It’s official now; I am beautiful

Now that I have your attention – I can be more truthful. The Ponds skin test gave me an A - Which is the highest they have! I am so so proud! So, I have minimal open pores, zero wrinkles, plenty of moisture and adequate melanin. Finally, it was worth spending all that money on expensive cosmetics and creams. And the Ponds team had no reason to sell me any of theirs! ;)

I also shopped at Inorbit. I quite like this mall. Please check out their bags place called In Touch– the most amazing collection of bags at very reasonable prices. Lots of high end brands around the mall too – Charles and Keith, Will Lifestyle, Orra, UCB, Bose. The best part is the food court and the unending stream of events they always seem to be having. This time they were conducting a kids’ dancing contest. Just look at the number of people (even on a weekday!) watching the little girl perform.

http://www.inorbitmalls.com/

Fishy Tales

Freaked out on fish this weekend. I had one in almost every meal. Also, went fish shopping. Most places have these cool ready to fry Bhetki fish which I bought many of. I also ate Rui. I know the Bengali names of fish – Rui, Katla, Ilish and Bhetki. No idea about their English equivalents like salmon, Haddock or catfish. I also received a crash course in recognizing them. Some by how flat they are, some by how long(STOP that dirty mind!), also the texture of their fins! Good fun.

What?! What did you say? Fish is NOT non veg!! IT’S VEG! And it’s perfectly OK to have them! (Never ever say that to a Bengali again!!!Hummpphhh)

Smells fishy..

Getting it Pierced

Two blogs on the same day! I must have plenty to do at work! ;D

There I was at 5 sending Urvi messages on chat, “Am bored, let’s do something”.

She replied (as usual), “Yeah, Me too. No work. Let’s do something”

“What?”

“Bowling”

“Nah, too late”

“Ok, let’s get our ears pierced”

“Umm… OK let’s” We had discussed this a few days back. We did have the usual single, but a second and a third looks quite cool. And one does get bored of the usual. For us, this was a way to be a little wild. A little atypical.

This was at Irla. We treated ourselves to some Tokri Chat before the ordeal. Urvi was getting jittery by the minute.

“I get so scared to do my eyebrows. Won’t this pain even more?”

I gave her my bit of corny philosophy, “One minute of pain for a lifetime of hipness”. Whatever! She bought it.

We had a hundred questions for the guy who was going to “gun” us.

“It won’t hurt will it?”
“So, will it hurt if I pierce on the top?”
“Have you done this before? How many times?”
“Do people come here to do this often. Does it pain for them?”
“Will it pain after or while doing it? For how many days?”

At the end of it, we had a nice little crowd of a kind Bengali aunty and her two awe struck daughters hovering around us. The two patiently waited for us to be injected while their helpful mother gave us few after piercing tips.

I went first. It pains very marginally – and a while after the gun pierces the ear. I can feel it now. It’s a very dull, throbbing ache. I am to wear the stud for a few days. When the wound heals, I can insert a ring if I want.

Urvi was shivering with fright.

“No, I can’t do this. It looks very scary.” I pulled her along and she held my hands tight as the gun went Tchak.

We walked out, lighter by a hundred bucks and heavier by sparkling new studs. Unusual deed for the day!

For a Cuppa Chai

When we were drenched to our skins at Matheran in the Monsoons, hot, frothy tea from the Kadam Tea Stall saved our day(and lungs!). This lone ramshackle hut turned into a tea stall was built miraculously next to the One Tree Hill (such business sense!). We sat there on the broken, dirty bench with cackling hens around our feet. Each sip seemed like a miracle, warming our shivering, frigid bodies. Drops of rain fell around us as the fog lifted a little and settled again. Memories are made of stuff such as these. Mmmm... Nice!

At home in Kolkata, I remember cool evenings when Ma, Nani and I would sit sipping hot black tea, watch 'Rojgere Ginni' and discuss how much the last one won. I would deride them for watching such stuff but secretly peek from between my newspaper. Now at my apartment, in similar cool evenings, I sip my tea and think. Mmmm... Nice!

I look forward to the routine at work. I come, switch on the computer, pick up my tea and read the paper. Afternoon tea is for friends, catching up with office gossip, cribbing about the last analyst request. The routine is almost uplifting.

Tea has been my saviour. It has refreshed when I have been the most tired, it has helped me make friends, it has helped me keep sanity at work.

Now I drink my tea as I write this. Mmmmm... Nice!

Update - Sipping in front of Mozart's house at Getreidgasse(Salzburg), watching old Germans trudge slowly along the roads of TheaterStrasse (Heidelburg), early morning at the cute Parisian's Brasserie at Ru De Fetes - a cup, a cafe and two euroes - is all one needs to rest those much abused legs!

Stuck

I am stuck.

There is a huge, gooey river which flows, and I am stuck somewhere in between. It comes past as dark rancid waters.

I can touch them, and they make me choke. I can't seem to move them away, as they swim round and round all around me. I push away the murky things in disgust and they only come closer, threatening to submerge what I have left.

I am caught somewhere in between. Some try to help me out. I struggle a bit and come to the surface, but fall back again. Its a disease and a curse. This whirpool of rancid, hurtful memories.

Help me out. I am stuck somewhere.

Raqeeb – Lessons come in subtle ways

I learnt five important lessons today. The first four start with

Never watch a movie

1- With two titles – One in English and the other in Hindi. Example, Raqeeb – Rivals in Love (Duh! That only just saved me a Google search!)
2- With unknown stars trying to make it big and failing time and again (C’mon, there must be A reason! Just look at Tanushree Dutta and Rahul Khanna! Man!)
3- When your bored friends pull you to one as your gut screams – “Dud!”
4- When there is not even ONE hummable song, eye candy or good food to distract me. (Only horribly coloured hair, contrived oomph and cheesy lines)

Such blasphemy! Second time after Vivah! I had so promised myself….

Next time Pondi even if you are bored, my answer is NO, NO, NO!

The fifth is unrelated but says
5 – Never be so friendly with guys so that they make you the butt of their dirty jokes. Worse still, about you, in front of you.

I knew them earlier, but they were buried somewhere. Gentle punishments are Life’s way of reminding me to get back in line.

Now, to happier things. Red was the theme of the day. Two snaps I clicked.

At work

My late night cuppa

A Provoked Mind

We sniggered when Sister Flavian said, "Your body is the temple of God” in her dreaded Moral Science class. My friends said, “What would she know?”. Smirks.

Body I can protect. What of my mind?

What when dreams are shattered? When the mind is fraught with troubled emotions? The kind which stay on for a long time, scarring and wounding. Sometimes, forever.

And what do we do? Not trust, not love, not dream?

I watched Provoked yesterday. Not a great movie. But I think a great story. 10 years of servitude! And one day she snaps. Women take a lot, don’t they? The physical and emotional trauma, all for love, for affection, for a man to validate her being!

It was a nice skyline by office that I saw today. The cloud lover’s society would have loved it (There’s actually one!)

www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

www.provokedthemovie.com

Life in a Metro – Kaleidoscope of emotions

Tickets to the Premier

I am blogging at the wee hours of Thursday night after watching the premier of ‘Life in a Metro’ at PVR, Juhu. It was an online contest I won. And my first premier!

And such a fab movie it was! Deftly woven stories, cleverly worded songs, with Pritam’s band singing them alongside the actors, as they pass through their confused lives - The call center employee on the fast track, another sleeping with her boss whose wife and he live a lie of a marriage(“Everybody lives for his own happiness. I am too. I am doing no one any harm”), the 30 something woman searching for her ‘perfect’ man (which as we all know is merely a myth!), everyone seeking, looking out, never satisfied, never fulfilled. I loved Irrfan Khan the most. Such an underrated actor! Had us all in splits throughout!

The movie has a unique empathy value. A whole new and interesting genre of film making. At some point in our lives, we all experience atleast some of the emotions the characters portray. More so in a city such as Mumbai, with its many people, countless emotions and endless dreams. We don't live. It's just survival. Though, that's not necessarily bad. For, at the end of it all, we have experienced something richer, a life in all its shades - some bad but much good.

What is right? Being selfish and thinking about the happiness of oneself over others? Or sacrificing your happiness so that someone else maybe happy? Don’t ‘I’ matter the most? How can I make others happy if I am not? But isn’t it also true that what goes around comes around. It’s all so confusing. So, what is right?

I had selected my clothes with care and was all ready – rather hoping it would rain stars. I did catch a few aging starlets and some new ones with them, but not the main cast; which was a disappointment. For all the neck craning and endless sipping of the green Kiwi Mango drink (which was amazing by the way!) I did not glimpse many, but what the heck!? It was a free movie – and a great one at that!

A very, very nice script - with lots of gems. Among them I recall now

Rahul saying – Life is rat race, not a morning walk! I have to get there fast.
Akash saying – It was neither her nor me. Love left us.
Amol saying – We keep searching for better; we keep running after better. In the end we never do get anything better, and time has already run out…
Debu saying – Yeh shehar humko jitna detha hai, usse kahi zyada humse le letha hai…

Maybe the tears are to weep for what could have been… And yet! it's lovely every time!

At PVR Juhu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(2007_film)

The Eternal Pursuit of Happiness

“It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. How did he know that? “

It took a while to download, but I was keen on watching The Pursuit of Happyness. Pondi had specially recommended it with a ‘Supaaar’ and thumbs up.

There was hardly any happiness in the movie. There were tears, struggle and frustration all through except at the end, when he gets the job and tries in vain to hold back tears. Will Smith is exceptional. One can almost feel his torment throughout.

But it makes you think – what about those who didn’t make it? There were hundreds with him in the homeless line, 19 other interns, so many more, poor, starving, struggling. Only he deserved to be ‘happy’ among them. He was a stock broker now! So, was he happy? Was it the means or the end to his pursuit? Is there ever a pure, unadulterated state called happiness?

Bela was talking of her family. Her mother in law was schizophrenic. In the early days of her marriage, no one knew that. Everyday her husband would be treated to stories of how she had been neglecting his mother and torturing her. Everybody, including her own mother, was berating her for her behaviour. She would deny vehemently, but there was no one to believe her. She said her life had become a living hell. And when they learnt of it, no one knew what to do. She still stays with her mother in law and listens quietly while she screams and shouts. I have never heard her speak of it ever, until today. She says she is happy - the family is together.

What do some people do to deserve more than others?

In the end, Happiness is just a choice – a choice of being…

Superheroes Cry and Mortals Drink

View from Strand

The audience booed when he cried. For Mary Jane who left him, for his friend Harry who died, for his uncle who was killed. Maybe they overdid that bit. After all, superheroes are infallible. They can’t make mistakes. We idolize them because they are perfect. No, they can’t cry.

That was Spiderman 3. I did not mind the movie though. It had a great deal of melodrama thrown in, tears, friendship, love, heartbreak, every emotion known. Two formidable opponents, lots of wall climbing, punching and spider webs between buildings.

I passed through all the places that had meant so much to me at one time. Colaba Causeway, Flora Fountain, Apollo, Leopold, Dome, Ambassador…. The shops, the roads, each nook and corner. Most of the memories are gone, but they spring up in flashes. Maybe then, it still means something. Maybe it always will. Or maybe not…

We went to Strand Hotel top at Arthur Bunder road. Good view, not too much choice in drinks except the beer. Ten of us sat and chatted about placements and batchmate shenanigans. I wondered about my life – and how it was going to change very soon. I drank some more.

Of Outlandish Conversations and Stunts

This is Mainland China at Lokhandwala – great place, the best service ever! There must have been at least two waiters per table and they don’t leave you unattended even for a minute. The menu card weighed a ton, replete with illustrations and anecdotes. I was not feeling very hungry, so I just had clear soup. Though I think that this is a place I would come to again.

I have a phone pal these days – Bhagyashree – the daughter of a farmer from Latur (of the earthquake fame)! I have been assigned to teach her English. Our conversations go something like this,

“So what is you name?”
“Bhagyashree”
“What does your father do?”
“Yes”
“What does your father do? Work? ‘Kaam’?
“Farmer”
“Oh!” Am a little tongue tied now “What does he grow?” Eeew! I know I know! But not my fault! I have never spoken to one such before!
“Yes”
“No what does he grow? ‘Kya ugathe hain’?” Aaaarrrggh!
“Jwari” pause, “What do you work?”
Ummm…. Investment bank. Equity research. Now what will she understand?
“Bank” I say.

It’s funny how when she never understands anything I say, I just repeat it louder. And it only gets slower and louder, never rephrased. That’s because it is difficult to imagine that;
1- I am conversing with a farmer’s daughter in English

2- I am conversing with one who does not understand a simple four word English sentence.

And man! I THINK in English! That as long as I remember! Really! It is not easy at all!

But well I can take heart from the fact that I have just had one proper session with her and by the end of it she may be able to get more forthcoming (And I more innovative with my questions)

I treated myself to a movie in the afternoon – Charlie’s Angels. Such an aspirational movie! What I won’t do for those Diaz legs, those Liu chops and Drew sass (That s is not a typo, though I would not mind even if it was:)! The plots, characters and stunts were obviously outlandish, yet absolutely enjoyable.

Now to watch Charlie’s Angels – Full throttle. Kickass!