Looking London, talking glass

“Sorry Sir, your breakfast will take some time. There is a problem with the chef’s waffle machine.”

“No, no... The house won’t smell of fish if you first rub the fish with besan.”

“That bastard Trinamool Congress fucker is always chewing gum...”

“Phhrbht, forget the story, tell, what’s a good roast chicken recipe?”

“Haha, you have to see what it says: squid proxy server is refusing connections; haha!”

“You can’t walk around there flashing bras to mozzie fuckers...”

“Let her sleep it off for twenty minutes. She’ll be fine.”

“Drivers start looking like their owners; remember that dog forward?”

“Tell them you’re not a bitch, you just act like one.”

It's always the arbitrary lines that stick!

~

I have a new phone. Never mind the blackberry from a contest I didn’t win. (Look what Scott Adams of Dilbert fame says, by the way). But this one’s from me, to me -- for the birthday, light, android and cheap. I feel like a girl who’s moved on too quickly. It’s that much cuter than my old favourite. Do you have know the feeling? If you say yes, we can ahead and forge our platonic version of a one night stand. But let’s just talk sense and tell you what happened on the birthday.

The other stuff is a halfway irrelevant. There was beer. But that was earlier. And if I told you how much, I would be lying because I can’t remember. There was rain too. But that wasn’t on the list. Nor did the weatherman predict beer. Slowly, slowly, glug, glug, those boxes were checked. You know what was in those boxes? Ha – beer.

~

My boyfriend – he’s still around. I haven’t said “ex” and meant him in a week now. He sang me a song. Sat opposite me, strummed the guitar, didn’t quite look me in the eye, but he sang me a song -- Bird on a Wire. He has the voice to do a Cohen. And me, uncultured me, I fidgeted. And I took calls. Because, you know, people call -- to wish the birthday girl. It was my birthday, remember? This was ten days ago. I should be more specific. And maybe learn some manners. Inculcate the decency to be embarrassed or something.

~

Till that happens, I’m going to be a disinterested school teacher and skim through some stuff. After chapters five, six and eight, children, there was cake.

Who wants to read aloud? Yes, ok, you’ll do, stand.

Flip, flip

Clear throat

“... There was cake. And cake smearing. On birthdays in this hick town, Holi is enacted. The colour is cocoa and it’s a muddy free-for-all. The trump card lies with the most barbaric. It’s a given. Haha, gotcha! Smear the swines! Cake, cake everywhere not civilised wedge in sight.”

Thank you, sit.

~

The barbaric trump card was my brother’s this year. He likes to deal. He also likes to swing passed-out birthday girl-sister on his shoulder and pick fights with her still-not-quite-ex boyfriend.

“Dumped him or what, hain”?

He’s a child. A crude bugger who will laugh at your tears if to him the shape and reasons are ridiculous. I love him. He makes me laugh and shake my head. Golden rustics do that. You can’t help but be amused at the foolishness of a madcap. It’s his victory. Knowing as much, right now, to him, I am behaving like a slightly raw, toned down version of a spewing door slam. Simply because he picked a fight with a boy not mad, not even close, not ever as moronic -- just the one his sister had not “dumped or what” yet.

Or he, her.

~

It was a bit humiliating, I guess, this being only semi-passed out while my brother and my boyfriend -- both tall egotists -- calling each other bro and dude and shoving and saying you chill and don’t make me and she’s my girlfriend and, er, she’s my sister. Nasty juvenile pieces of shit, both – well, me included. Apologise and settled-downs happened but I’m curious about the next time they meet. I know at least one dramatic bro who might say, IF, IF, if we meet. Or maybe I should imagine less.

~

On the bright side, and to change topic because too much drama makes boredom look like Ethan Hawke in a suit, I got presents!

Shameful as this will sound to you, the best was the tweezer. My tweezer got repaired. I sent it with my very dear friend, not at all hopeful that it’ll return to me, all fixed. But it got done, in Pondicherry where he was holidaying, where Tweezerman has a manufacturing unit of which Obama wouldn’t approve.

They’re hugely secretive. Sharpening blunt tweezers for visitors from out of town is possibly not how they like to spend their afternoons. Still, the work got done. The sharpness is back. The tweezer, that beautiful piece of engineering is back to catching stray eyebrow blackness just like it was designed to. I was a very happy girl the afternoon before my birthday. Thank you, secretive do-gooder people in Pondi. And you, my love -- I’m not naming you because I need to stop doing that, or linking your blog for you haven’t written in a year and it wouldn’t be fair to clickers -- but for being so remarkable and enterprising in getting them to pick it up from your hotel – muah! I slobber over thee.

~

Did I get anything more conventional and gift wrapped? Yes, of course – book, from friend/colleague – Murakami edited Birthday stories, another book from another friend/colleague – Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed, earrings from another friend/colleague– three, dangly; parrot green jumpsuit with most lovely blue and jute-feel belt with wooden clasp and a bunch of lavender cosmetics – all from the only roast-chicken-making friend/colleague, from my supposed mother in law -- a whole bunch of aromatherapy soaps and a set of floral-printed pouches: card holders change wallet, a case for my shades, cosmetic holders, that sort of thing, and a sweet little bundle of money from the folksies at home.

Serves me right for not having a party of my own – the score for non-friend colleague presents is abysmal. Still, I haven’t met a handful since. There’s hope yet. And from the singer of Cohen numbers, the unsaid promise of a delayed gift. My guess is an e-book reader. But we’ll scroll down that bridge once it presents itself.

~

Of those sentences on top, those carefully-indented word snippets, italicised and nonsensical, don't bother about them. They’re like those small white pieces of paper, the ones that the bald guy in The Crystal Maze, Richard O' Brien, would look up at when he asked for some behind-the-scenes force if they could start the fans, please.

P.S: Ethan Hawke is, sort of, up my alley. And maybe not of loser, but he is the complete opposite of boredom. Give him that, at least.