Gaudy inflation hurts greeting card lover

I love greeting cards. I could spend a good thirty minutes browsing card shops to pick out even one single card to buy; birthdays, anniversaries, miss yous, best of lucks, congratulations -- basically just about every non occasion. There was a time I thought I wanted to grow up and be the person who writes the 'wordings' in them (because 'lyrics' -- even back then -- seemed to apply only to songs); and so a somewhat insignificant portion of my childhood was spent dreamily pondering about the possibility of an Archies or a Hallmark paying me big bucks to churn out mushy nonsense from a spacious office with French windows. The length of the mush would of course depend on the size of the card, which in days bygone would vary from Re 8, to 11, and the finest ones could be bought at 16 rupees a card, matching envelope and all.

At age 12 I would envy these two batch mates of mine in boarding school, for every time the soul sisters cum family friends would return from home after the holidays, they would get with them stacks and stacks of the prettiest cards in truly fancy patterns. Home food be damned, I'd wait eagerly to see which girl got what sort of card on her birthday, for it might be a sure sign of how dear the birthday girl was to the card hoarding twosome. And then I'd go mad scratching my scalp red wondering how in Amritsar of all places one could source such gorgeous paper goodies! But that was then. Today it pinches me to buy a card knowing well that the person who is to receive it will spend no more than few sidey seconds looking at it, let alone reading the 'wordings' -- either personally inked or already printed in a Lucida font. And they're not even irresistible anymore. Which is why it now seems sadly practical that the only other options to not buying ordinary and expensive cards involve settling for either the juvenile handmade uglies that are touching nonetheless, or the rather impersonal online ones that end with Play Again.

Delhi, mine and meandering

I can recall being asked if and why I liked Delhi. However much or little I like this place is probably for a variety of personal and insignificant reasons that just mount up to a weakness.
There's Mother Dairy here. I like that, and I'm amused by the difference in logos to tell apart one kind of Mother Dairy from the other: big blue drop and big green drop; blue for milk, and its products, and green -- ingeniously enough -- for veggies.
Simply brilliant, I think to myself while looking out of rattly windows of killer buses -- the Can't Be Helped parts of Delhi.
Mental checklist of buses and routes though, that deserve credit for sorting out my sense of direction-
The U specials: DTCs that covered any or all parts of Vasant Kunj, Purvanchal, Mehrauli and a now defunct Vinay Marg Special.
The God-awful Mudrikas -- plus and minus -- both, for either directions of the ring roads, causing much confusion in the first three days of college, that which was all the up way up in North Campus.
Bus routes numbered 621: ISBT connects South Delhi
764: Vasant Vihar to GK side,
100: CP-Campus madness.
And of course, my much preferred, routes 604, and 620 -- mostly for my love of all things in Connaught Place, even in the pre-metro era.

I like that when the weather is gorgeous like it has been recently, Delhi transforms. There are suddenly better songs on FM.
Maybe it's just rain induced optimism, or the spirit that comes with the benefit of youth, but where else are there these many university campuses, one being a second-home for nearing five years, and another that has as many rocks as there are possibilities for romance.

Delhi is memories of school-days coming to an end, and with it the trees around the Dhaula Kuan flyover. Off went the seasonal pink blooms.

Board exams gave way to summer heat and the unparalleled smell of cooler khus.
College. And with it, the advent of walky-talky like cell phones, and smooth-talking boys. Night conversations that carried on for hours, till first light, to when the cooler needed a refill.

Monsoons implied the inclusion and acceptability of floaters in dress codes. Newspapers would be steam-ironed on damp mornings to soak some of the moisture away.

The rains brought with them bhutta crackles. Toothpicks were employed to rid the residual bits stuck in contrasting teeth.

Car windscreens fogged up easily. The patter on roofs echoed louder and some nights the heat inside would be keen like the chowkidar's slumber.

Tuition classes were full of uproarious antics. The bonds made back then endure still. German classes in following summers remain assocated with bitter-smelling yellow fruit lying squashed underneath it's parent Neem.

Nelson Mandela road drives..breaking journey at the outdoor Cafe Coffee Day where the marble chips have become mucky. Shortcuts taken, via the The Grand that is no more with The Hyatt.

Gymkhana lunches, Sundays, and dust storms; swimming and jholas; kajal, literature and backpacks: all still a part of the factory look of 19-year olds. Jejune hip hop lyrics in carpools, and we as Fabindia's adopted children.

The days of overrated build-ups to concerts, Big Chill vices, and the liberties that being finally allowed to drive a car afforded. Parking lot attendants wearing sleeveless orange MCD jackets, presumptuously awaiting chai-paani fare even when it is free parking.

Khan Market, where people smell good when they past. Fresh memories of being adventurous in trying unfamiliar kathi rolls at 5 bucks a roll cheaper than the normal guy. Then being squirted with desi sauces as we learn our lesson to stick to the norm.
The associations and routines evolved; school to college, and from there to work. Steady progressions with undeniable constants of place. Memories stacked up, and continue to. Hopefully there is no loosing out, just pushing back; like those once new-age funky pencils with plastic nib holders and sharp leads that came forward on a rotation basis.

Childhood existed elsewhere, in beautiful places with simpler memories. But Delhi lent itself to impress and cement personalities. And just maybe, the place that hosted me from mid-teenage to early adulthood is a slightly harder habit to kick.

Woman, Gene pool, & Animal Farm

Maybe I should start worrying. Maybe I really should. It's the done thing; afterall my life's headed God 'lone knows where and I'm just sitting pretty letting the brazen tide ride me. All because to laze is to be so conveniently resigned to what they say is preordained. (fingers crossed) Look at Garfield; lasagne's just flying at him out of nowhere. No connection, just inspiration, and envy. I can't bring myself to fret too much, which is probably a good thing, from a blood pressure point of view. I mean it better be a huge deal if I'm going to shrug off complacence, and start getting myself worked up about any teensy weensy problem that comes ambling in through the cat flap. Especially when they harp on life being choked with hiccups, and spread over speed breakers like nobody's business. Why then, I ask, shall I allow myself to get tired coping with life, and have bags under my eyes this early on in my youth, why, why why? Which is of course not to say I have the hide of a useless hippo, like we were talking about the other evening while eating cold, canteen dal chawal in the dusty outdoors. Hippos are cute though; always wanted a hippo soap dish. Sigh. To return to whatever it was that took up mind space before my hippo digression, this non worrying numb state of affairs is very obviously my father's gene. What a man -- an insufficient ode -- but what a man!; even as it is a borrowed phrase from an ape boyfriend who doubts his intelligence. [Possessive, defensive, all serious, and outright indignation!] But then my gaadi ka bumper fell off at IIT -- smack in the middle of busy traffic intersection -- and daddy's li'l girl cried, and ape swung to the rescue, so all is forgiven. And that is that. Those are the margins that have to be made; we women have these phases, often once a month for days at a stretch; rabid mood swings, PMS, frustration, waking up at unearthly hours with a want to chop eight inches off my gorgeous hair and do exactly that the next day (it's looking good), then feel lighter, but go back to being frustrated -- all this shrill yet good hearted flibbertigibbet-ness is the mother's gene, and in all fairness and quite unequivocally so: what a woman. Never a dull moment. (Yet another insufficient ode by a lazy ass, cum deluded hippo.) On top of which my stomach muscles have decided to become pouches. Kangaroos, I don't think have these petty worries. To be a lazy marsupial and have nothing to for the whole day but bounce; the apt background score for their bouncing would be the fancy Motorola's camera click -- boiiinnggg, and it reverberates like Mr Saucepan man if he ever fell on his wares.