Just another chapter

I believe “Booooo” is my favourite exclamation these days on all messengers though understandably so it never has the desired effect on my friends. Hahaha!

I am loaded with workyet when I find time alone with my thoughts I keep asking myself the bloody same questions. Sigh! I think at some level I am tired of myself and my predictable reactions to the same situations. Sometimes I feel that whewwww after coming such a long long way it still seems the same and makes me feel like life hasn’t moved an inch forward. I think as we grow older we like to believe we are evolving, life is evolving and we are more mature and we shall deal with situations differently in a more controlled manner. Well you know what that is utter rubbish cause I have seen some of us react the identical way we did years back to situations today. Hahaha!

What a revelation? To think I was trying to convince Fino today that I am dealing with certain circumstances in a different way for a change and she refused to believe me and why would she when my track record on the same is MISERABLE. I am a very bad judge of character where the men in my life have been concerned so much so that I have reached a point wherein if I am interested in a guy I have asked my close friends to remind me that there has to be something wrong in the man. I cannot possibly like somebody regular and nice. I only like men who either lose interest too soon or are just not interested in me or they screw my happiness. Giving them the benefit of doubt I am sure they probably don’t intend to but hell the result is almost always the same. It is a pattern isn’t it? . I think sometimes we just need to be alone.

Tinni was here last weekend and what a ball we had as we shopped till we dropped and wined and dined like Kings. Hehehe! The scariest thing happened on our way back from TC on Saturday evening. We guys were in a rick cos I was in my “saving money” mode though Madam had been so adamant we book a cab but I was hell bent on taking a rick back. We were followed from Vasant Kunj to the Domestic Airport by this bunch of guys in a car and they had the audacity to get off their car at a signal and threaten me saying “you either give me your phone number or we’ll keep following you.” I confess I was petrified and Tinni witnessed eve teasing at a completely different level that night. I mean in Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore or even Bombay we haven’t been subjected to such treatment by lecherous men but Delhi men win hands down where crass, uncouth and appalling behavior towards women is concerned. What is it with this city that evokes such uncivilized reactions in men? I don’t get it. Anyways thankfully I got a brainwave and decided that we’ll head to the domestic airport and station ourselves next to the first cop and not move from there until those hooligans leave. I think airports make me feel oh so safe. Hahah! That is exactly what happened. They left as soon as we took a turn for the airport realizing they lost the game. We heaved a sigh of relief and took a cab home this time. Alls well that ends well. However I am not hopping on to any ricks late at night. Period.

Come May

I have been wanting to write for the last couple of days but I am mostly tired by the time I actually get down to sitting peacefully in the corner of my sparsely furnished living room and invariably the next day blogging about something that seemed so bloggable last night doesn’t seem tempting enough.

Delhi has been having very pleasant weather off late. Surprise, Surprise but it has been the coolest April in years. However I can feel the heat coming, can feel it in my bones, the long power cuts, the permanent furnace that the world turns into when all we want to do is to stick to the air conditioning. Such extreme weather and come summer the one topic that is going to dominate the rest is gonna be (note FB statuses) weather.

I read this beautiful book called Kartography by this Pakistani author called Kamila Shamsie. She captured the political turmoil in Pakistan in 1971 and the aftermath in the eighties so thoughtfully and sensitively. I was utterly transported to Karachi and after a long time I read a book I did not want to get over with. Sometimes, though as a child it was so much more often, but sometimes when I am reading a good book I don’t feel like coming out of my storybook world and Kartography was one such book. Maybe it a sign of being an escapist or maybe I just needed to distract myself. Also imagination can be such a powerful tool.

I saw the moon day before in the evening while I took a bike ride home from the Sector 6 market with Vik and the moon looked, round, bright with tinges of yellow almost like a ripe juicy orange waiting to be eaten. Hahah! I pointed it out to Vik who sadly did not see any beauty in it. Sigh! Why do I even bother these boys? R, J and I had spent an entire evening roaming around in the market, whacking the mosquitoes, having juice and gol gappas and talking about appraisals and thinking of ways and means to go to Bhatinda for R’s wedding. J wants to go by car and Vik insists on a train. I left it to them to make a decision as I am game for whatever they decide.

I haven’t been to Punjab in a while. I don’t count my one visit to Chandigarh for a day for an arbitration as a visit at all but of course there was Rad’s shaadi when we were in Chandi for 3 whole days for the Big Fat Punjabbi wedding. :D I spent two years in Punjab in this small town called Pathankot when I was 8. J’s is from Himachal and his town Nurpur is 2 hours away from Pathankot and most of the times when anyone asks him where are you from he just says Himachal so when I asked him exactly wherefrom and said I had been there he was pleasantly surprised. He was under the impression that them big city people would have never heard of his home town.

Come May and I am going to have lots of houseguests starting from my sister her crazy best friend Malvika and of course Mommy. Before that Tinni is staying over for 3 days this Good Friday weekend. Yeayyyyyy! I am sooooo excited as I am sorted till June. Hahah! I am a sucker for good company I tell you. But aren’t we all?

Mango Pudding and The Science of Being Single :-)

I  had Mango pudding and Vanilla icecream for dessert this afternoon with Pra. :-)

Met him after three years and he gifts me some chick lit called “The Science of Being Single” and no we did not choose it together for me but he happened to pick it up some 5 mins before I entered the mall. Do you think it’s a sign? Hahaha! C how many hours did I spend crying over him in various DTC buses 6 years back? Hahah!

I had a long conversation with a BFF today cos she lost someone very dear and someone she looked up to and admired  and we were discussing how  different people handle death, loss and grief. It hit me how lucky Nutty and I are to have had Ma around. Not for a single day after Baba’s death did she ever say why did this happen to us and the way she moved on with such a zest and passion for life that all we had to do was to blindly follow her footsteps and live our life to the fullest.  I wish I could be half the person she is.  My Mommy phenomenal. 

 I read this somewhere :-

" I believe with all my heart that cliches are true, that we are our own best friends and best company, and that if you're not right for yourself it's impossible to be right for anyone. You are so lucky to have you. Don't lose sight of that."

My Mum lives by this every single day of her life. :-)

Find time to smell the coffee maybe....

I realize that over the course of the last one year a lot of my posts took shape this way as a consequence of me feeling dreadfully sleepy. As in I would suddenly find myself free of work one afternoon as a result of working like a maniac the whole morning and then the sleep monster comes visiting and trying to spread its tentacles on one more innocent bystander/ hapless human being and all one wants to do is to grip the monster by its shoulders and shake him till his teeth shatter and shoooooo the sleep away. I hate feeling sleepy in the afternoon if there isn’t any possibility of catching that much coveted afternoon nap. It is a luxury only reserved for Sundays and come to think of it even on Sundays I find myself doing household chores and the rare times I actually manage to take that long long nap I for all intents and purposes wake up all grumpy late evening. So afternoon naps and me are so not made for each other.


So here I was reviewing something unimportant and scanning through a couple of my favourite blogs trying to fight the sleep away. I tried, I tried but damn it the sleep made me feel soooooooo groggy. I kept putting that coffee off thinking I’ll wait until R comes back from site and we can grab a coffee together until I realized noooooo this “ I am gonna fall asleep on my desk and actually be caught napping very very soon ” cannot happen in reality. So I got up with a mission, took my wallet and walked till the GMR cafeteria and ordered a Latte for myself from the Coffee Day Express. I have finally learnt how to appreciate these small mercies now. Yeah I have. :-)

I bought myself a packet of Cream Cracker and helped myself to the Latte and a bite of my favourite biscuit. That first sip and I knew what I had been missing all day. Damn it I had gone the whole day without coffee since I ran out of the house early this morning at some god forsaken hour for some work in Ghaziabad. I happily munched away the biscuits and drank my entire cup of coffee all by myself sooooooo gladly. I don’t think I have ever ever enjoyed a cup of coffee this much ever before in my whole life. Now I know what that eternal optimist who coined the term “take time to smell the coffee” meant. :-) Reallyyy I felt so happy just to be alive and content enough to appreciate this small moment that I bought a packet of Oreos for the boys and the glee on their faces as I gave them the packet and the way they fought over each crumb left me with a smile on my face.

I am a free free bird :-)

And I woke up one day in the morning and it was goneeeee. Like whooooossshhhhhhhhh gone just as I had thought it would. Just as it did each time when I least expected it. Just when I quit trying too hard for it to go and just when I actually, truly, really let it be.

I don't wanna see that face of yours beyond the forehead and that I really don't have an option but to catch a glimpse of every now and then. I don't need to find excuses or whatever reasons I used to look for. Hahahahah! I am a free bird finally.

Date a girl who reads.....

I found this on a website (the link of which refuses to upload) and I really hope all of you book lovers read it especially my BFFs cos all of you are book worms and fantabulous women.

I know maybe it kinda a lil mushy and over the top but tis lauuullyyy nonetheless.


"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Rosemarie

PS:  I have never read a Murakami ever but I have been advised to read Norwegian Wood by Saggy. :D

Dedicated to Shivi whose having a bad dayyyy! This is one for you especially cos tis soooooo you. Muahhhh!