Yes, I realise nobody's reading this because of the biggest bloody life-stopping semi final India-Pak cricket match EVAH but...

...there's two hours to go for the toss, so pipe down.

And now that I am unemployed and not always 'actively seeking employment', I need ways to fill in the hours. So I go to the boyfriend's bakery, poke around, flip through recipe books, try my hand at making sugar roses, learn the difference between a cupcake and a muffin -- rising agent + muffin = cupcake? -- nibble at freshly baked bread, use the baker's Wi-Fi, tidy up my Google reader subscriptions and reach home in time to watch CSI. This is my life. Not THE life, just my life. For now.

I think of organising a yagya to change the flow of my lazy river but I'm too busy taking mediocre pictures of dough to bother winning over the gods of luck. I should reassess my priorities. It is they, the gods, after all, who might, without me having to lift a gluten encrusted thumb, forward my CV to a high net worth individual, my daddy long legs with a nice laugh who will see the potential in me, my fat nose, my wit and excellent writing and put me on a magazine cover for July, and er, subsequent great things.

~

On Saturday, I went with baker boy to put up a cake stall at the day long festival at the Alliance Française (whose awful canteen food I have cursed before). It was supposed to be fun. Just like selling cakes for nearly 2 weeks at St Stephens' College was fun. I didn't write about that when it was the most bloggable thing to do and I sometimes justify my sloth by quoting Robert James Waller in my head -- the chap who wrote Bridges of Madison County -- who said analysis destroys wholes. It's a convenient truth. One which, over the years, I have kept close to my heart and when it suited me, contradicted finely. You should see the hairs I split in my dear diary.

Anyway. Selling cakes at Stephen's in February was -- I want to go with enriching, but terrific time pass better captures the mood of gainfully employed beach bum. Selling cakes at Stephen's in February was terrific time pass. Enthusiastic clientele. Lovely trees. Hungry hounds. They loved us, we loved them. It was.. enriching. Did you know you could buy the affections of 20 year old college boys all by purring, would you like sprinkles on that?

~

But Alliance: Less fun. Too much sun. More mature crowd. (A target audience not made up primarily of college kids has its drawbacks). I was bored. My job was front desk. Strike up conversation, smile, make them feel comfortable, don't push for the blueberry cheesecake if they seem to be want a chocolate fudge muffin -- all rules I devised on the job. (So now, it's fat nose, great wit, excellent writing and above par innovation-meets-adaptation entrepreneurial skills!)


Crowd was scant. We were at a disadvantage on account of our location! location! location! My enticing the crowds wasn't working. I became a slacker. Baker and I started fighting. It was horribly dull.

And then I saw a middle-aged guy in the distance. He had beads around his neck. I in my uncouth best yelled to him, you look like a Hollywood actor! Obviously, he came over. He asked for pani. Then he asked me my name. Then he gave me the meaning of my name! No, he gave me the meaning of the opposite of my name. But still, impressive for a foreigner who one doesn't expect to be fluent in hindustani.

Which actor, he wanted to know. I couldn't get the actor's name. But I didn't want him to think I was picking him up/ chatting shit just to get him to buy a slice of vanilla chocolate strawberry cake on a slow day. He wrote down his email address and said, whenever you think of the actor, do let me know. No one has ever, ever called me an actor before.

I wracked my brains. I googled two movies. Was he one of (so hot in the film!) Matthew McConaughey two friends in Failure to Launch? Ha! My reporter instincts kicked in -- if that's what you can call desperately imdb-ing movies on a whim. But this I needed to know. Sure enough. If you put your mind to something, you win, blah blah. Here was my answer. Bead man looked like this guy. I sent him an email with Hollywood actor in the subject field. His Facebook page says he's the CEO of some telecommunications company and enjoys eastern philosophy, Chopin and Bach -- much like the baker boy, I told him -- and has been living in India 10 years. I thought it was big of him to reply to my email admitting that he did, yes, unfortunately look like said 'Hollywood actor'.

He wants me to take him out to some, wait, let me copy paste the mail..

You are living in Delhi, right? Won't you show me some nice, not very noise, just very nice hangout around? I basically never go out... We can talk about movies (Hollywood, ha-ha), music, fine articles or something like that.

I think it's a damn pity that I'm worried he will chop me up into little bits and throw my body into a Hauz Khas swamp. What a cruel world. He was beginning to look a lot like my high net worth godfather.