Of Mondays!

Ahh a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l Monday! :) (and no I am not drunk right now!! there is not even a drop of alcohol in me and hasn't been for the past 36 hours now... so no I am not even hungover!!)

Ok so it was a slow start with me turning off the alarm for the n'th time and then suddenly realizing that 'Oh Shit! My maid is on chutti!!' (that directly means I am suppossed to listen to my alarm and not wait for the doorbell! ;) ) It was 10:05 and I had a meeting at 11!! And I somehow insisted on having a bath and on breakfast as well! The feat was managed in 25 minutes flat and as I ran down the stairs it struck me "I had a flat tyre last night! I need to get the hawa checked!!!" Lo n behold this is the day that there's line for Hawa and not Petrol! Call up boss, "I had a flat tyre (conveniently skip the last night part)... I will be half hour late!" :D

Languidly walk into office to discover that 5 people have been waiting on you for a meeting to start! Now doesn't that feel 'important'! :D (yeah yeah.. Cheap thrills!) 1 meeting.. 2 meeting.. (stop wondering where's the good part!) and then I rush out of office to enjoy a nice subway and get the tyre done at the Ceat Shoppe closeby. (Yup.. paranoid about driving without a stepney!) Now to cut a long story short, I need to buy a new tyre! But what the heck.. here's the long story as well... ;) When the 'new' car was coming from Baroda to namma Bengaluru then dad had had a flat tyre which was quite bad and so it already had a patch in it. This tyre was designated to be used as a stepney. However when I had a tyre wobbling problem (a few months ago!!) the stupid maruti guy changed tyres without telling me. And so I had been driving on the patch wala tyre. Hence now the need for a new tyre. Added to that is the fact that its a JK tyre and the dealer is only on JC road!! (I take heart that since I will finally be there I'll get my car stickers done as well!)

And I still insist that it's a beautiful bright sunshiny Monday and I am NOT under the influence of alcohol!! Go ahead... read on!

In conversation with a friend sometime later in the evening...

mightyrudh: and you know on the best part of the trip! i was riding with jeet (yup... the darkling of my life! Amd yup MightyRudh is male!)

I copy paste this piece to Granpa who is also on GTalk..

Granpa (out of his sheer love and possessiveness for the man in my life!): kaun hai yeh dusht??

Ani: ~ question: does he use a female deo which has in it the pheromones to attract men?!!

Granpa: err.... hmm... aah...

Ani: :P

Granpa: in the larger interest of people involved in this complex situation, i choose not to react!

(ok disclaimer... the man in my life is not gay! it's just that he attracts a lot of men!! In a way... so long as its just men and guitars! ;) )

Meanwhile my roomie's status is reading: "Life is Beautiful" complete with a smiley!! So obviously my questions are:

1. Did you get another job?

2. Are you getting married? 

3. Did you hack a rich guy's bank account!! :D

In another window I have Mr. You. Know. Who getting romantic and I am rapidly blinking and staring at the screen when he finally types, "Motee fainted!" and I breathe a sigh of relief!!! (go ahead! blame me!) :P

Ahh well! Cut to a scene where I have managed to leave office before midnight and run off to bhai's place! Talk about being pampered it was like being spoilt to the core! Garma garam dosa's with special dosa chutney (compliments to Fazzy Bhaiya!!!)... crowning glory is a special egg dosa... accompaniments of aam ka murabba and mirchi ka achaar!!! (Ab koi thaka hara office se aaye aur garma garam ghar ka khana special parosa hua diya jaaye... to ye jannat se kam thode hi hai!) :)))) Idle banter and games on a newly acquired XBOX! Thodi der baad it was striking 12 and cinderella thought it was time to be home! Now it's a ritual that Bhai walks me to my safe haven and then I drive off! Is baar gaadi tak pahunchte pahunchte... 

Ani: 'Pastry khaane chale?'

Bhai: 'kahan?? Leela's leke jayegi tu to!'

(don't look at me like I fell on this earth with a load of ancestral money to squander! The Leela's happens to have a nice li'l Barrista in it! ;) )

Ani: 'abhi to vohi khula hoga!'

Bhai: mmm.... hmmm....

Ani (on the phone with Fazzy Bhaiya by then): 'jaldi se aa jao.. ekdum abhi aao... ghar band karo aur aao'

Bhai: 'arrey kya kar rahi hai?? mera chashma toota hai.. maine topi bhi nahi pehni hai.. Leela's jaana hai! main aata hun!' (ahem! ahem!)

(by such time Fazzy bhaiya in a state of complete panic has arrived by the car in his lungi and is graciously told... chalo baitho.. Leela's chale!)

Ani: ~mischevious grin!

Fazzy bhaiya: 'arrey bas do minute lagenge kapde badalne me.. bas do min!'

The 2 men go off.. take 10 minutes instead of 2 and the transformation is evident! From lungi to mast shirt n torusers... from toota chasma to skull cap and casual sandals! Tashan!!

Ahh well! It's a night full of chocolate with choc excess, dark temptation and wicked brownies!!! Lots of conversation... some guitar strumming... and a nice drive back home with Bhai and then Fazzy bhai in the drivers seat trying to figure out a way to connect to my li'l Jonga's engine! :)

Now tell me.. isn't that a beautiful Monday!! :)))

(Its an ethereal experience to have a great Monday... I needed to narrate this in the first person! :D )

foodie weekend!

she sleeps of too sunny side up eggs with butter toast and beer... wakes up to milk and strawberries... fixes a meal of lobiya and bhindi and fulke... takes the day through on cups of mint coffee.. and dozes of to bites of a roast almond chocolate! Morning finds her having a bath to end up at a lunch with buddies... a Mexican chicken burger, a milano pizza and a couple of pitchers of beer... evening finds her biting into the sheer joy of couple of raw red carrots as she makes corn bake for dinner! and now... a dash of whiskey over a glass of kokam to put her to sleep to face a very full Monday!

~have a great week ahead! and don't beat her up when she says 'stay hungry.. stay foolish!' ;)

wish her luck!

ok people.. she's on her way home and she needs all the luck you all can summon for her! :) she's also inevitably looking forward to the gajar ka halwa and the various other MommyMade delicacies! :D

she will try to keep you 'posted'! ;)

the safai and the homecoming!

Her Christmas started with a major "spring" cleaning operation in the middle of winter! The chaos around her was wanting to settle... she was wanting to bring in 'good karma'! And so she set about to do a major overhaul of her room! As Pinchester rightly put it "each time I come something drastic has happened here!!" :D

Her nooks and corners were cleaned off and it was a 'song sung blue' with a lot of the covers matching the flooring! (yes my home tweet om has blue flooring to resemble the ripples in a very blue pond!) Net Net.. she likes it all over again! The lots of tiny lamps all around make her find her peace...! :) She even hung a miniature wooden turtle coz she believes it brings good luck! Another friend (Mish) went on to say "ur room is like magic.. everywhere u sit there's sumthing to pick up and explore!" 

~ she took a bow!

The marathon cleaning up had left her and Mish tired and hungry! That's when Granpa decides to turn up and we go eat a nice, satifying continental meal.. It was the types that leaves you nice n warm n sleepy! :) Needless to say.. she slept like a log!

The day after that found her lazing around "working from home"! (ahem! ahem! and revelling in her new found karmic goodness) ;) And then she scooted with Mish in the evening to gallavant and enjoy sum coffee!! The two of them have come to the conclusion that "boy! can they eat.. or CAN THEY EAT!" :D a 1200 bucks bill at a barrista is sumthing!

Now the saturday had promised to be tough! So she decided to sleep through most of it waking up only at 4 in the evening! A couple of missed calls.. one of which was "her sister's boss's sister!" ~ sheesh! and she was invited for Dinner! Now for obvious reasons she couldn't say no and ended up drawing upon "ALL" of her social skills by buying flowers and spending 3 hours smiling and laughing politely at a conversation that shes terror-ible at having!!! (~phew!)

She made a couple of urgent phone calls to vent it all out and gain back her sanity and ran off to Mish's place! After a long rant about the evening and venting venting venting they drove off to the airport! Sadda Vadda Praa was coming back from Videsh! And he was so not expecting us to be at the airport at 1:30 in the night!! :D A beautiful drive and a cup of coffee later, the flight had landed and we were on our checkposts eyeing the door and every every every person coming out of it! Any cute firang was duly admired and gawked at but then we realized we needed to focus! :D To not take any risks one of us posted at the cab counters and the other eyeing the exit like a hawk! Intermittent calls "any luck?" "not yet" "ok bye"! :D And finally.. after 1 hour 15 mins of the flight having landed walks out Bhaaaaaaaiiiiiiieeeee with his hair curled as ever and the distinctive goofy smile on his face! Shell shocked to see us! Eventually the surprise registered as he walked out! :D

Tanking up on gas for the drive: 200 bucks!

The coffee while waiting: 150 bucks!

The look on Bhai's face when he saw us: Priceless!!! 

:D :D :D

The night was spent chattering away and seeing photos and getting to know New York in so much detail that both Mish n me can walk down the streets and know exactly where we are in New York now! We probably even know what gullies to take to reach where!!! (FYI: The Chrysler building has white bulbs and the Empire State glows red and yellow!) :D 

7 AM found the great Mish standing over our heads demanding to be dropped home since her maid was due to come! Ideal moment to catch some sleep! :) ~ she would wish! She was pleasantly surprised at 11 AM when Pinchester dropped by with sum beautifully wrapped truly yum plum cake! And then she decides to break on her the fact that "She's started cooking!!!!" (Now this is one babe who would not step into the kitchen to save her life even!!!) Thereon as hunger struck we got parathas packed, picked up some beer and gudangaram's (the vadda praa's first words during the welcome jhappi were "yayyy! I'm back in India jahan Gudangaram milti hai!") and headed to you guessed it.. Bhai's place! Bas fir kya tha.. full on matargashti! Thoda bahut sentiapaa also with Bhai going "chaahe jo bhi ho.. jitni bhi achchi scenery ho.. kitna bhi sundar ho.. vahan koi apna nahi tha... who do you share all of it with?" Biiiiig round of biiiiiiiiiiiiig super jumbo hugs! And he starts to sing "mere desh ki hawa! kahin kuch jale kahin kuch sade.. hai mere desh ki hawa!" :D

The evening found us cleaning Mish's Pad and saw a very tired bhai snoring away happily! He was slowly woken up as a feast of ande ki bhurji, dal makhani and phulka's arrived and was made to eat! Some playful banter later as they bade gnite they decided to eagerly wait for his one bag that had been left behind by the airlines in Frankfurt! (~that's the one with the chocolates in it!) :D

At 8 AM sharp an excited bhai calls... "Oyee!!! Mera bag aa gaya!!!" A very sleepy me goes "hunnnnnn... hum aa jayenge shaam ko office se!" :D And lo and behold as promised we are there.. gorging on the chocs, getting some new music and movies, seeing more photographs and eating Chinese!! 

:) Welcome Home Bhai! I missed you!

the transformation!

The workaholic is sitting in office and listening to songs as she types this post! :)

After months she's wearing a salwar kameez with dupatta full punju ishtyle and everyone stopped work to look up once and comment.. "what's with you?!" :) Her bachchas (aka testing team) decided they all want photos clicked with her in this "naya roop!" :D A brief conversation with boss also ends on the note "aaj vaise tumhe kya hua?" ;)

We crossed a major milestone yesterday and the mood is light and celeblatory! she plans to go out with friends for dinner on a weekday so it doesn't get better than this! It has been loooong!

And her 1 year old tiny lil prince of a bhanja has fallen in love with the Miss India World and decides to express it by letting go of his chocolate and picking up the femina cover with her pic on it and showering her with his lil baby kisses!!! 

:D ~take the time out to be with yourself this long weekend and have a merry christmas!

chhoti si zindagi!

Tumultuous! and that's the only way to describe the way things have been! her life has pretty much been work driven as as you know who has gone on to say "apni life main testing ke alava kuch chhoda hai?" to which a very sheepish answer was "i need something to do now that you aren't here!" ;)

The kukkad makkhanwala (aka butter chicken) she made for her new found 'bachchas' was a superhit! Ok.. before you wonder more.. my bachchas are my testing team who work the way I do to achieve something we know is unachievable! But then.. "If at first you don't succeed call it version 1.0"! :D

Ok.. so she's had friends at her throat o give up work! she's listening.. she's taking a semi-break in jan! Mom's looking forward to her going home so much so that even before she could get up in the morning (or evening given her sleep cycle) dad had gone and booked them and sent her an email with the details! It's been quite sometime since she was back at "home". Things must have changed she's sure... 

Dada aka Barman aka the guy who she insists is wasted and so should get married is in town and so is the crush of her life! It was idle banter and lots of laughter as a bunch of 8 people (one of which was a Sardar and the other a Sardarni) decided "zindagi bahut chhoti si hoti hai"! And that resulted in them gobbling up 2 chicken platters first and then eventually 35 parathas! 

So the scene at the Delhi Dhaba went like this:

"ji paintees (35) paranthe.. 15 aaloo, 10 gobi, 10 mooli"

stares her down and then "makkhan ya dahi?"

"ji dono"

another stare.. "kaake pack kar jaldi..!" one more stare.. "paintee paranthe!"

(take a guess at who the Sardarni was..! and as the Barman put it.. 'an evening with Sardar and Sardarni!') ;)

Meanwhile a kitten has decided to jump up into the car through the window and in between shouts and screams the li'l thing for its surprised life is shooed out! (and she wonders.. how such things happen to her! whoever heard of a cat climbing into a car through an open window!)

and now she sits waiting for the sun to stream in through her windows so that she can get some sleep! (yep... jilted body cycle! or is it the parathas??! 3 hajmolas down!) :D 

this and that.. here and there!

Ok.. so while the parties have been battling it out at the elections and celebrating their "victories" while completely ignoring their combined failure very recently, an Indian court has asked for Google Earth to be banned! Apparently this was a tool in the hands of the terrorists that enabled the planning for 26/11 and so it should be "banned". How convenient! (to ban the tool and not the abusers of that tool!!) Perfect I say. At the same time ISRO is looking to create a "Google Earth Like" tool. 

So while we keep our blinders on and continue to not learn, Pakistan also treats India like a piece of shit and says no to handing us our most wanted. The siege in Mumbai lasted a few days... the siege of the nation shows no easy end!

On a lighter note.. I have to be in office at 10 AM tomorrow! Now I did that once last week and I spent the day in a sleepy trance accomplisihing no work whatsoever. On any normal day I open my eyes to the morning sun not before 1030! And to reach office at 10 means....! oh well! The weekend was fun where we travelled 400kms (round trip) just to have some biryani! I'm cooking butter chicken tomorrow morning for my testing team (and making it to office at 10 am! please pray for a miracle!) and I need to buy a birthday present tomorrow! I have a room whose dirt and chaos is slowly wrecking havoc inside me and I pretty much know what the coming weekend is like! ;) I'm dying to make me some spaghetti bolognaise and some mushroom and sausage pasta and am also waiting for January to happen! I also met the cutest dog yesterday who decided to guard my car all night for me!

The someone special in my life has been giving me several moments to hold close and he made me watch "office space"! A must watch for every traffic jam plagued cubicle dweller and I think I'm happy being motee hereby giving up all (whatever lil existed anyways!) attempts to lose weight!

~ Celebrate the weekday! Have some vanilla twist with coke! Cheers!

but it rained...

She tried... she tried to detach herself yet in vain. The last straw was when she read this:

Indian agencies knew that the attack would come from the sea, and by mid-November they knew that the Taj hotel would be targeted. And yet the attacks still happened. A blow-by-blow account of how the plan to attack Mumbai by sea was hatched and executed.

The Article is here: Mumbai Attacks Piecing together the story.

It's an impotent political system "leading" us! Leading us to a future of constant fear, of insecurity! The Mumbai blasts have laid bare wantonness of the skeleton we call the "leadership of the nation". And they have the audacity to belittle the attack! A world looks on in with mixed feelings of pity and mockery as the affected pick up strands and move on with their lives. 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had said: "The children of a nation are a trust of the nation. What the future will be depends on how we discharge our trust". The only trust being discharged here is that of laxity, corruption and a weak-shaking-at-the-knees-save-your-backside-stance.

Lives have been lost.. the tears haven't stopped.. and "they" manage to smile and move on..

(have the lessons been learnt??)

Leaving you with this:

Wrapped in a polythene tucked away safe in my mind

A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile

The birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home

A bunch of paper flowers or a little boy left all alone

Can somebody hear me I'm screaming from so far away

Morning who will calm you now, the evening is eclipsed again

Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .

They justified the cause for which Daddy might give up his life

It's been so long, so long a time, still I miss Daddy at night

The ache is long gone but the never keeps staring along

The waters in the seas are high

and all the sand castles have drowned

Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .

sometimes..

"Not all who wander are lost!"

Been wandering... inside my head and outside my soul too! The hiatus is thus explained. Adding to it has been a stress injury to the right arm so been taking it easy as well!

kehte hain kabhi kabhi lafz nahi milte aur bas aankhen hi sab kuch bayaan kar deti hain... samajhiye ki is nacheez ke saath kuch aisa hi hua... the so called "work-life" balance had become extremely skewed (goes without saying in which direction) and a search for 'peace' is what she had embarked on. Well... lets just say when the people who matter most are there to support you, daanto you, pamper you and get you to figure your priorities... it's not a difficult battle at all. It's just that it's with yourself and your convoluted head has to learn to let go...!

Add to that sprinklings of mini getaways, thele wala chinese, kadak adrak wali chai and a bewda bar and it's all the more easier! ;)

aur fir in aankhon ki badmaashi aur muskurahat kab tak kho sakti hai?!

welcoming me back!! :)

venting

warning: true and complete ramble ahead!

she was wondering at the crimes against secularism... at how we wait for things to reach that last dangling bit and then take action... at how we call ourselves a free country when people are not free to follow their own religion... when Maharastra is only for the 'marathi manush'... when Kashmir which is the 'crown of India' (??) is in a state of unrest... when we publish 2 reports against the same man and vindicate him of a heinous crime... and of how we are not willing to give equal status to the men who don't bat an eyelid when it comes to their country... (the 6th pay commission)! how we are willing to hamper progress (the nano project)... and through this all, all that's important is the nuclear deal? important enough that the media writes about the different pens that will be used at the 'signing ceremony' ?? 

we write and we forget! i guess i will too.. i have just vented.. how long do you think this will irritate me?

~ and then it rained... she drove a while into the wild rain as various thoughts (some like those above.. some of more selfish origins) circled and settled... her inner whirlpool is eventually slowing down... it's a slow process.. she begins to look within and without... she quietens down.. slows her pace... takes a deep breath and wonders... wonders how even she reached the brink and had to let something called 'tendinitis' happen to her to slow down...

why? why don't we find an equilibrium that won't oscillate so near to the tipping point? 

(why can;t she play the drums again?) And why have why's always been so futile?!

she figures she needs some more rain... she figures the silence needs to hold her as its own now...