I think it’s time I spanked you for a while so that you’d stop. Cussing makes me nauseated.
C: Aha? The well-behaved Basset…loyalty is thy motto, eh?
D: Don’t you make me angry now…you squiggly mousey thing…or I’ll snap your ears off.
C: Hey but you fat ass…you’re digressing. I need a change in diet.

D: Will speak to Ma. Let me see if she agrees…but on one condition. I need your help in getting rid of that lazy man-servant. He hardly does a thing…only that occasional dog-walk, where I do my own stuff. I mean Pa’s rather hassled.
C: Leave that to me big bro. I’ll blow hard on him when he comes to mix those bland vitamin tablets in my water.
D: Blow? Air through your mouth you mean?
C: Ah well…tell Ma to change my diet. Lettuce gives me gas.
D: I’ve had enough of this gassy, smelly hammy. You stop, or my mom will shoot.

Duke rushes out of the room to be with Ma. Too much of Chorkie makes his Basset-ego spin.

Sounds I Love...or I Thought I Did...

2010-06-21T22:23:00.004+05:30

This is not supposed to be a depressing post. Not one bit. It’s just that, being light years away from home, makes me dwell upon a few sodding realizations...and sodding as they are, the post seems a bit off.
I always thought I was completely in love with a few specific sounds…extremely distinct. But I suddenly realize, these sounds are not so incredibly phenomenal when they are the only signs of life around me. Here’s what I mean…
I used to adore the sound of cooing pigeons…reminded me of sunny December afternoons in the by lanes of Calcutta, with everybody in the neighbourhood catching a quick nap after lunch. But suddenly, I don’t feel so romantic about the sound anymore. After all, it’s the only thing I can hear, as the wind plays around the turrets of the old London building that I live in.
I used to think, I like the crisp sound of keyboards and the vaguely otiose feeling that comes with it when you are typing something seemingly important. But I realize, it’s really not so great, when the laptop’s all you’ve got as your Hannibal-ish window with a view.
I like…I used to like the sound of distant trundling buses…somewhere down the high street, again on a forty-wink afternoon. But not anymore. Not when that’s the only thing you hear, with no other signs of human life and living. Life here, on most days of the week, reminds me a bit of Schute’s On the Beach, as if the whole place has been nuked, and I am the only one left, with a few banal belongings like a laptop, a toothbrush, Daddy Long Legs, and a picture of Tagore.
I’m not done yet…I used to like the sophisticated whistle of a kettle too, once the water was all boiled up and ready. But I don’t really like it all that much when I’m the only person who is ever going to make the Tetley tea, and drink it with a few raspberry cookies, as the evening falls.
And a few more realizations that just happened…I always thought I was an avid-to-my-butt reader,and a movie buff, and a lot of other impressive things rolled into a warm package. But hey, what a pseudo I have been! I just realize, I cannot watch movies and read books for hours together when these are the only two things I can do. Does this speak volumes about basic human yen? Or am I just a sad exception?

London Lingo Caught Me on the Wrong Foot!

2010-06-11T15:31:00.006+05:30

The other day, I went with my husband to register for health insurance…yes, something as freakingly important, and yet so mind numbingly ho-hum.
So here we were, in one of these usual medical centers; me, patiently waiting for my Tête à Tête with a general practitioner. I didn’t—thank you sweet God of bored women—have to wait too long. The silver-haired, Miss Marple of a practitioner soon called me in.
Note: Registering for National Health Insurance in the UK is usually clubbed with a general doctor’s check up…but that’s besides the point…
The doctor began her usual checkup of blood pressure and blood glucose…and other blood-stuff. I maintained my poise and grace, as much as possible, till I was faced with the most puzzling question of the decade. For those used to British lingo, this wouldn't be funny or odd in the least. It’s just me, with my SAARC vocabulary, who stammered and stuttered and left the clinic in unnatural hurry, so that the doctor wouldn’t think I was a distilled idiot having a field day. Sample this:
Note: The doctor here was more bored than I was, and was asking me really random questions.
Dr: Are you a carer?
Me: A care…what?
Dr: I said, are you a carer…
Me: Ummm…yes, I am on a dependent visa. So yeah, I am under the care of my husband. (Can you believe I said that?)
Dr: No….you got me wrong….I meant, are you a carer…do you care for old people? More simply put, are you into social service…
Royal shit….yes I care! Couldn’t you have asked this simply? And so I have vowed, I’ll pick up a book on British slang and get a hang of things sooner than you can say ‘I know all about London lingo’. Carer indeed.