The Compulsive Confessor

Wondering if I'll stay young and restless

2012-02-05T19:48:00.000+05:30

Looming above my head is a massive deadline. I need to finish book three very soon, and things are going well, but slowly-ish. I've got a large chunk done, it's just wrapping it up and giving it a bit of a polish that remains, and I can't wait to finish it, to have another book lurking on my hard drive, but this last bit is always the hardest part. If you've read my first book (and if you haven't, there's a handy link on the top left corner you could go buy it) then you probably already know that I'm a character writer. I love peeling people apart, in a non-cannibal way, writing about them, their motivations, what makes them tick and so on, but my flaw is plotting. I usually have a general wide story arc I try to fill in, which is easy and it works too, but for Book Three, I had imagined a more intricate back-and-forth, it was all RIGHT THERE, and that meant I had to make actual notes and a flow chart and work backwards and forwards and all sorts of complicated things, but I've got the hang of it now, things are in place and I hope that a final edit will remove any glaring holes I might have left. So, phew. That's what I've been up to, and that's why the month long silence on this blog.

Sri Lanka was absolutely magic. I travelled with a boy and two friends, and everyone got along and there was much drinking, and one night we walked on the beach and there were fireflies everywhere and it was like something out of a movie. I'm going AGAIN, this time for a family wedding, in a couple of days. I don't think this second trip will be Beach-Firefly-esque, but hey, Sri Lanka is Sri Lanka, right?

And, I've just returned from a long stint in Bombay, two weeks, partly to give the book its right setting, being as most of it is set in Bandra, partly because Delhi was very cold and depressing and partly because of the aforementioned Good Thing. By which, I'm sure you've realised I mean romance has pirouetted its way into my life once more, but it's early days yet. Still, it requires a certain amount of travel, my most favourite thing in the WHOLE WORLD, so I'm happy. I'm not so happy when travel means spending part of the time in a long distance thing, but long distance has a certain hazy charm to it, very romantic and I can pretend we're both in a war or something and I'm being very brave and waving my hanky from the balcony window while he sails off into the sea. Or, since I'm a feminist, I'm the one fighting the war, or going off into space on a dangerous astroid exploding mission. Yeah. That sounds appropriarely bad ass.

There aren't that many new places in Bombay, or maybe I just haven't checked out the right new places yet. We did do this music night thing at Mehboob Studios, which is a gorgeous setting, I think it happens every couple of weeks? Anyway, the music is a bit hit or miss, there was this harpist-singer who was trying to do rock and roll lyrics with a harp which was a bit... odd, but mostly fun, and they have food and drink. Plus being inside Mehboob Studios feels very retro and Bollywood, down to their red tiger striped couch and the soundproofed room the nights take place in. Also, there's this place in Worli called the Cool Chef Cafe which has regular events, and I bumped into a bunch of people there, so it appears that's the cool new thing to do. Otherwise, more of the same. WTF, twice, and the last night I went there they had just reopened so all our drinks were on the house so it was like Bombay was throwing me a party. Elbo Room which I'm still not crazy about but since other friends were there, we went too, and Ivy, which has just opened in Bandra and it is LOVELY. My new favourite place, I think.

Back home in Delhi, I've been pottering around a bit too. Just last night, we revisited TC, which is the source of my raging hangover today. But Delhi for me has always been more of a house party place, especially as I get older and my tolerance for loud music and crowded bars goes down. I do the odd event here or there, 4S, always, but really, I like having people round or popping by to their house most.

I have to tell you guys about the horrible train I took from Delhi to Bombay. It was called the Garib Rath, Laloo Prasad Yadav's idea for the poor people to have a Rajdhani style travel, but oh my god. TERRIBLE. It's chair cars for one thing, they have sleepers also, but not so many, and the chair cars are packed and the seats don't recline and they leave the horrible bright lights on all night so it's impossible to get to sleep. It took me two days to recover from that and I took a Rajdhani home. But, it was funny. I'm taking the train a lot because I'm so broke, but there was a guy on the train home, talking about he wasn't educated and he played a lot of hockey so his name was in the papers when he was younger and he said, "Look at me now! I'm in a Rajdhani! A Rajdhani!" and that made me awww. Funny how the concepts of luxury travel are so relative. I like to fly because I like getting there more than the process of getting there if you know what I mean, but there's a certain something about the train. I'm glad I'm broke and don't have a flying option so I get to experience it more. Silver lining!

Okay, that's pretty much my month so far. Slow moving, but not uneventful. Good start to the year, all in all, I'd say.

Five New Year's Resolutions*

2012-01-03T11:50:00.001+05:30

* that don't include the standard eat better, live better, be healthy, even though those are TOTALLY important and you should TOTALLY take better care of your health, but they're going to be broken in a couple of weeks anyway, so why bother, eh?

> I must not form irrational, overemotional attachments to electronic items, laptop, smartphone, Kindle etc and instead remind myself that the best things on earth are simple and involve nature and shit, and I can totally manage to go a couple of weeks without checking my email.*

(*okay, okay, Facebook. FINE. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?)

> I must do a complete closet purge and throw away all clothes that I haven't worn more than once (or ever) and resist the voice that says, "That would look pretty in three years if you grew taller!" Instead, live for the current sartorial moment, even if you will look back with regret at that awesome dress you gave away three months ago.

> Totally stop using the word 'totally', even if it started out in an ironic fashion, is now irrevocably part of my vocabulary and must be removed. Similarly, the 'duck face' photo pose, once used to mock other girls who used the Duck Face, now part of an alarming amount of my pictures. Must. Go. Now.

> Take success with cooking as a jumping point from which to leap into ALL domesticity. Learn how to crochet, to make homemade thingummys, and centrepieces for your table and be the kind of effortless lovely all round housewife superstar career woman etc that makes everyone look to her with awe. Do this all very modestly and graciously.

> Focus on actually writing third novel instead of opening a Word document and then spending your day daydreaming about all the wonderful reviews you're going to get.

Dad Joke: "Why is thirty the dirtiest birthday?" Me: groan "WHY?" Dad: "Because it's XXX."

2011-12-17T13:17:00.001+05:30

I turned thirty, you guys, and it's not so bad so far. It's been like, less than a week, now, and the only signs of incipient ageing is that last night I bunked a fun party to stay at home under a quilt and read on my couch. But there was wine, and company, and it was all very cozy and sociable. My thirtieth birthday party was so much fun, I think my birthdays get better each year, this time, I had a fancy pants party, with a Mad Men dress theme, for which I had an actual dress MADE. I drew it, and took the fabric to a boutique close to my house, and they made it into what I imagined. I wish I could sew. I imagine, like cooking, it would be awesome to see something you're thinking about turned into an actual THING, that is functional and pretty.

Everyone dressed according to theme as well, but since I decided to get drunk and replaced a camera around my neck with a bottle of wine in my arms, there are very few photos, and even those, taken by other friends are things I haven't seen yet. Good Things, as mentioned in the previous post, are currently happening in Delhi, and so most of the last week has been spent in lazy happiness. Also, got some very nice presents, including a Kindle I had hinted wildly at, and is now my new boyfriend. With all the travelling I've been doing, the biggest pain in the ass has been packing books--I read fast, so I usually pack about four books for each week long journey, some to read on the way, some to read while I'm there, and one "emergency" book, in case everything else finishes. This is LIGHT! and FITS IN MY BAG! and so easy to read on. I took it for a spin yesterday to Khan Market, and was that girl who drinks her cappucino with her book. (Tina Fey's Bossypants, in case you're interested) and I had a lovely time. I'm hoping this will mean I read more, well, already, I think I read more than a lot of people I know, simply because I have the time, but I'm not as dedicated as I used to be pre-streaming TV. As a result, I missed most of the "best books of 2011" list, and now I'm committing myself to reading EVERYTHING, a wild catch up, before the year ends and there's a whole new list.

Besides that, I only have one more week of spending my evenings in front of my heater, because on Christmas Day, I whisk off to Sri Lanka for the rest of the year. A week is not long enough to turn into a beach bum, but I plan to try. I'm going with people from all over the country, friends from Bombay, friend from Calcutta, friend from Delhi, and we'll be converging on Unawatuna beach, where I will sit back in my deck chair, with my Bloody Mary and become a coconut. So not looking forward to coming back to January's bitter charms, but a new thing I'm trying this year is not antipating ahead of what my present day is. Live in the moment, eM! (Which, this weekend, is a bunch of parties, so I'm not doing too badly.)

But, here we are, my darlings, in December, and likely, since I'm currently writing several other things, my last post of the year. A good year, unlike 2010, and I hope the lucky streak continues through 2012. (Isn't the world supposed to end next year? I hope not, it's just gotten interesting!) Have a marvelous New Year, and I'll see you all on the other side.

And, because my "About Me" can no longer read "twenty something" (DEEP SIGH) I've updated it, for the first time in years. We women of a certain age can no longer casually toss references in about the decade we belong to. It'll be our little secret.

Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself

2011-11-29T12:07:00.001+05:30

I have been obsessed about one thing and one thing only in the last month, and that is the impending end of my twenties. Good decade. I've gone on about it in other posts, but this is it, the last two weeks that I have to be young and restless. Not that thirty is old, but some things have changed, most notably, my desire to go out has been replaced by a desire to stay in, under my quilt and read. That could just be winter speaking though. I do get extremely lazy in the wintertime. Which is odd, because, in the summer when it's hot and horrible, and everyone wants to stay in with their ACs on, I want to go out and party and live the life.

But they say you change the most in your twenties, possibly growing at a rate even faster than your teens. (Not physically growing, that ship sailed for me at sixteen, and I have been the same height ever since) This decade, I have reinvented myself at least three times, and sometimes, I feel a flashback to an older me, a reaction I forgot I used to have, that just crops up in moments of vulnerability, and I'm taken aback, I'm all, "Oh, right, I used to feel like that." What happens to old personalities? Do we fold them up and put them away among mothballs? Where are the mes that used to be? Maybe, like an onion, if I kept peeling layer after layer of myself off, I'd find the original me, the me I began with. On the other hand, the me that lurks closer to the surface is who I am now, for better or for worse, my personality has formed, and it's hard to break yourself of it. Not bad habits, them I'm constantly trying to eradicate: obsessing and overthinking and needing to be in control of situations and the more obvious ones: smoking and not getting enough exercise and indulging myself too much in the finer things of life.

It's also been a year since I moved back to Delhi, and I can't say I regret that decision. I miss Bombay, I think some part of me will always miss Bombay (but I'm not saying goodbye forever, I'm just saying goodbye for now) but on the other hand, it's been a good move. I'm getting lots of work, I have a large-ish flat, I like the weather and the people I now know, and reconnecting with old friends, having standing dates with some of them, like we haven't done in years. And, as for Bombay, I have, what we'll call, a Good Thing going on right now, which means I have an excuse to go there every month. Not that I need an excuse, but still. It's nice. Said Good Thing is also nice; and when it's not happening in Bombay/Delhi, it's happening in other parts of the country or the WORLD, and that is so awesome.

Another nice side effect about moving back to Delhi which I hadn't considered in my original pro/con list was that I travelled a LOT this year. Having family here, and resources, meant that I could take off when I liked and it was just a lot easier, having someone pop by and check on the cat and the house and see that everything was running smoothly in my absence. This could've technically happened in Bombay too, but everyone's so busy there that you hate to ask your friends to drop in and see if everything's okay, and while my maid was great, I don't know if she had the work ethic to visit every. single. day while I was gone, which made me stress wherever I was. A lot of my stopovers, especially to the far flung South, were at Bombay airport, so I'd sit in the glass lounge, gazing out wistfully at the tarmac, wishing I was getting off there instead of wherever it was I was off to. Except in the monsoon season, of course. Then I was just like, "HAHA, SUCKERS!"

And now, I will leave you with some pictures from around my house, since I've turned into a homebody and haven't gone anywhere in the last two days. Okay, okay, 24 hours. But it's still a LONG time!

Picture of my liquor cabinet, that tequila bottle is about four years old now, and has had the same four shots left in it since I carted it back from Bombay. The Tia Maria behind it has become one of the things I actually drink, having recently learnt how to make White Russians. (They're good cocktails too.)

Yearned after these flowers at Khan Market the other day and a very kind friend bought us both a bunch. I always think of Mrs Dalloway when I put out fresh flowers, but having flowers is like a fancy indulgence, it always makes me feel posh and rich and adult.

That is a blackboard I bought, full of good intentions (me, ie, not the blackboard, though I'm sure if blackboards had intentions, this one would have good ones) that I'd have a to-do list up and little motivational quotes or pretty poems to look at, and yeah. I haven't updated it since I bought it. Oddly though, the haiku on it now is about flowers, and that sort of went with the flower lights across it, so at least it serves some purpose.

My plants are doing well, thank you. I've only killed three and they're under the windowsill, dead stumps in pots, but otherwise, I think that's a pretty good success rate. I like dressing up this window too, when I'm writing I gaze off to my right where all the plants are, and it helps me mull. It's one of TC's favourite spots AND I need some oxygen to fight all the cigarette smoke I put into the atmosphere. Win-win.

Why you gotta be a hater, yo?

2011-11-13T13:20:00.001+05:30

Delhi, my darling, at this time of the year, you look smug with loveliness. You're all like, "Hey, India, I got winter, I got pretty outdoor restaurants, I got places where you can buy boots AND places where you can wear boots. I'm pretty much the winner of everything." And justified. You are remarkably gorgeous, the weather is remarkably gorgeous, and it is that brief window, that happens only for a few precious weeks, where everyone's in a bloody good mood, crimes drop (a little) and if you steal someone's parking spot, they'll let you off with a chuckle, instead of pulling a knife on you.

But, man, you hate single women. From my limited observations, you're entirely different around single men, with them you adopt a cheek pulling, hair tousling, boys-will-be-boys attitude, invite them over for dinner, guard your teenage daughters, but still look out for them with a parental twinkling eye. Bachelors have carte blanche in their flats, they can have women over, have noisy parties, and still be invited downstairs to the landlord's house for a meal, or something. You see pieces of writing about Delhi, where the single male writer is going on a rhapsody about their single male writer life. And while I'm not complaining (I got lucky enough to find one of the few flats in Delhi without an owner attached to the ground floor) I do think that as a single woman, I get a bit of a short shrift.

This blog post is triggered off by the fact that it is Sunday afternoon, and I just tried, very unsuccessfully, to order lunch. I called three places and was told my order was "too little". I am a small person, I eat small portions. They have a "single sized" serving on their menus, and all I wanted was to get one of those single sized things to my doorstep, rather than have leftovers lying in my fridge for weeks. Waste not, want not, isn't that the rule? I can't order a whole bunch of other things, and yes, I do think this is a girl-only problem, because I think a dude would be able to eat a lot more than just a single serving of something. (I'm generalising, but this is from watching a lot of boys eat a lot more than I would.) Finally, one restaurant took pity on me, and decided to send me lunch, but usually, it's a whole lot of, "Yeah, no, we can't send that, it's too little."

And then, this got me thinking about other ways being a single lady in a city not equipped for single ladies had gotten me down. I touched briefly upon it in this piece I did for the Sunday Guardian on moving, but allow me to quote some of the things potential landlords said to me as I was househunting:

"The door is locked after 11 pm, you can call if you want to be in later, but you won't be later."

"Here is the barsaati, here is the bathroom, our grandson comes to visit often, he's going to want to use your loo."

"I only rent to young women, but I'm concerned you'll be *ahem* lonely, all by yourself in that big flat."

And, of course, the classic, the what-we've-all-heard:

"Absolutely no male company." "But.. but.. I have male friends." "You have male friends! Harlot!" (Okay, slight exaggeration, but only slight.)

Then, of course, if one is having sex (which I'm not confirming or denying here, just sayin') then everyone hates you. PDA = Not Allowed, but this we already knew, being a conservative country and adopting the opposite of the motto "the whole world loves a lover" and turning it into "keep it in your pants, goddamnit, because we never think about sex, oh no, the reason we're overpopulated is because pretty fairies come in at night and bless us with children." The whole country, Bollywood included, loves a male lover, again the head shaking, eye twinkling, boys-will-be-boys thing, but as a woman, you keep your knees together and your protests loud. And even then, you must have done something in order to interest a boy in the first place. Harlot Part Two! Overnight male guests get tea in the morning, but I get the stink eye from everyone, including the help and random neighbours. Men have "male desires", but single women have to be either a) married or b) sad virgins. When I was younger (and this is a true story), and I happened to be in a car with a member of the opposite sex, within five minutes, there'd be cops surrounding us, threatening to call our parents if we didn't give them some money. TRUE STORY. Is it any wonder that the iPill, a morning after, emergency contraceptive only, is flying off the shelves? Another true story: in my entire life, I have only bought condoms ONCE, and even then, blushing with shame, mumbling a request, and keeping my eyes downcast the entire time, so the shopkeeper wouldn't think I was actually *gasp* having sexual relations. I imagine (I've never actually witnessed this) that when men buy condoms, there are balloons and high fives and woot! score!

And, that's the end of my Sunday afternoon rant, brought to you by my lack of lunch.

Lists I might have come up with weeks ago or made up right now to use as a writing device

2011-11-09T13:39:00.000+05:30

Potential tattoos I could get to commemorate my twenties

'A Learning Experience'

'Drink More Water'

'Not A Good Idea'

'Yes, A Great Idea'

'Tattoos R Permanint'

Other names I came up with for my cat after the name TC already stuck and it was too late to change it but are so cool they make me want another kitten

Gingervitis

Bill E.

Deadline

Things my cellphone has said (or continues to say) in the middle of Serious Meetings making me wish I had changed the ringtone but which I never remember to change anyway leading to more awkward situations

"Would you go to bed with me?" (SIDE BAR: Actually a segue for the popular song at the time, viewed here, it's not so bad when you listen to the WHOLE SONG.)

"You have a message, Your Royal Sexiness"

"Hallelujah!"

"Oye message, message!"

This theme.

Some texts I got or sent that I liked and made into a draft post intended to post several, but could only find three so will make them a part of this post instead

"Creepy creep man next to me is very interested in your chesticles."

"There was once a Delhi where spontaneous plans were possible."

"Tulip? I can be a tulip."

"Have just had shower and he has friends visiting so I'm feeling too shy to emerge so sitting in closed bedroom texting you in attempt to look busy."

Ways not to react when someone tells you their dad plans on buying your book after having a nice civilised chat with you, unless you're aiming for strange looks from your companions

"Woot! Sale!"

Other things people will look at you strangely for

Changing into an outfit for a wedding in an airport bathroom and having to take your top off, standing in the middle of the bathroom with only your bra and jeans on as your sweaty fingers frantically try to unzip your party dress and pull it on BUT IT'S NOT HAPPENING GODDAMNIT and god knows how many people you flashed and HAS NO ONE EVER GONE TO A WEDDING FROM AN AIRPORT BEFORE?

Things you could potentially do in order to procrastinate some more

Buy new flat tall winter boots because you neeeeeeed them and it's coooooold and you have to be stylish OR ELSE.

Lie flat on your bed wondering if you perhaps use too many capital letters to make your point.

Tweet obsessively about something household related.

Go on Gchat and say "Hi!" to everyone with a green light near their names.

Do some spring cleaning.

Water your plants.

Follow links to more links to more links, convincing yourself it's all research in the end anyway.

Music And I OR How The Jodhpur Music Festival made me think about my relationship with music in general

2011-10-21T19:21:00.001+05:30

1. Music, assorted memories

Music has always provided a narrative for my life. A "theme of the day", if you will. Some days, I'm all about the melancholy, and then there is a sad French voice echoing through my living room, singing about love and loss. Before I go out on nights, some weekends, I have a pep-yourself-up playlist, Ke$ha (my dirty little secret pleasure) thumps on the woofer, and I'm all about the gyrating, the hip movements, the mirror duck face as everything is exaggerated, from putting on mascara to perfume in every.single.pulse.point. I feel fabulous, I think, as I prance around, toothbrush in mouth, this night is going to be fabulous. And it usually is.

My mother says that once, pregnant with me, she went to watch a Kerala drum performance. They're those huge drums that look like this:

And they make a helluva lot of noise. Something about the bass, the rythym, travelled through her and to me, and I kicked so hard, she finally had to leave. I like to think I was tapping my feet to the beat.

That being said, I didn't grow up in a particularly musical family. As I explained in an article I did for Open Magazine earlier this year, my musical awakening only happened some time in the 90s, and through my friends. But when it did happen, it happened hard. I fell in love with music as soon as I knew what it was, in a notoriously off-key family, I am the only one who can carry a tune, not well, mind you, but at least it sounds like the song it's meant to sound like. When we were twelve, my friend and I discovered the 'Record' function on our tape decks, and spent hours creating our own radio shows, complete with singing and requests for more singing. As we grew older, suddenly, it was all important to have musical 'taste', to like one genre and stick to it, I learned to be ashamed of my love for the Backstreet Boys, to treat pop with contempt, and embrace Pink Floyd (well, around my friends, back home I still turned on Alanis, it was like she was singing my life, dude.) Cheesy love songs, you listened to alone, around your friends and in your car, you were all about the edgy, the statements.

I remember the day my college boyfriend introduced me to Dave Matthews Band, just the one non-cheesy song, Dreaming Tree, I think it was, and Jewel, at the same time, and a couple of years later, in another boy's bedroom, after being gently mocked for not knowing the name of the lead singer of Pearl Jam, more Dave Matthews, and because I always thought of myself as uncultured when it came to music, I listened to him, and to the band, and I loved it. In my first flat on my own, my roommate pulled out Dashboard Confessional every night over sparkly blue drinks, on my last trip to the US (oh, more than ten years ago now) my cousin bought me a Matchbox 20 CD, saying he'd only stop calling me "pop girl" when I listened to real stuff. Good stuff. I made lists of qualities I'd like in a man, when I was 19, and one of the things, right below 'should read' was 'should have good taste in music'. By which I meant, 'should have MY taste in music'. How were you supposed to love a boy who loved hip hop when all that did it for you were soulful ballads?

I know better now. Or do I? My last relationship was full of mistakes and arguments, and one of them was how often he put down the music I listened to. He was a drum and bass kinda guy, and when we hosted parties, it was his music we mostly listened to. "This is good music," he'd say, "Not like your shit." To be fair, he also said the same thing about the movies I watched. (Not so much books, although we differed there also.) So perhaps not the most shining example of music incompatibility working out in the end.

But I still strongly believe the best part about meeting new people, any people, romantic, friendly, work-y, whatever, is being introduced to a whole bunch of new ideas. Through a new friend, I learn to love bits of Florence + The Machine, sitting at BB's house in Bandra, her playlist was almost always low jazz, one man I dallied with briefly, made me an actual mixed CD. People love to share their music, more than books or anything else, it's like "Here! I love this and if you love this then you sorta, kinda almost love me." Which is why, as teenage girls we tried to so hard to listen to everything our boyfriends listened to, anything to give us an insight into the mysterious marsh that is the male mind.

2.Live music and my relationship with it

I love it. I love being somewhere and a band playing. It has to be complete and utter crap for me not to love it, and thankfully, it rarely is. I love watching the musicians working, like art almost, they're doing something I'd never be able to do. Almost always, when I'm standing in a bar watching a live gig, my eyes are shining, my foot is tapping, I want to grab hold of people and say, "OH MY GOD, ISN'T THIS AWESOME? AND IT'S LIVE!"

But. A caveat. I love live music when there's a place for me to sit down if I need to. A drink close enough. Not so loud that I can't have a conversation. Assorted set list, if possible. Which is why I rarely go to actual concerts. That means being too involved, the kind of person who screams when the band comes on stage, maybe who buys a t-shirt, whose entire evening is just watching them play. I like my live music background-y, a foil to the rest of my night. I'd watch some bands, sure, but I'm not a die-hard rock music fan like some of my friends. I'll go if you're going. I'll go if we sneak in drinks and we sit on a blanket at the back and when the only song I know all the words to comes on, I'll go if I can get up and start singing along.

Here is a list of the bands I have seen:
1) Deep Purple (We were 13, my friend wanted to make out with her older boyfriend, I stood around awkwardly.)
2) Ricky Martin (He was very popular at one point. So popular that I couldn't even see the stage and had to be hoisted upon a friend's shoulders.) (Nice ass, too.)
3) Def Leppard (at the Channel [V] music awards, with a whole bunch of other people including Sting and Gwen Stefani, I think.)
4) Shaggy (there was a boy and WHAT? I had a weird, weird night. I should really blog about that some time.)
5) Some major band in Bombay that everyone got really excited about but whose name I can't even remember. And it was pretty major. Led Zepplin or someone like that. I only went because I had a free pass.

3. Jodhpur RIFF and the reason for this post

Everything I love about live music. I sat back on 500 year old stones, watched the full moon blaze and people dance and the stage was lit up, and I was with people I like, and red wine coursed through my veins.

People keep asking me how it was, and I say variants of "wonderful!" or "fantastic!" and really, even in writing this, I'm having a hard time coming up with more words. I feel like just wonderful should cover it, because see, it was about everything, the music that was all fusion-y and perfect in that setting, the setting itself, absolutely fucking gorgeous, and the people I was with. It was everything, you see?

But let me try and be a bit more descriptive. Performances went on all day, but I was all return-RIFFer and knew that the things happening at night would be more up my alley. Pure folk music is totally awesome, don't get me wrong, but I like fusion music a lot. It makes me want to dance, even when I was as tired as I was (I really need to start getting more sleep on holidays, I feel like each vacation is marked with sleep deprivation and that surreal, weird high you get from only having rested for a couple of hours. It didn't help also that my hotel--which in every other way was picturesque and lovely, with a bathtub even--had a daily power cut at 9 am which went on till 11 am. Like an alarm clock, no matter what time I went to sleep the night before, I'd be up and about by at least 9.30. Next time I go somewhere, I'm pencilling in 'naps'.)

There was this awesome, awesome party on Friday night, a combination of beatboxing and a shaadi brass band and then this DJ, who had also been there last year and by the time I crawled into bed it was 5 am, and the party had still been going strong when I left. That was my favourite night at RIFF the year before too, the mad party they had in a sunken courtyard. This time the setting was different, but still a moonlight party in a fort is the kind of thing you talk about to your friends who didn't go, all blase, "Yeah, I was at a moonlight party in a fort. No biggie."

I was expecting Saturday to be even crazier, thanks to the night before, but it wrapped up at a civilised hour, with the beatboxer collaborating with everyone who had performed. The RIFF Rustle, they call it.

Other highlights? This fantastic band from the Reunion Islands, a Dutch jazz band, and a Bollywood playback singer who sang Sufi music. If you've been on the fence about attending, you have to go next year. Have. To. You'll probably see me there.

Thinking about tomorrow

2011-10-01T11:09:00.001+05:30

Typing this out on the new Blogger, which is very sleek and pomo, but also a bit scary in its zen like buttons. Yes, I've returned from the hills, last week was spent just catching up with all that I've missed, and it was quite a lot. The last week of September heralds in the beginning of what I call Busy Busy Time, and on my little desk calender, it seems like already all the dates are circled with squiggly little notes about what I'm meant to be doing, which in my case, is more who I'm meant to be seeing. Most of these little squiggles say Wedding! in as cheerful a tone as squiggles can say, but there's also drinks and coffee and various projects, and I'm just glad I got all that work done in Ramgarh before I left.

After all that detoxing, I'm retoxing, and it has totally taken a toll on my skin. I'm trying not to obsess or touch my face too much, but it IS rather ridiculous at 29, to still get a zit. I should be over this by now! What doesn't help is remembering that at sixteen or whatever age you are when you get all pimply, my skin was as clear as.. er, a baby's bottom? Is that a thing? But my body should get used to all the pollution in the air and the fresh poisons being poured into it, sooner or later, and I have high hopes from this October. Not least because I'm going off to the Jodhpur RIFF once more this year, last year I went to nurse a broken heart, and such is the wonder and magic of the place, I returned (almost) healed. This year, I'm looking forward to being a bit less broken hearted, and much more cheerful. No More Tears, like a Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo tagline. Plus, there's jazz and dancing and all sorts of fun things. I didn't get to go to Goa this month, like I had planned on, so Rajasthan it is. And live music is so much more superior to any other kind of music.

You know what else October means? This is the month when I can stop being all cool and casual about it and be all like Birthday! Birthday! Birthday! I know, I know, it's two whole months away, but I feel like the festive season kicks off with Diwali and ends with my birthday. Yes, yes, Christmas, New Year's, blargh, but they're all just foils. Really, this winter is all about me turning 30. A big birthday means a big celebration too, and now I can start planning. Two months too soon? Oh, who cares? I'm actually looking forward to turning thirty, in an odd way. I feel like 29 is like a year of WAITING, and it'll be nice to have 30 here and over with. I remember turning 20, my friend and I had a joint birthday party, and there was lots of drinking, and I basically only remember it because of the photographs, one of which had another friend dipping me backwards, so my hair touched the floor. Twenty was the year I discovered both death and sex, which is like a plotline of a bad literary novel, but it's true. It happened to me. I promise you, though, that it won't be my bad literary novel. But a learning year. And now a new decade, what a very long time to have been alive. I'm not displeased with my lot though. Sure, at twenty, my visions of thirty included marriage, babies, etc. But they also included books, which I have done, and friends, which I have. I'm beginning to rethink my stance on marriage, as more and more friends get hitched, it's inevitable that you wonder what that aspect of your life is going to look like. But here's what I learnt in this year of waiting (which means they're useful after all) that I'd ultimately rather be happy than with someone and unhappy. Does this sound like a very single cheer-yourself-up kinda thing to say? I don't understand why we have to be so rah-rah about the singleness. Some days it does suck, and you're lonely and sad. And some days, it's pretty awesome. Much like any other relationship. But, see, we're brought up to believe that marriage is like one of the tasks we have to check off on our Life Goals list, and here's the thing about being alone , it makes you rethink your Life Goals list. Simple as that.

The one sad thing about turning thirty? I'm finally going to have to change the "About Me" of this blog to thirtysomething instead of twentysomething. Sigh.

Getting away from it all

2011-09-10T16:13:00.000+05:30

Taking a bit of an early sanyas and heading off into the hills tomorrow. Destination Ramgarh, which is a little village an hour and a bit from Katgodham, the nearest train station. Not for a holiday, oh no, I've been a bad grasshopper this summer and done not a speck of work (too hot! too many parties! too many other things!) and I don't want to wind up with no stores in my closet come wintertime. So, when I get to the station tomorrow afternoon, I will buy a return ticket for two weeks later, but it's cheap enough that I can push it back if I want to, and just stay forever. Or until I go completely off-the-wall crazy. One of the two. I only have one carton of cigarettes after all, and those'll have to last me till the end.

The mission is to finish most, if not all, work on book three (yay!) so I can have at least one draft ready, and while wedding season is on (beginning end October, going on all the way through till December) all I have to do is tweak and fine tune, which means by my 30th birthday; fast approaching; I will have a completely formed third book, ready to submit by February, ready to be published by summer. Well, the publishing bit is iffy, these things take time and are sadly not in my hands, but sometime next year, my new book should be out.

In all this, I am also detoxing a little bit. Carrying running shoes. Doing yoga every day. No alcohol. Andddd, the worst part, I'm also going off Facebook and Twitter a little bit. 'Course, I'll have my dongle (hee. that word always makes me giggle. DONGLE!) but I plan to use that for my scheduled down time, an hour a day, to reply to email, send deadlines, and general news checking. So I don't miss stuff. Well, major stuff anyway. It would be odd to return to Delhi and find this whole city was submerged by a tidal wave. Or suffered a nuclear apocalypse.

I need to think, you guys, book stuff and non book stuff are battling for space in my mind, and I need to be in a place where there's only thinking to do, so when I get back my brain will resemble a well-organised file cabinet. Everything in its rightful place, with all the answers at the push of an alphabet. I guess that means I'm also going to be a little silent on this blog, but all for the greater good, no?
Anyway. As you can see from my single word sentences, I desperately need to get my writing groove back. I'll see you when I'm a writer once more!

M to the I to the S-C-E-L-L-A-N-Y

2011-08-30T12:52:00.001+05:30

> Since my last post on the subject, I've gone actively in search of the Sunday morning. And, I'm happy to tell you guys that it does exist. No one person in particular, at the moment, but potential abounds, and that's better than nothing. Man, I love dating. I know I said I hated it, but woman is a fickle creature, and there's something about the thrill of a text message in the wee hours, or a Facebook friend request, or just thinking about something you said to the other person and it making you smile. I'm steeling myself against inevitable heartbreak, because there is always heartbreak at the end of these things, and trying to just enjoy the moment. I'm not much of an Enjoy The Moment kinda gal, but hey, it's a useful skill to have. I don't know if it's the yoga I've been doing, or the company I've been keeping, but I have never felt so confident in my ENTIRE LIFE. It's brilliant. I think the only thing that kept me from enjoying dating-dating in the past, when you're not sure, and no one is your "boyfriend", is that I used to keep fast forwarding, reaching the point of no return vis a vis expectations, and then there is always disappointment. Potential is good, it keeps my stomach a-flutter and my evenings interesting. I'm allowing myself to admit that I don't have the answers; maybe no one does, but it doesn't mean I can't have fun.

>In all this, I had a minor epiphany the other day. I've actually forgotten JC's face. I'm sure if I tried hard enough, I could conjure it up, but he is no longer the person I think about with wistful longing, suddenly recalling an expression that would bring me, in the midst of a crowded party, almost to tears. "We almost had it all", yeah, but, we didn't. And I guess my healing process is complete.

>Reclaiming Delhi like the Brits did Bandra, I've been eM Fancypants this last weekend, swishing about to trendy art openings and even trendier night clubs. Shalom is still going strong, did you know? They have one floor which is smoking, always a comfort to me, and is always packed on the weekends. Wonderfully serendipitous weekend as well, when I turned up at Shalom and found my "gang" from college all there, all happy, and we hadn't managed to get it together and hang out for so long, all four of us were just lost in the wonder of it all. "We're all here!" we kept saying, there were hugs and exclamations, and it was nice. The night prior, I went to a club I hadn't even heard about before*, something called Circa 1193 (Circa to regulars) and there too, I bumped into a bunch of random people. I don't know if Delhi nightlife is the nightlife for me, to be honest, but it was nice to get out of my comfort zone for a bit. Staggered home after SEVEN glasses of red wine and TEQUILA, oh god, why do I ever drink tequila? Why is it always such a good idea at two in the morning? And the next day, of course, I paid the price, but it was still quite nice to be drunk in a place where the music was loud and my heels reduced my feet to numb blobs. Nothing like that to make you feel young and stupid again , even though I'm pretty sure I prefer being old and wise.

*ever since I've moved to Delhi, weekends have been all house party all the time, so it's what I've gotten used to. Small gatherings, usually BYOB, and usually the same people. It means heels are optional, and there's always a couch for me to sit on, and always a cab just a phone call away. Clubs, for this older Confessor, have ceased to be a thing, unless I'm in Bombay. Then, all bets are off.

> This has also been a week of goodbyes, BB has departed for another hemisphere, and even though we're no longer in the same city, we were online usually at the same time, so we managed to keep an all day long chat session going. Now that we're in different time zones, however, I'm lucky I have my insomnia to keep me awake while she's up and about too. We've also committed to a Skype date every now and then, so yes, goodbyes aren't as painful as they used to be. It's a small world, and everything is just a plane trip away.

> I've just found out another dear friend ties the knot in November, bringing the grand total for weddings in that month up to THREE, and none being weddings I can skip. The universe has aligned magically though, because none of the dates are clashing. I foresee a month long hangover in November and mehendi hands probably all the way till January.

> Since moving to Delhi, I had to restructure and reshape my social circle a little bit, and a lot of it was starting from scratch. But now, I'm happy to announce, I've finally got the "new friends" bit sorted and organised and I have GIRL FRIENDS, you guys! Thanks to growing up here, I don't lack for good, close, girlfriends, but making new ones is always tough, so I'm happy that I found a few I really like, and meet regularly. Also, at parties, I'm the girl who flirts with other girls, and exchanges numbers and arranges to meet within the week, and it's awesome, it really is. Boys may come and boys may go, but a good support system (much like a bra) is forever. It's odd though, because if you put me in a room with a mixed group of strangers, I'd probably get along better with the boys, but when it comes to close friendships, I usually prefer the company of women.

Cocktail recipes for people who really just like anything with a salt rim

2011-08-22T19:01:00.001+05:30

It is so warm today I'm even slightly nauseated. I'm also sweating right through a cotton t-shirt and shorts, my hair is bundled up and out of the way, and yet, my neck is still damp. The cold water I pulled out of the fridge half an hour ago is now tepid, and I haven't managed to do anything all day except stay as still as possible in the hope that expending less energy will make me feel less hot. My only air conditioner is in the bedroom, and if I go into my nice dark cool bedroom, I will pass out and only wake up at some strange hour, like 10.45 pm or something, and then be awake all night. Not good.

So, in the hope of making myself feel cooler and, as a bonus, a post about alcohol on a dry day, I'm going to talk about cocktails. Actually, I'm going to talk about making cocktails, something I'm quite good at. I think, like most great chefs are great because they really like food, I really like drinking and so it figures that I have a small talent in that direction. But! Enough of the false modesty. Here are four recipes, borrowed from here and there, with large chunks of improvisation that I threw in to make them more palatable. All have been tested by a large audience (read: my friends) and have met with success. Remember to temper down or up depending on your taste range.

Also, here is how you salt a glass. It may seem stupid to have to write it down but so many drinks are RUINED because the salt rim is terrible. Take each glass, slice a half wedge (you don't want it to be drippy, just moist) and swipe the wedge around the rim of each glass. Put a tablespoon of salt on a saucer and sort of spread it around. Then take your glass, lemon-ed side down and do a quick rotate on the salt.

FIRST! The Compulsive Bloody Mary (I'm just going to go ahead and name all these drinks after me. What? Bars do it all the time.)

The trick here, something I picked up from a friend in Bombay (hi Rodrigo!) is to use tomato puree instead of juice. The advantages are many: a) it's cheaper; b) it goes a longer way; c) it's less sweet.

So, premix your tomato puree with cold water, one packet should make approximately three tall glasses or five short ones. Remember to keep tasting as you're pouring otherwise it'll be super diluted like mine were last week.

Once you're done making as much "juice" as you need, add spices: Tabasco (I make mine SUPER spicy), a couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce (optional, but gives it a nice tang, so add if you have it) and a sprinkling of black pepper. Also, ice.

In your salted glass, add a generous amount of vodka and ladle the mix you just made in. Rememeber the lemon you used to salt the glass? Squeeze that in too. Stir, slice a green chilli lengthwise and add for a garnish to the side of the glass. Ta-dah! Remember, a good Bloody Mary is one where you can't taste the liquor, so your guests should be nicely drunk at the end of one of these sessions.

SECOND! The Compulsive Guava- Chilli Mojito

I would have never thought about combining Old Monk with anything other than Coke, so I have another Bombay friend, Chrisann, to thank for that tip. Most mojitos use white rum, but I can't stand the stuff, so improvised with Old Monk. Also, I really don't like sweet drinks, so most of my favourites are somewhat spicy or have a salt rim. I've noticed, by extensive self testing, that my hangover is significantly less if I'm not all sugared up at the end of an evening. Therefore, less soft drinks, more juice and soda.

However, you don't want to be reminded of hangovers right now, one assumes. You want to drink! Let us proceed. You need another salted glass (I warned you), and in that, put about a fistful of shredded WASHED mint and about two sliced green chillis. Add Old Monk, top up the entire glass with ice and over that pour the guava juice. This is actually an excellently refreshing summer cocktail despite the fact that you may be looking at me askance about the green chilli. Trust me. It's awesome.

THIRD! The Compulsive Vodka Tadka

Which I really just shamelessly stole from a friend (who I don't think reads this blog, so I won't name), but added one slight change over her original. Still, all credit to her for creating it.

This is a slightly more involved recipe, in that there is much more chopping and grating to do, BUT, if you need to top people up, you don't have to chop and grate all over again.

So, CHOP a green chilli. (I really like green chillis. I don't even know why I'm apologising for it, but you probably think I'm obsessed. I even bought a green chilli plant a couple of days ago and it has its first fruit!)

GRATE a piece of ginger. (You need a fingernail full for each glass.)

And SALT a glass.

In salted glass, vodka, green chilli, ginger. Squeeze loads of lemon juice on there. Now, it's important not to put the ice in NOW, because the ginger will cause the soda to fizz and the glass to overflow, becoming all sticky. First fill the glass with a little Sprite and then fill the remainder of the glass with soda. Now add the ice. Ta-dah! Vodka-tadka. Best. Name. Ever.

And finally, a drink that does not require a salted glass or green chilli: The Compulsive Iced Tea.

This is less of a recipe and more of a combination that I stumbled upon. Nestea now sells their iced tea powder in packets at all the general stores. I buy peach. Put a generous tablespoon in a glass, stir with water, add vodka and ice. This is one of the only sweet summer drinks I can endure, so it goes in my recipe list.

Happy partying. Remember to drinks LOADS of water.

What they don't tell you

2011-08-15T22:42:00.001+05:30

When you write for a living as opposed to "just writing", suddenly, everything is seen in terms of cash. How much money could I be making for a short story that just came to me one night, the characters already forming, like the opposite of ghosts in my head, transparent people growing more opaque? Presently, I fetch about Rs 5 a word, on average, more if I'm lucky, and I try to never let it go lower. This is a good rate for a freelance writer in India, given that every second person I meet wants to be a freelancer themselves, and most newspapers offer you Rs 2. You have to make it worth your while, otherwise it shows in your writing. A hurried piece is unsatisfactory, even if you consider yourself a fairly good writer, even if the readers of that paper may have never read your stuff before, you know it's not your finest.

But it's hard to stay fine when it's what you do for cash. I think (and this may not be a great metaphor, but it's the only one I can come up with at the moment that seems to fit) of a prostitute. That's intimate stuff, and it's being put out there for money. Much like a freelance writer. Do you imagine the prostitute always performs well? Or are there hit or miss days for them as well, days when they make love with passion and energy and days when they scrape by with just a well done hand job? I know, writing wise, I have hand job days--my work is swift, it gets you to the end, it's not unsatisfactory. But it's not the orgasm the reader could have had.

Freelance work is most days a whole lotta nothing. There are days I spend watching mindless TV, going back to bed and reading after the maid has gone for the day and can't judge me, texting friends as early as I can (not before 4, because you don't want to look like you have nothing to do, not after 5, because they'll have already made plans for the evening) to see if they want to meet later that day. Killing time. I may as well be a murderer, like the Mad Hatter said to Alice. There is no genius burning, nothing like I imagine the old days of writers to be, a lot of writing in an attic and then an evening pint with other writer friends. And the funny thing is, if you count all the extra (meaning: non-book related) work I have, and the amount of Twitter/Facebook/blog stuff I do, I'm writing more than I have in my entire life. It's just not "work" writing. Not "career" writing either. It's just... writing.

They don't tell you about the not glamorous days. I met a boy at the IIM I was at recently, and he said to me, shiny eyed, "Tell me about your life! I watch Californication, is your life like that?" I laughed and said that was like asking a surgeon whether their life was like Grey's Anatomy, but even friends, random people I meet say, "Oh, your life looks so exciting!" And I feel the need to wave my cigarette holder about, kiss people on the cheek, weave flowers through my hair, compulsively write in my little Moleskine at parties, be the kind of writer that people who want to be writers try to be. Horn rimmed glasses and all. Throw about a good mango/seduction metaphor. Talk about my perfect writer-y life, in the perfect writer-y flat with the perfect writer-y cat. When in reality, some days, I wake up to uninspiration. Some days, I am longing for the sound of someone else's voice inside my head. Some days I think I'll never be able to write again, that every word that leaves my fingertips sounds hackneyed and trite. Some days, my perfect writer-y cat greets me with a perfect poop in the middle of the living room floor.

They don't tell you how lonely it's going to be. That being a writer means long hours, thankless wages and no distractions. That there's no such thing as "no distractions". Very rare meetings. No colleagues. The fact that you lose all social skills after a while because you no longer know how to talk to people. Irritability that lasts for days. Insomnia. Days when you feel completely and utterly worthless because all you are, all your self worth is tied into how well you can write and you haven't written a sentence in two weeks. Days when you kind of hate that everyone is moving on with their lives on to bigger better things and you're still stuck with a job that will never pay you as much as your MBA friends are getting. Days when the Project Of Your Life that you're working on, your new baby, has to be described to someone who asks "what do you do?" quite innocently at a party and as the words leave your mouth and they look even slightly skeptical, you're suddenly thrown into doubt, "OH MY GOD, WHAT AM I DOING?"

To know that you're doing what you've wanted to do since you were a little girl, so convinced were you that you would some day be a Writer that no one was actually surprised except you when you became one, is the most wonderful feeling. But still. Some days are better than others. Some weeks are better than others. You do what you love and you do what you can.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

2011-07-28T19:37:00.001+05:30

You guys, I am SOOOOOOOOO BORED. You know why I'm bored? I'll just come right out and admit it, I'm bored because I have no romance to speak of. Is this unfeminist and terribly 1950s of me? I don't give a shit. I like the not-being-able-to-eat-because-your-stomach-is-always-in-a-knot and the everytime-this-song-comes-on-I'll-zone-out-because-it-reminds-me-of-that-moment-you-cupped-my-chin-and-kissed-my-mouth. It has been ever so long since that last happened to me. Okay, yes, I've been having encounters, because Delhi is a city rife with tempation, even when, at almost thirty, you're all sitting on your hands and biting your tongue so you don't make a move on the delectable man who will be so wrong for you tomorrow but in that five red wines down moment, is just what you need. Yeah, I did sorta make a pact with myself, I was all, "No! I want a boyfriend! No more casual sex!" But see, that might be the thing. Boyfriend Material is in short supply. But! I've been good-er than I thought I would be! Bright side!

My new text message ringtone goes HA-LLE-LU-JAH! in a shiny way each time it pings, and this is very amusing to me, because I can almost see the clouds parting and this one giant finger reach down and touch my cellphone, but more often than not it's someone offering me this absolutely incredible plot down near the Noida golf links, and not what I want to see, which is very simply, "Hey, dinner on Saturday? I'll pick you up at 8." The good old fashioned date. The date where you perfume the back of your knees, and wear your nice underwear, even though you shouldn't, because wearing nice underwear will undo any chance you have of playing hard to get and leaving with a cheek kiss. I'm terrible at the hard to get thing. I'm trying though. I haven't texted any one (and I mean boy anyones) first in the longest time. In many ways, the yoga I've been doing for the last two months is sort of helping me be all calmcalmcalm and zenzenzen but then since this is still me, who should really change the title of her blog to The Compulsive Obsessor, I lay my phone next to my laptop and gaze at it, like they teach you in yoga, to concentrate on one thing and I whisper to it, "Message."
I don't think this is what my instructor had in mind. Clearly, my amazing mind control powers still have some way to go before they develop.

(OH MY GOD, JUST AS I TYPED THAT, MY PHONE WENT HALLELUJAH.)

(I will now Live Blog about checking it.)

(Don't get too excited though.)

(Stupid smart phones are so fucking sloooooooooooow.)

Argh. This from Mother's Pride, a school that has been sending me spam for the longest time, and that I will now NEVER send my children to. They've opened their 41st branch. Yay. Rah-rah. Hmph.

ANYway. As I was saying. The good old fashioned date. The one that begins with a phone call asking you out in a civilised fashion (meaning: two days from the day it was sent, for an acceptable time--because anyone who asks you out post-11 pm is really just looking for a booty call) I'm not too fussed about where we would go, because I just like there to be drinks, and then after, if he was dropping me home, there'd be a text waiting for me when I woke up the next morning, just to say hello, and he had a nice time, and we should meet again that coming week. Does this not happen anymore? Do you really have to specify what you'd call an acceptable date? I mean, before you jump to conclusions, boys, it's not about how much money you spend or where you go, or what kind of car you drive. It'd be okay if you arrived in an auto rickshaw, and we went and picked up some kebabs from your favourite place and a cheap but good bottle of wine and we chilled somewhere. The point is, showing some respect. I'm not saying we should get married tomorrow (or ever) but it would be nice to think that you saw me as having a little bit more to offer than just a body. Like, I play too casual, I know, I'm very undemanding, my girlfriends tell me this is a bad thing, but I'm not going to be one of those women who is all, "Why didn't you call me at 2, when you said you were going to?" which is okay, but it also means a lot of people you date or try to date wind up taking you a bit for granted. Maybe some amount of high maintanence-ness is a necessary evil. I may not say anything to any of these men, so they think I'm just as casual about our rendezvous as they are, but when you get to your eleventy billion no-text-the-next-day it gets so tedious, that you're willing to give up dating forever. Which I did. And then you get bored. Which is where I am. Vi.Ci.Ous. Cy.Cle. It makes you unhappy. It makes you bitter. It makes you choke out dry little caustic jokes, attempts at self deprecatory humour, you smile, but it doesn't really reach your eyes. But then, having the memory of a goldfish, my heart leaps at the next "nice guy" I go on a date with, this might be the one to actually go beyond date three, and then, almost too quickly, out come the red flags, out goes the dude. And here we are again.

I should just.. what? Lean back and let whatever happens happen? I'm trying that now, and let me tell you, not being proactive is equally painful for all those evenings when you count the couples you know and then you just want to go home and read and watch Entourage and grumble to yourself about everything. Being proactive means you leave yourself open a little bit to hurt and dismay, so it's a choice between that and this boredom + loneliness. Boreliness. Lonedom. Whatever way you spell it, this is where I am, and something had better change soon.

I'm looking for a Sunday Morning Person, someone to wake up with the next day, and make coffee and read the Sunday papers with and potter about with music on, and then say, lazily, "Brunch?" and then maybe you'll go out, but more likely, you'll stay in and draw the curtains and leave the world out of your Club For Two.

My fingernails are caked with dirt

2011-07-21T11:38:00.002+05:30

I've never been a person with much of a green thumb. Once, a former flatmate gave me a cactus. She had quite the collection herself, loads of plants all set out on her windowbox, growing green and beautiful and wild, and TC was unceremoniously kicked out of her room each time he went in, because, man, I love my cat, but he is a PAIN when it comes to plants. Or cut flowers. Or anything that is green that is not meant for him. Once, I gave him some greens, placed them by his bowl so he could have at it whenever he wanted, but he wasn't interested. Instead, he made a beeline for some roses someone had given me and spent the whole evening his face stuffed in the flowers, gnawing at the leaves. Even now, my houseplants bear the distinct Mark Of TC, the leaves are browning in bits where he's taken an experimental chew. It's good for him though, to have some roughage, since he's a housecat, so I don't stop him, but then, if they're other people's plants, it gets a bit much. ANYway, she gave me a cactus, which I liked very much and placed on my own windowsill, and you know cacti are hard to kill, right? But I killed it. It sprouted a couple of green things hopefully for the first month or two, but then decided to die, no doubt out of depression, and each time I went near it, it spat out thorns in my direction. That was a neurotic cactus. No kidding, once at a good five inches, nowhere NEAR the damn thing, I wound up with little thorns all over my fingers.

Anyway, that was the last time I aspired to keep plants for a long time. Then, one monsoon, my mother visited Bombay and bought me one of those sticks of bamboo you see everywhere, tall and twisty, and I put this in an empty vodka bottle with some water and waited. And waited. Nothing. The bamboo got a bit chewed by my cat, but once it stopped doing anything and just sat there pathetically, he lost interest. I was ready to give up on Mr Bamboo. I wasn't winning any Miss Green Thumb awards any time soon, but then I remembered an old trick of my mother's, to revive flagging flowers and popped it into the bathroom for a bit. I don't know whether it was the humidity or the fun of getting to see us naked, but the bamboo revived with great speed and even started to get new leaves and twists in its stem. (Trunk?) It grew so well, I even popped it into a plastic bag and carried it with me and cat to Delhi and now it sits, in an empty wine bottle on my windowsill, growing madly. MADLY.

Ennobled by my success, I bought a few more bamboo plants, but none of them did as well as the first, apart from drinking water rapidly, so much so that I have to top them up every couple of days. So they have roots and everything, but as for new leaves, they seem to be shy about it, putting out one a month and then waiting with this tiny, tender new leaf and nothing happening. Stupid plants.

Once I moved to the new place though, I decided I was going to be the girl with lots of plants. A CONSERVATORY even. I imagined loads of little plants everywhere, the air thick and green with them, sprouting little flowers, I even imagined fondly, snipping some flowers off and putting them in a vase for my table and everyone being all, "Oh, wow, where'd you get those flowers?" and I'd say, modestly, "I grew them." It was all very English countryside in my brain for a moment. My mother, like my previous flatmate, is a great plant lover, so most of the plants lined up on my study windowsill are courtesy her, and well, it's hit or miss. Some are dying really really rapidly, like the two succulents my parents brought me back from Ranikhet, which are in hanging pots and which, no matter how much I water and sunshine, don't seem to be going anywhere. Some are doing okay, like one green leafy shrub (TC's favourite for its chewy leaves) which, despite abuse, is putting out new leaves and being all twisty and obliging. Some just sit there, like a cactus like plant, which promised me a new shoot about three weeks ago and is still holding on to it. One, the gorgeous bonsai-esque tree thing that someone gave me for a housewarming present, is doing SO well, that I hold my breath each time I pass it, new flowers and everything.

So, I became that girl with the plants. Finally. When I was in Kerala last weekend, we happened to stop by a nursery and seeing the pretty new green things, I decided to pick up two for my flat. (Note: if you're flying a plant, they make you check it in, which means mine emerged a bit battered looking, despite the 'Fragile' tag I made them slap on). I got a jasmine plant, because come on, who doesn't love a jasmine, and I envision it flowering and filling the flat with its sweet, sweet scent and making garlands out of the buds (it only has one so far, and I'm watching hard to make sure it blooms.) And I bought one corresponding to my Malayali birth star, because they had a list of which tree was for which sign (it's a thing in Kerala, apparently) and I thought I'd get a kick out of it. My birth tree is a bit boring, the kumbil or beechwood, but it's nice to have something "lucky" in your house, right? I wish though, that it was the lemon tree, because nothing is cuter than little nimboos growing. In fact, I think I might get a little lemon plant, just for the fun of harvesting my own lime.

It's a nice hobby, gardening, even when a couple of your plants aren't doing spectacularly. I like watering them and pottering about seeing how they're doing, and something about nurturing things that aren't warm and fuzzy (which are the only things I've nurtured so far) is pretty rewarding in its own right. Hey, my cat's thriving, right? How hard can a plant be? (Don't answer that.)

UPDATE: Just got home after a Friday night out and found my jasmine plant abloom. Apologies for poor picture quality, it's off my cellphone.

This and that

2011-07-04T14:50:00.001+05:30

Yes, I’ve been entertaining. But not much else really. I notice my posting significantly lowers in the summer time, I think it’s the weather, nothing really happens in the long months of June and July, and for energy levels to rise (thus leading to something worthy of a blog post) it has to be rainy. Oh, Bombay.

But! This is to remind you I’m still alive, and while real life trudges along slowly, I’ve been up to, well, not much really. I finally got my at-home yoga instructor, a sweet young man, very earnest, who tells me whatever I do is a “good effort” and talks about “novel” (navel) exercises. I’m really liking the yoga, I feel like it’s helping me already, be a little more settled and all that.

In other news, I’m off to IIM Kozhikode to give a TEDx talk this weekend. The flight is SIX HOURS LONG, you guys. That includes a 7 am start time (which means waking up at 5) and two stopovers in Mumbai and Coimbatore. I’m glad I’m going a day early, because I cannot imagine speaking after all that flying. The weekend after that, I’m going to Cochin, for my grandmother’s birthday, so yes, lot of Kerala hopping over the next week. Anything’s better than Delhi’s deliriums at the moment though.

Never mind. I’m not wishing the year away, because every month that goes is one step closer to me leaving behind my twenties FOREVER (Dooooooooooooom) There are things people don’t tell you about turning 30, or almost 30 as I am in this gap year. For example, except for very, very rarely, you don’t get drunker, you get quieter. Drunk = asleep. It’s a true fact. By the time I’m on drink number six, I’m all, “Oh bed, I love you so.” Plus, energy levels are directly proportionate to how much you sleep. Gone are the days when I could sleep practically anywhere for a couple of hours and wake up all dewy eyed and bushy tailed. Now, unless it’s a bed bed, with pillows, the perfect temperature, darkness and quiet, I look and feel like a zombie all of the next day. Argh. You try and try to resist ageing, in fact, you might even look like you’re in your mid twenties, but your body will Not Be Fooled.

Life’s being life-y. Until more actually happens, posting will, in all likelihood, remain slow over here. But here are some pictures of fun times, to make up for it:

Little boy in Nizamuddin Dargah, shot on one of the excellent SRDC heritage walks in the neighbourhood.

Shot on the way to buy groceries one hot evening. The glass says: “Keep out” in a shiny way. Love.

eM’s House O’ Dreams

2011-06-18T12:39:00.001+05:30

Oh, dream house, I love you so. I swear it. I only moved on Tuesday of this week, but never has a place felt so quickly like home. I thought my Bandra flat was the Flat Of My Life, so to speak, I didn’t think I’d form another attachment to a place as strong as my one was there, but oh my god, this place has my Bandra flat pinned to the floor and begging for mercy.

Not least because of the vast amounts of space. Dudes, I live all over the house and I still can change it up a bit. In the mornings I spend my time with a cup of coffee and the morning papers in my large drawing room. Then I switch over to my study, where I usually spend most of the day. I put music on, around the late afternoon, early evening, some jazz, when I’m feeling fancy, some Ke$ha on a weekend, like today, some 90s, when I’m just feeling silly. The guest room, sadly, hasn’t been used properly yet (as you can see from the picture below, it also took me the longest time to set up), but I’m calling it the Room Of Requirement and letting its uses evolve organically. One such use will probably be a yoga room, I’m looking for a reasonably priced yoga instructor to come home on weekday evenings (so that I don’t have an excuse to bunk the class) and I will use that room just for my exercise.

The first day I moved in, one of the first things I did was call the electrician and get him to hang up all my pictures. So, in the midst of unpacking, I kinda felt homey already, with all the art work that I love already on the wall. If you remember, what it takes for me to feel “settled” in a sense is making my bed, and over the years, hanging up my pictures. (Yes, I know I spelt “independent” wrong. Also, my god, looking at my gushing ness over… toilet brushes? makes me feel very old and wise.)

This as you can see, is my designated TC potty area. It’s actually not so bad, because it forces me to clean out his litter every morning, instead of ignoring it and letting it get all gross and manky (which is easy to do if you can’t see it or smell it). TC, by the way, is such a pro at the moving now. First he sulked under a cupboard for a bit, but now he’s his usual self, meowing randomly to himself, stalking around the house. I think like me, he’s also a bit “WHEEEEEEEEEEEE THE SPACE!” and so every evening, he goes a bit mad and leaps around and hides behind curtains. Psycho.

The only drawback to this house is that the loo is actually outside the front door on the landing, which is okay, but when you really have to pee in the middle of the night and you’re a lazy person anyway, it takes a lot of effort to get out, walk across the WHOLE house and open the door and then pee and then come back in and lock the door again. Well, okay, it doesn’t sound so bad, but I’d have liked it if there was an en suite bathroom. Which would have also meant that the price would’ve doubled, so I guess I’m lucky for old school planning. There’s another tenant I believe, on the second floor, but she’s out of town at the moment. When she’s back, I’m going to have to carry a bathrobe when I have a shower, but now I’m just throwing on a towel and walking around.

My study (photo below) is perhaps my favourite room in the whole house. The windows alone make it any writers dream. Unfortunately, for the first time in my life, I have more bookshelves than books. (But, oh, I have SO MUCH CUPBOARD SPACE! I now have a cupboard just for dresses, one just for casual everyday clothes, a SHOE CABINET, a linen closet, winterwear storage and I STILL HAVE EMPTY SPACE. Worry not, fair reader, I will soon work on filling them all up.)

I also managed to get a good maid and cook, but as luck would have it, she turned out to be vegetarian. So, she cooks pretty good veggie food, but I’m thinking of getting another cook just for Sundays (which is her day off) to do my meat and things. Or, you know, just cooking meat myself. The picture is taken through one of my absolute favourite features in the house (a couple of friends came over last night and had great fun with it too), a cubbyhole thing, between the dining room and the kitchen, to pass out plates and things. I’m going to be getting a dining table soon (this is a house that deserves a dining table) and start my cooking parties anew, and this should be the fun bit: pass out plates through the hole. Which is so much more fun than just carrying them out the regular way.

It’s one of those old, old Delhi houses, built in the 50s or the 60s, and probably has more personality than I do, to be honest. Even though my little bits and pieces of furniture look nice and comfy, in the end it is the house, not my things that is the main attraction.

So, yes. That’s my thing now, my house. Also, my substitute for a boyfriend. Delhi’s not doing so badly on that front though, loads of interesting people, so who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky in love soon, seeing as I have luck everywhere else. *touch wood* *spit to ward off the evil eye* etc etc.

You’re like a brother to me

2011-06-13T11:30:00.002+05:30

Last night, I was at a close friend’s engagement party, sitting on a “his side” table. It was a mixed crew, but this friend tends to have more female friends than male, so the sex ratio was slightly skewed.

We started talking about how you could never be sure how many siblings anyone had, because people tend to say “brother” or “sister” about their cousins too. There are some who toss “rakhi brothers/sisters” into the mix, so basically, you think their parents are super prolific. “I always ask “Is this your real brother”?” said a young man at the table. I pointed out that ‘real’ or presumably ‘biological’ is really just a state of mind. What if your sibling was adopted? Not such a common problem in India, but by the time the next generation is ready to sit at engagement parties of their own, I think it might be, considering how many people I know who want to adopt or have already adopted.

Then we started talking about the future groom. “He’s like a brother to me,” said the same young man, and I, delighted, said, “Oh, me too!” STUNNED SILENCE ON THE TABLE. “What? What did I say?” I asked, perplexed. Apparently, it’s not quite a compliment if a girl says it about a male friend. I don’t know why, I’d be hugely flattered if one of my guy friends said I was like a sister. Wouldn’t you?

They then urged me to blog about this subject, saying that they were sure people would be able to point out to me that it’s just Not Cool for a woman to say it about a man. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t think of you as a man’ or something. “You’re better off just saying, “You’re my best friend,” was the advice offered to me. I get what they’re trying to say, saying “brother” immediately takes any offer of sex off the table, but hello, I’ve been friends with this particular brother/friend for SO long, sex was off the table aaaaaaaaaages ago. I mean, I don’t want to sleep with any of my close guy friends, do you? It’s as anathema for me as would be the idea of sleeping with a “real” brother. The only difference is that unlike an actual biological sibling, the attraction to a friend could happen. (We’re disregarding incest here, obvs.)

I read an article somewhere, I forget where, but this was a long time ago, that said men only befriended women they found attractive. Which, okay, I'm not so convinced about. I'd prefer to think there was more to men than that, more than just a simple, "I think you're vaguely pretty so I want to be your friend." The article went on to say it was only once they thought a girl was pretty, that they explored the idea of a friendship, even if they weren't necessarily attracted to them. Women on the other hand, operate slightly differently. Okay, so I know in the first two minutes whether or not I find someone attractive, BUT that's not to say someone I don't find attractive now may not be attractive to me in the future. My list of things that contribute to being attracted to someone is long and includes, but is not limited to: banter, a good text message and a sense of adventure.

But either way, in my mind, I was so convinced I was giving him a compliment. Being an only child, one of the nice things is, I get to pick who I want in my extended family. Not all friends are so-called siblings, in fact, I’m rather picky about who gets the tag. If I’ve known you for a long time, if I know my relationship with you is steady and loving, if you’ve been there for me during hard times, and will try your hardest to be there when I celebrate, then, well, you’re like a brother/sister. I got shouted down when I tried to explain myself, but hey, no one’s talking on this blog but me.

I know friends, we all have friends, but what happens when you have a bond with a friend that goes deeper than just a plain ol’ friendship? I have several sisters of the heart, who I love dearly and deeply, and okay, I don’t have quite so many “brothers” because a male-female friendship is essentially different from a female-female friendship, but the few that I do consider to be closer to me than just a regular friend, the few that the idea of sex wouldn’t even come up with, not even in your deepest darkest thoughts, because the relationship between the two of you is so pure and good, almost asexual, but not in a bad way, you know? I feel they should be allowed to be my brothers, even if I’m never allowed to say that to them.

Domesticity

2011-06-03T12:20:00.001+05:30

I write this from a friend's flat in Bandra. She's in a high rise on a street full of old style Bandra buildings, so to my left, if I peer out the balcony, I can see tiled roofs and beyond the tiled roofs, even more high rises. In the flat immediately below this one, a group of girls has been practicing a dance performance for what seems like years, the same music on a loop and I do wish they'd get on with it, instead of stopping at 5..6..7..8 and bursting into giggles. Oh goodie, they seem to have gotten it down perfectly.

I know I haven't written in a bit, but real life is both happening and not happening. Life slowed down and while normal, regular things happened, there was nothing I felt particularly like writing about. Stuff like "oh, I went to a party" and "oh, this is what I bought when I went shopping", nothing very interesting, nothing life changing in any sense. And even though nothing life changing has happened to me on this trip, my "summer vacation" as I'm calling it, the fact of being in Bombay is reason enough to blog.

Okay, so interesting things:

Interesting Thing One is the fact that I am slowly teaching myself to cook. I felt like having a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, a real, where I feed people things other than take out and booze dinner party. I've never been a kitchen whiz, never been a foodie, even, but this overwhelming need to nourish suddenly came upon me. Is this what happens when you're almost thirty? So I went to this food blog and picked out this recipe, served it with L'Opera crusty bread and good butter and it all finished up! Not a leftover in sight, and it was such fun hearing people say I was a good cook, because it's not a skill I thought I had at all. Since I was now hooked to the praise and the feeding, I decided to try something a bit more complicated for my second round of dinner guests and made this. It was a bit more complicated and required lots of prep time, and I froze my fingers trying to mould the semi frozen mince, and the sight and smell of the raw meat and the blood made me gag, but I did it! I was so proud of my burgers, even as they "set" in the fridge, I made everyone admire them before I cooked them and not a leftover again. We even had one left over, which someone ate. And they weren't small burgers either.

So, now, I have a reputation of being a good cook. Isn't that weird? In the past, quite proudly, I declared that all I could do was instant food, cheese maggi and so on. But I think Indian food is a lot harder to do well than Western, also, while cooking simple Indian food is great, I like to experiment. I like to plate my meals, to offer bread instead of roti, to basically only cook the stuff that you wouldn't normally eat at home. Individual portions, measured out per guest. Then, at some point in the future, I will sit down with my mother and get her Andhra recipes, and my father and get his Malayali recipes, but in the meanwhile, I'm enjoying my "fancy food" phase. Up next: risotto with mushrooms, leeks and bacon!

Interesting Thing Two is actually a direct reaction to thing one. I'm moving. I need a larger, less slummy space (and my little hole in the wall is getting quite slummy this summer). In the past, it was winter and pretty with the sunshine shining in, now, with only one tank of water for the whole building and two new families downstairs and a counter top for a kitchen, well, I got to thinking, I should have a space I'm proud of, no? Especially since I entertain so much. I think I might have found the place of my dreams, but since all is up in the air at the moment, I'm not going to blog about it till I actually move and have pictures I can show you.

So, that's my list of interesting things. I'm loving being in Bombay right now, the monsoons sort of started yesterday, my fifth time watching it explode over the city. Might've been a false alarm, because it hasn't rained since. Oh well. Delhi's been nice and coolish too, over the past two weeks, so it's nice. Life is nice.

Things to make you feel old (if you grew up in India)

2011-05-14T03:24:00.002+05:30

Judging from my last post and this one, I’m filled with nostalgia these days. I think that’s the effect of summer in Delhi, which I haven’t done in YEARS. Reading this list online, made me think I should do a similar one for people born in India. Feel free to add on in the comments!

1) I'm a Complan boy, I'm a Complan girl!

And then they grew up big and strong from drinking all that Complan.

2) Campa Cola:

3) Appu of the Asian Games (he was on my 3rd birthday cake!)

And now (look how jazzy he got)

4) Stretch jeans went out and came back into fashion

5) Thankfully, the shoulder pad remains elusive:

6) Remember her?

This is what she looks like now (psst: she’s 35)

7) This happened 17 years ago:

8) That’s also when she died and it was all over the press:

9) Attitude is everything:

10) She is now 45.

He’s 56:

And she used to be adorable:

And grew up HAWT.

11) Hamma, hamma hamma hamma.

Not so hamma:

12) Yeaaaaaaah. Baba Sehgal.

13) And Apache Indian. (Who recently performed at Blue Frog).

Who now looks like this:

14) Remember how we were convinced the LD would replace the video cassette? And all those people went out and bought expensive LD systems and I was all jealous because my parents didn’t see the point? WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, BITCHES?

And a picture of me in 1983 and 2011, just for fun. (No, I don’t know what I was pointing at either.) (But that’s the kind of swimsuit I’ve been searching for).

That’s about all I can think of, for the moment. I’m sure I’ll edit and add more stuff to this later. In the meanwhile, add what you can think of, and I’ll see if I can hunt out images.

The other thing that happened the day Osama Bin Laden was killed

2011-05-03T15:10:00.001+05:30

It is terribly… warm, isn’t it? Which is totally the excuse I am making for my lack of posts. What? THE WARMTH! IT IS A WRITER KILLER! And I’m not one of the privileged, like you guys, who get to go to an air conditioned office every day, and spend great hours of my life, probably the best hours, sitting in artificial light and making conversation with people I probably wouldn’t even be nodding acquaintances with in real life, and okay, I’ll stop.

And then yesterday, I went and joined the public pool next door, which okay, is a very little thing in the scheme of things that happened yesterday, what with the Big Bad Wolf being brought down, and everyone only talking about that, but what? I don’t live in Abottabad, or however you spell that. And I’m glad the Americans got closure and everything, and I’m glad he’s dead, but it’s SO not the end of the story. When the end of the story happens, I promise I will talk of nothing but. But since yesterday was only, like, a chapter, I feel like I can tell you about the pool next door.

As I signed up, the girls at the desk looked at me and debated with each other whether girl one should get a nose ring (like I have) or a nose stud (like girl two had.) They glanced at my nose awhile, I told them it frequently got caught in towels and t-shirts and things and then, finally girl one decided to go for the stud. FASCINATING. Then they casually looked over my form and girl two gasped.

“You’re… twenty nine?”

“Yes,” I said, shortly. I’m beginning to get a bit sick of this. Yes, I’m aware looking young is fab and all that, but WHAT IS SO OLD ABOUT TWENTY BLOODY NINE? I’m still in my twenties, not quite over the hill, I wish people would stop saying, “Oh, you look so young” like I’m fifty five or something.

“And,” said girl two, still hushed, “Why aren’t you married?” (There was a father’s name/husband’s name section, which always throws me a little bit.)

Unexpected. Very unexpected. Here I was all ready to not-so-graciously accept my “oh you look so young” compliment. I babbled something about not liking men, and then babbled that I wasn’t a lesbian or anything (not that there’s anything wrong with lesbians! No! *nervous laughter* *girls look even more pitying*) but men in Delhi just seemed lacking. “Okay!” I said, still with the nervous laugh, “Changing rooms?”

“Through there,” pointed girl one. They watched me go. They shook their heads. I am DOOMED TO DIE ALONE. Even pool girls are judging me.

But the pool, the pool. It made up for it all. It was large and over chlorinated and probably chock-full of piss and worse, but it reminded me of my childhood, you know, when you’d be four or five kids to a car, and you’d go to one of your parent’s clubs, and you’d spend all day horsing around in the water, and your fingers would get all pruney, and you’d be the last ones in, till someone, a parent, an aunt, would drag you out, where you’d be wrapped in a warm, scratchy towel and you’d eat chicken sandwiches or cheese pakodas and talk about how tomorrow you’d do the high board just as well as your cousin. And summer. And sticking your head with chlorine dried hair out the window and singing in high voices, and tumbling into bed because you were so worn out and knowing tomorrow, it would be the same thing, by the same pool.

So, despite the uncles and the people learning to swim by thrashing about and the kids playing ball across the most crowded section, I smiled blissfully (between spitting out water) and swam leisurely from one end to another, slow butterfly strokes, feeling like a mermaid. Well, a mermaid who had to wear a cap, which made my head feel a bit like a condom, but a mermaid nonetheless. My friend joined a little later, and we hung around the middle section, where we could just feel the bottom on tip toe, and we gossiped. Not very sporty, but we were mermaids. We were doing mermaid things.

And, oh, the water was blue and made my skin itch, cute young Afghans flexed their triceps for PYTs also with condom heads and the changing room had warm showers and everything, everything was exactly as it was in 1989, minus the chicken sandwiches. Swummer. Summing.

Where I tell you a little bit about THAT YEAR

2011-04-20T03:38:00.001+05:30

Don't delay, something tells me I gotta go away
Maybe it's the way we always stay when our hearts have gone
We can't hold us anymore, no, we've got to fold
Down to the floor, yes, I know it's cold but baby, our hearts have gone

It is one of those nights, tonight. Some night bird is calling out the fact of morning, I’ve had one, two, no, three drinks and it’s that strange hour when your sleep has past and you feel like you could stay awake forever. If there was someone else with me, I’d be confessing right now, I’d be spilling my little ol’ guts right over my coffee table, but after I fed a friend dinner and gave him a drink, he went home and so I turn to the internet and talk to it and tell it about what I’m thinking of.

Which, tonight, is JC. Specifically, when we ended, how we ended. No one, even people who love me dearly, can fathom exactly how unhappy I was in the last six months of 2010. I think back upon it and all I can remember is feeling my stomach in a perpetual knot, feeling like I was walking on glass, feeling like that same glass had somehow climbed into my throat, was resting in my eyes. I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t swallow, I couldn’t move. And yet. And yet, I loved him. And I think he loved me. Which is probably why we were so unhappy.

A night I just tweeted about, having a fight about god knows what now, and me in a hurry, pulling on sneakers and my tights and slamming the door ferociously behind me. I ran down Carter Road, feeling the pavement under my feet, ran, even though I’m not a runner, ran and thought and felt the hot almost-rain on my face, yes, it was almost monsoon time then, wasn’t it? I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell above my iPod, just go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA until I couldn’t scream anymore, until the glass in my throat fell out finally, but Bombay is a crowded city, and I didn’t want to cause a scene or have people stare at me funnily and this I think, is my basic problem.

Just because there once was love
Don't mean a thing, don't mean a thing
Just because there once was love
Don't mean a thing, don't mean a thing

A friend came to meet me, and tried to say soothing things, like you would to a horse that’s threatening to bolt, but the fact of him, the fact of us, in that small, hot flat, the fact of his things happily married to mine, the fact of our lives so intertwined now that I couldn’t even begin to see where I could start to unravel it, it just made me so, so tired. I didn’t want to go on. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to squat on Carter Road forever and just NOT DEAL.

I was so tired that whole period. If I could have stayed in bed forever, I would have, but then who’d run the house? Who’d make sure everything was on the up-and-up? And by slapping a brave face on it, I could escape and meet people and pretend like my life was just FABULOUS DAHLING, MUAH MUAH. I don’t know how much people were fooled, I know when I moved here and began to breathe normally again, people said, “Oh, you look so relaxed now.” I didn’t think strain would show on my face, but I felt like I had Botox, my eyes didn’t move, my mouth turned upwards in small degrees, my hands—I’m a big hand-mover in conversation—stayed static or curled around my glass of wine.

Why am I thinking about this tonight? It’s so far in the past, that we’re even at the point where we’re having friendly-ish conversations, JC and I. Thinking about it closes my throat up again, it’s so not a pleasant memory that I’ve blocked most of it. Occasionally, one or two incidents will swim up, like this night, but mostly, nothing. I’ve been on the occasional date, other boys’ numbers are on my cellphone and they have the power to make me laugh through a text message.

But it’s that kind of evening. It’s 3.30 and even my night bird has given up and gone to bed like a good night bird should. If this was a real life conversation, this is where my throat would be sore and parched from talking so long, I’d say, “You know?” a lot and touch your wrist, I’d top up our drinks, you’d look at me in sympathy, but mostly you’d want me to stop bringing up such depressing things like my last breakup, GOD, will you get over that already? For the most part, this is me telling you, “This is where I’ve been! And this is what happened. And this is why I am.”

…. now that my heart is gone.

Balle balle?

2011-04-14T12:48:00.001+05:30

I just got back from Amritsar, which was incredible. You know I’m not a particularly religious person, in fact, I’m probably the least spiritual person I know. My moments of “prayer”, or meditation, come in the every day, I used to get Golden Transcendent moments by watching the sea go by on Carter Road, for example, or now, driving through a particularly attractive bit of Delhi. But, on the whole, spirituality has never been my thing.

I don’t know if a place can have a vibe, but if it does, the Golden Temple is right up there. There’s something to be said about a place invested with so much hope (and so much blood thirsty history). It resonates through the marble, under your feet, in the calm in the middle of chaos. It seems almost as if everything slows down for a second, while you drink it in. My picture doesn’t do it justice, but it is absolutely stunning.

The reason I picked Amritsar was simple enough. I made a friend while I was in Gokarna (let’s call him Jerry) and he was due to travel through North India, before he left back for his own country. Did I want to go anywhere with him, he asked, and since I’ve always had an all-abiding love for the Punjab, I picked Amritsar. It’s my third Punjabi experience (previously, Faridkot and Chandigarh) and by far the prettiest, even though the city itself is all screaming chaos. It was also an interesting lesson for me in travelling like a foreigner, by myself, I am mostly left alone, but add one Boy From Distant Shores, and suddenly I was a scam magnet. It makes you feel kinda bad for all the other tourists who go through India, by the end of the day, I was so tired of people hassling me, I wanted to yell, “Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupppppppppp!” at everybody. We got (almost) cheated twice, but Jerry is most masterful in his command over situations (thanks to travelling through India for the last three months) and I managed to delegate all post-negotiation-negotiations to him.

An aside: if you’re going to stay at the Hotel Golden Heritage, DON’T. The sheets were all crusty with something, which I only discovered at 11 pm, and when I asked for a new sheet, the manager absolutely lost it, and began yelling and screaming. We checked out the next morning, and moved to the lovely (and affordable) City Heart, which I would recommend highly, not least because they have a Barista right in the hotel for your morning cup.

Food wise, we did quite well: Brother’s Dhaba for kulcha and daal, Kesar Da Dhabha for more daal and kadi, Surjit Chicken for brilliant fish, Crystal (eh, not worth the price) for mutton and more chicken, and Chawla’s chicken (EXCELLENT) for really good tandoori chicken. I have eaten my weight in food now. Jerry left the ordering up to me, and didn’t have any dietary restrictions, so I basically just let myself go and had a party.

More friends joined us the next day, and we pottered around doing this and that. We had visited Jalianwala Bagh already the previous day, and as luck would have it, it was the 92nd anniversary of the massacre on the day we left, so we decided to go back and see the ceremony. Which was a lot of people giving speeches, but I’m glad I went again. A lot of people choose to skip it, because it is rather depressing, but in my opinion, it’s an important historic site, and it was nice to see something from my history book come to life. Also, besides everything, it’s a beautiful park, and it’s nice to sit under the trees and watch people go by.

Speaking of historic things, we absolutely had to do a trip to the Wagah Border while I was there. My other friends were also foreign, so between them and Jerry, they flashed their passports and got shown to the VIP section, while I was unceremoniously herded to the “commoners.” We went back and forth a bit, and finally, the guard, just to shut me up, sent me off with them. And then, in my ladies queue, my water got taken away while they got to keep theirs, and it was all very annoying. Plus it was hot, and I was getting grumpy thanks to my lack of sleep the night before (see: crusty sheets). But soon, it started, and I cheered up. It’s just so funny, watching the guards almost kick their turbans off as they walk, all to the chants of people going, “Vande. Materam!” etc. There were LOADS of people, surprising for a weekday, but then I learnt it was a holiday. This is what happens when you work from home, you lose track of everything.

So, I discovered my inner Punjabi, learnt what it’s like to travel like a foreigner, found (at a certain level) spirituality, and ate lots of food. That’s quite a bit for a weekend trip, right? I thought so.

There’s no place like other places

2011-03-28T14:59:00.002+05:30

Singapore! City of shops and nightlife (and some excellent food!) I always associate it with sleep deprivation, and this time was no different. The flights to Singapore are always at such anti-social hours, that I left Delhi at midnight and reached at 5 am, which is barely enough time for a full night’s sleep, but also not short enough that you can sleep once you get there. Basically, I always have to hit the ground running (which I did with plenty of coffee.) And don’t even get me started on Air India, and their flight attendants, who look super pissed off if you ask for anything, including a glass of water. And who keep waking you up to feed you, even at two in the morning. Grrrr.

But, I stayed at the most gorgeous boutique hotel called The Club, with all white rooms and an iPod dock, which I was almost inordinately pleased with. The other speakers were Shobhaa De and Mukul Deva, and then, little ol’ me. We were all whisked off to lunch at an Indian place, where I nibbled on some stuff, the sushi craving in me escalating. But you can’t get sushi anywhere now dude, and I began to feel sad, maybe the last time I ate sushi would be the LAST TIME EVER. The things we do to our world.

After which, I got to take a nap, and we went shopping. I couldn’t be in Singapore without hitting at least one mall, and so, I made my way to one and bought some very nice white wedges. Which are so pretty, but also completely rid me of my sense of balance, which meant Saturday night, when I wore them out for the first time, I tripped and fell no less than THREE times. And this is before I had been drinking.

I did some quite fancy things though. I went to a place called Santi for dinner, a “celebrity” restaurant at a place called the Integrated Complex, which is a way of saying ‘casino’ without actually saying ‘casino’. The casino looked very cool, and there was a little balcony before you entered the restaurant where you could look down upon hundreds of people all gambling furiously. Sadly, there were strict ‘No Photography’ signs, so I couldn’t get a picture. The casino is free for tourists but charges Singaporeans 100 dollars to get in, another way of the government to be like your nanny.

Another fancy thing I did was go to the Indian High Commissioner's house for cocktails, and the India House in Singapore is absolutely stunning. All white and wood, with a central koi pond and massive art deco chandeliers. The parties I could throw in that place! I wonder if it’s too late for me to be a diplomat.

The talk itself was quite fun, of course, everyone had come to see Shobhaa De, but I think I won them over when I did a couple of passages from You Are Here, including, but not limited to, Arshi’s first time having sex. I managed to sell ten copies, which is good for a book reading where no one has heard of you before, and the books are priced much much higher than here in India. I also had a photo shoot, which involved shit loads of make up on my face, and me standing around, channeling my inner America’s Next Top Model, and trying to smize.

Friend From Bombay Who Now Lives In Singapore (FFBWNLIS) took me out for a couple of drinks. Friday, we went to a place called Chimes, a sort of gallery of little watering holes, where I drank my (MASSIVELY OVERPRICED) glass of wine and filled him in on all the gossip. Saturday, I went and picked him up after dinner (at a yummy Chinese food stall place called KEK) and we went to Clarke Quay, place of my ruin the last time I visited. This time, I was a little more boring and sedate, we leched at people as we drank (at a nice little bar called Le Noir), tried to figure out which women were ladyboys, and met some other young people, who then assisted me in my quest for the Jaegerbomb (scout! I miss you!) The Red Bull did its work and pretty soon I was all WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPARTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE but after we hopped to place three, a Latin club called Cuba Libre, I realised I had a flight to catch in like, four hours. So, thanks to stupid Air India and stupid anti social flight times, there was no chance of a repeat on my holiday fling. *sigh*

Anyway. Seeing as this trip was very tightly scheduled (my itinerary left little or no time for a “free period”) and I was mostly hanging out with much older people (the organisers, the other writers) I didn’t have a chance at the wild, let-your-hair-down weekend of last time. But Singapore continues to grow on me, people are friendly and smart, there’s always something to do, and it’s nice, isn’t it, when your job is basically to go around the globe talking about your book?

I did take more pictures, which I will be uploading on my photo blog shortly, so check that out for more amateur photography.

Travelling I always stop at exits, wondering if I’ll stay young and restless

2011-03-21T11:47:00.001+05:30

The problem with March is that it’s springtime. And the problem with springtime is that there are so many things in the air, that it’s rare for me to wake up in the morning without a sniffly nose. To make matters worse, my cat is shedding like it’s going out of style and I have to contend with piles of cat hair EVERYWHERE, even on freshly washed clothes, so everywhere I go, I take my allergies with me. It’s not fun. I’ve also developed an Allegra addiction.

The exciting thing to happen to me this week is a trip to Singapore for a “literary salon”. I can’t find very much on it online, but if you read me and you’re in Singapore, I’ll be at a fancypants boutique hotel called The Club, so come and say hello. ETA: I’m speaking on Saturday, the 26th at Singapore Recreation Club, B Connaught Drive I’ll read to you, and drink a glass of wine with you after. I remember the last time I was in Singapore, now THAT was a fun trip, and while, yes, yes, I’ve grown older (and wiser) in the interim, I can’t help but hope that things will be pretty much the same level of awesome.

Another exciting thing to happen to me next month is a trip to Amritsar. I made a friend while I was in Gokarna, and he will be travelling up North later this month and so, we made plans to go to the Punjab together. I’m very excited, having never been to Amritsar and all I can think is TANDOORI CHICKEN WHEEE! I’m nothing if not a propagator of stereotypes. I’ve done the Wagah border before, when I went for a colleague’s wedding in Faridkot, and it struck me as rather aggressive, but I’d like to go see it again, just so I can be sure of my impressions. The foot stamping that each side’s soldier does is a bit… odd though, and doesn’t go very far in promoting peace between the two countries, which I thought was our eventual goal.

This month also a whole bunch of old friends are in town, Small and BB, both of whom I love, are visiting Delhi and I look forward to happy times. Nothing like old friends. Especially now, when they seem even more dear. It gets harder to make good NEW friends when you’re older, right? At least, I’m finding that the case, everyone is either an acquaintance or a frenemy, with the exceptions being few and far between. Maybe Delhi is just a more politic-y city, in matters of friendship as well as the state.

As for boys? HAH. I’ve so given them up, which is just as well, because they’ve given up on me. To just go out with ONE nice man, to have a banter-filled conversation over dinner and a drink, to feel the comfortable flutter in your stomach at the end of a date well done, it seems like all these are impossible goals. Meanwhile, I stew in my celibate state (six months and counting) and dream of random encounters with sexy strangers.

Oh well, at least it’s almost summertime, and that’s the season when I feel the most in my element. Because of my clothes, I hate to layer, it’s annoying having to remember tights and a thermal and a jacket and a scarf each time you leave the house, now I’m just like DRESS! and CHAPPALS! and yay, out of the door I go.

Anyway. That’s my March, not very mad, but still, mostly eventful.

The Different Kinds Of Sex (a list for your referencing pleasure)

2011-03-04T10:22:00.001+05:30

“How many different kinds of sex are there?” asked a friend last night at 4S, so another friend and I decided to make him a list. And here they are:

1) Make up sex

2) Break up sex

3) I’m bored and there’s nothing on TV sex*

4) I’m drunk and a little bit lonely and you’re here sex

5) I forgot to get you a birthday/Valentine’s Day/Christmas present sex*

6) I’m regretting this even as I’m doing it (but it’s too late to back out now) sex

7) You talked about your ex for an hour this afternoon sex

8) I saw you checking someone else out sex*

9) I’m a little bit guilty for checking someone out sex*

10) Revenge sex

11) Pity sex

12) I’m trying to prove something to my hot friend sex

13) We’ve been on a road trip and gotten really close sex

14) We once hooked up and I’m trying to see if there’s still a connection sex

15) I had a crush on you in high school sex

16) I had a crush on you in high school and now you’re fat and I’m hot sex

17) I’m about to break up with you only I’m not sure how to do it so I will initiate sex sex

18) I wasn’t going to have sex with you but then I saw how everyone else was looking at you so I changed my mind sex

19) You’re my friend and I just saw you in a new light sex

20) This is more about me than you sex (applies to mile high clubs and one night stands)

21) I haven’t had sex in a really long time and you make me feel less like a person who is going to have to be CELIBATE FOREVER sex

22) You’re much younger than me and so you make me feel agile sex

23) You talked about how much you like my writing and so I feel connected to you sex (only a writer’s thing, I guess.)

24) Secret sex

25) I just broke up with someone and I want to test the whole “the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else” theory sex

26) Post sexting sex

27) You’re my co-worker but you looked really hot at the office party sex

28) Significant occasion sex (birthdays, New Year’s, etc)

29) This is supposed to match an image I have in my mind sex

30) I don’t really want to sleep with you, but you’re really nice and would make an excellent partner so I’m going to try and see if it works sex

*Applies to people in relationships

Feel free to add on more in the comments!