Decking the halls with holly!

The first of my good friends has declared she's getting married. The groom will be the elder brother's best friend, and the union will take place in the new year. It's all in the family, and every one's happy. They make a handsome couple.
We slash I at Woodchuck wish the happy couple all ze best. ( muah muah!)
As part of the much-in-advance-shaadi-celebrations, bride-to-be and close associates -- myself humbly included -- graced TGIF on Sunday ( joyous Happy Hours), and went only slightly overboard taking photos of each other "like Japanese tourists". (Some of you lucky buggers on my FB list, will get to see photo evidence of such tipsy dementia in due course; as and when shaadi-lady has time to upload and tag us lowly singletons, that is.)

Add to that, another friend on a plane VERY different from accepted -- and thereby another surprise hitchee (?) -- happily cackled into phone that she's off to Paris in Feb to holiday with the boy. Boy works in big fancy London bank, (much to her parent's approval), so the two of them are most charged up about a three-week long London-Paris-Amsterdam trip.
This friend's boyfriend and soon to be fiance -- whom I didn't know too well -- even rung up to wish me on my birthday last year, and said he was sorry he'd be missing out on the party, and consequently, the biryani. Most touching, I thought. Definite brownie point, and sure shot trait of a keeper, I went on.


Although, what beats shaadis in terms of next week's events: New Years! Yaay! But with pub-covers being what they are on that night, a homely celebration is the order of the 31st night. Homely of course equals potluck, bonfire, cosy crowd, dhinchak music, and khaali terraces waiting to be trashed with paper cups and empty liquor bottles.

[loud grin]

To lots of cheer and good times ahead, Season's greetings y'all!

Departure and revival

I have a ticket confirming my return to Delhi this Saturday. I'm moving back. Home sweet home, Dilli O Dilli, mummy daddy mein aa gayi , doston, galle milo, etc etc.

And so I think it may not be a bad idea to inhale, and really get into retrospection mode here for a bit.

[Claps for the lights to dim, looks down and frowns at the cigarette now lit]

What a short stint, is right. I've been getting the "you're going back?? already?! But you just came!" Yea well.. ; and so I've been shielding myself spouting convincing stuff like, "I can't help it if I packed into fewer months what most put into a year." Riiight, they say slowly. Some, of course, will nod admiringly and admit to my innate superiority, but these, I have to admit, are the minority.

Hang down your head Tom Doo-ooley,

hang down your head and cryy...

Alright, here's the truth: I don't mind Bombay. On days, say six a week, I even like it. Then again, I don't mind Delhi. I prefer the food in Bombay though. I shall miss roadside sandwich places. Apparently the ones without onions (and potatoes/ kandha-batata) are called Jain sandwiches. (Where else are you supposed to scavenge for trivia if not from an indecisive blog?)

Back to the truth, other than being an escapist, I don't have a reason. I'm still going back-- sure, it's just the Whys that are hanging. Do I hate my job? No, only my boss a little. Am I unhappy with where I'm staying? Yes, but then I moved out. Do I not have enough friends here? I don't know about enough, but there are 3-4 pillars that've stuck nicely, and to them I send flying kissies.

Which then leaves me nowhere. Maybe its boyfriend issues. And that I might've stuck on if there was something truly fruitful unwrapping itself here. Tentative statement which could perhaps do with some backspacing, but for -- and even if just -- the decimal-size truth to it. Not that there are options just waiting to be explored back home, but I'm all for change of scene. And that is probably what it boils down to: being easily bored. Not being able to appreciate things for too long, dissatisfaction, and a permanent yawn.

Chances are Delhi won't be too different, either from Bombay or what I've earlier known it to be. Same family-work-gossip-laughter-traffic-tears-friends-sex-food-phone cycle, and days that go by being centred around combinations of these, with an occasional yearning for more.

Waxing woes, and more let downs (officially flagging off PMS)

To my friend Yashodhan, who will get this in his mail since he knows jack shit about reading feeds.

The Navy Ball was ordinary. I looked OK, had an ok time. Yana Gupta and the I-Have-One-Expression:the-Pout-Kim Sharma performed. Yana Gupta SMOLDERED, Kim S was little more than a busty clodhopper in shimmery clothes. The girl made Navy Queen was poised but lacked spunk. Still, pretty etc.

We didn't have escorts. How pathetic, to blame what went wrong on not having half-decent male company. The (she) friend and I danced. But how much can you do even that without preppy boys coming up to you and cheesily asking if you're alone and or for the pleasure of this dance. 'Pleasure of this dance'. Phbt! Turns out people still say that. (Say/ask..)

I'm bored even thinking about it. All that's left to show for the evening is shoe bite.

Got waxed earlier in the day. Which is when I realised my patience is running thinner each passing year, and every visit to the parlour. I find it a hugely tedious activity. I don't mind the pain of yanking and sundry plucking -- one gets immune to those pesky inconveniences, it's just that the whole exercise drives me a little batty, and I keep vowing to myself: no more, never again, blahh blaa. But razing isn't an option ("be a woman feel like a man") and bleach/ hair removal creams smell like offal, leave skin darkened, and are wa-ay too chemical-y.

And so I'm beginning to thank my stars for what I once perceived was brutality on mother's part. Years ago, she hauled a 9 year old me to the loo, brandishing a dull knife. (How the hell was I supposed to know what was in store; little children, me included were less suspicions back then.) And so mommy not too kindly, and just a little impatiently started slathering me ( her hairy lil bear cub) with this steaming golden wax, placed one cloth strip on my skin after another, and, yeowwwl!, strip is yanked, tears have flowed, skin is hair free, all is well.

It's after early efficiency of that brutal sort that I today have ( less hair but ) no patience with slow-poke waxing ladies that are just too bloody careful. I figure I'm ruined me for life. And I can't get pedicures done either. I think it's demeaning to have someone (often older than you) remove filth from your toes. To combat which mental hurdle, I have my own pedicure set, and I quite enjoying cleaning my own feet. I mean, come on, unless invalid, we don't usually get someone to brush our teeth for us, do we.

(end of ((this)) rant)

Dick Whittington and his calamari

I moved out of my flat today. Bag and baggage baby, bag. and. baggage. 17 in total. I had moved into the house with 4. But that was August and my plants have since multiplied.

Trigger for movement, besides the expiring lease, was that my now ex-flatmate is soon to be my new boss.There's comedy in details. Skipping which, I am now out of that house.

I swept the place after having pushed all 17 pieces out of my teeny room. That's a precious trait, I remember thinking..there I was, little conscientious me, knees on the floor, jeans rolled up, and peering under the bed to gather more sundry dirt and loose hair strands. Like rewinding a cassette before returning it to the video library guy in the days of yore and my VCR. (heh, pun)

Stepping back, trust someone in frikkin Lajpat Nagar to shout out to my Assamese friend: "Dekho dekho chhota chink"!
So this chhota chink came calling. To Bombay. And we sat at Marine Drive and had brownies and coffee that was too sweet. The chai (/coffee) walla told us not to throw the cups on the road. Toss them in the ocean instead.


After which we went and got Beer. I like Corona. And that other one in the same brownish bottle. Buzzes faster, saves calories. (I'm entitled to my logic). It came with free monkey nuts, and cheese-lings. Took snaps of spelling errors on the menus. Like in Goa, 'Bloody Marry'. And 'cooked at the right temperament'.


About Goa: we went in a bus. Two days, one night. Ho hum. Save for spotting a hawk, swimming in the Arabian, my impromptu bikini wearing decision and the magic hookah. The bikini was lovely. I'd upload snaps but good-safe girl mentality can be very restricting. Rain check though. So, yep, "magic hookah": mint complementing the magic. Lots of drift, oozy vapour. And someone craved for reggae.

(Is it only me whose texting skills turn bizarrely articulate after herby whiffs..?)

There was also really good mint tea. And a large rawas (fish) whose dead fins we happily poked at. It was subsequently cooked and devoured with a vengeance. The calamari (rubbery squid) sucked. As did the company of colleagues. And I don't even have a tan to balance that out with.




Aside: The linguists and I went to Kinnaur last year and I finally wrote about it for the paper. I'll just put it up on a separate post.