I know it's raining more than it has in the last 100 years out there.

I know most people are spending the nights wherever they are, be in at work, in their car or even, in my all time pet hate — crowded, squalid Dadar station.

I know it isn't much fun to have to walk through knee-deep or waist-deep water, which isn't exactly of five star swimming pool quality.

So will you consider me a complete nut if I say, despite all these, despite the fact that I will never get a decent-sized three bedroom apartment with lovely city view for the price I pay here in that submerged suburbia, I would still jump and pack my bags and take the first flight out, if only I got a chance to move to Bombay?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not cribbing. This is wishful thinking part II.

I did not like Delhi. Warmed up to bits of it by the time I left. I miss Khan Market. Ok not the whole of it. Only Cafe Turtle and Empire Stores. And now that I'm not working, it would have been fun to have gone pottering around Dilli Haat and Priya (Ok. Fact & Fiction) and when I felt obscenely rich, at least in my imagination, even Santushti and Hauz Khas Village. Though given the heat I doubt I'd have stepped out of home voluntarily. And would've been working had I been in Delhi I guess.

Sorry. Diversion happened there. So Delhi, by the end of my five year stay, was grudgingly passable. I quite like Bangalore. It's green, people take care of trees and the weather makes me smile and it has some nice places to hang around.

It's just that I like Bombay much, much better.

Wishful Thinking

After partying nonstop for for six days and five nights, I am dropping dead. Literally. The house looked terribly empty this morning without our mad friends and the ensuing chaos...

...And it struck me hard that after a point, you continue making good friends. The kind you can comfortably party with on weekends and go on treks and drives. But none that can read your pulse as well as the old ones can.

So for once, after a long, long time, I wished, really wished that I was back in Bombay. The city where I made at least half a dozen friends-for-life.

Inside Hogwarts

Had booked an advanced copy at Crossword but was able to sit down with Harry only late last night as we had guests over the entire weekend. One of them even looked at the book with a slightly amused eye. Humph! Dear guest, go join AS Byatt. I'm glad to be a childish adult.*

Was at page 358 before I looked at the unearthly hour on the bedside clock and decided it wasn't worth reading with really droopy eyelids. Not to mention the head.

But the joys of not working can be wonderful! Shall dedicate rest of the day to Potter after checking mail (and blogging and reading about other Potter maniacs and wondering if Kahini is doing this too. We were both quite excited during the last book).

The weather is lovely and inviting enough to drag the bean bag into the balcony (not to mention a mug of hot chocolate) and race through the adventure which I think has a somewhat insipid start and an overall feeling of sadness despite the raging hormones. But makes a great read nevertheless.

Go back to work then, all you lovely people.

Ciao!

* Thank you for the link Parmanu. I don't agree with her views but they are interesting.

Arranged Adventures

My little cousin (he isn’t reading this, so I can call him that) is getting married sometime soon. At least he plans to. He’s barely 25. Has a great and well paying job and thinks it’s time he got hitched and settled down.

If this were a Suraj Barjatya movie, his parents would’ve been ecstatic and a Bhagyashree type bahu who loves peeling carrots in the kitchen would’ve made her entrance already but my cousin has to deal with a formidable mom. And a somewhat baffled dad.

Maami (maternal aunt) and mama (maternal uncle) met in school when they were 16. He fell for her. She being a good girl from a good Bong family kept her feelings to herself. Until she was barely 20 and her parents decided to get her married off to some rich Bong businessman, who according to maami, looked like a toad and smelt worse.

Maami rebelled and helped by her brother went off to study in a college and live in a hostel somewhat far from home. Sometime later, she came home during the Durga Puja holidays and in true Bong romantic fashion bumped into mama in a Puja pandal (the place where the idol of Goddess Durga is kept. Scene of much merry and matchmaking).

The rest as they say is history. They married four years later, both of them working to save up for the future as parental support wasn’t exactly forthcoming. I have no idea why the parents on either side were opposed to the match since from the time I’ve seen them, they seemed to be on very cordial terms, but the cousin grapevine puts it down to ego clashes.

To get back to our young man, this is where the problem comes in. His parents cannot understand why, at an age when he should be going and checking out the world (and girls) and has all the liberty to do so, should he want his parents to open the matrimonial section of Sunday TOI and Anandbazaar Patrika and check out a girl for him.

And what they or my parents (who didn’t face parental opposition but did not need their help to find each other) cannot understand is: An arranged marriage? When we have given the boy all the liberty to choose whoever he likes, caste, creed, colour, language not a hindrance (as long as it’s a girl, they aren’t that liberal yet) and whenever. No deadlines here, please.

The boy, who was in Bangalore for a day on work and dutifully met me, thinks arranged marriages are wonderful. Here’s his logic: I’m working. I don’t have the time to meet a girl and even if I do, I don’t know if I’ll be able to put in much time in getting to really know her, her background, etc. If it’s an arranged marriage my parents can do all that (Like date the girl and find out which books she likes, I suppose?) and once all these background issues are smoothened out, life is much easier.

Me and P sat silently, looking at each other throughout this self-assured dialogue delivery. Later P told me that some younger kids at his workplace thought the same way my cousin did. And I remembered a conversation with a friend long ago about how it’s mostly our generation (The 30 plus ones) who like taking risks, like waiting till the right one saunters along or deciding they don't need marriage to 'settle' altogether.
Is adventure no longer for the young?

Inky has sent me a book meme. Since I'm always confused when it comes to selecting favourite books etc, have been putting it off for a while but you never know about bad luck (or bad lux, as kid in my school would say). So here goes. Please skip if bored.

Number of Books owned:
Between 350-400? Haven't counted. Occupies one whole cupboard at the moment.

Books I recently brought:
Snobs: Julian Fellows. Same person who wrote Gosford Park, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Haven't started reading yet.

Black Friday: S Hussain Zaidi. Since P grabbed it before me, I started it last Thursday. Then switched on the television and heard about the London blasts. Eerie...

Skin: Margaret Mascarenhas. Bought it finally and re-read. I love this book. The incidents and characters are like peeling the layers of an onion.

Last book I read:
Well...finished Black Friday last night. So has to be that one.

One book that I couldn't finish:
Ha ha. The White Mughals by William Dalrymple. I did read the first, second, third, fourth, zzzz..., fifth, zzzz...and the last chapters and many of the pages in between but frankly, after a point I gave up. It was too heavy for bedtime reading anyway...

Five books I cherish:
This is a difficult one. There are so many of them. So just putting down the ones that randomly come to my mind.

Neither Here Nor There: Bill Bryson. Anytime I need a laugh.

84 Charing Cross Road: Helen Hanff. The one I have also has The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Hanff's London travelogue. I LOVE this book.

Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe: Fannie Flagg. There's something about this one. It's a look into a different kind of life altogether.

Bridget Jones' Diary: Helen Fielding. I even like the film. Purely because of the two men in it, actually.

Comfort Me With Apples: Ruth Reichl. If you like reading about food, love, travel and finally finding your feet, read this one.

Now who shall I pass this on to:

Kahini (who introduced me to three of those cherished books and many more, at different points in life.), Subs and Colours.

Had to bug you girls, even if you've been tagged before.

*wicked laugh*

The July 2nd Indian Express had an interesting page one photograph. I tried looking it up on the express site so that I could post it here but it's not available.

It showed Ahmedabad's Joint Commissioner of Police, K Kumara Swamy, being carried by (possibly) a constable through a flooded street in the city.

this is no humour in uniform,' said the caption.

I wish it was. Because the joint commissioner's legs seemed perfectly capable of wading through the waterlogged street. Despite that he had chosen another human being, his junior by many many ranks, as his mode of transport.

Why?

Well, simply because his car had broken down! How could a senior officer of his stature dip his precious feet, not to mention his sturdy, well polished boots through all that dirty water. Never mind that there's probably a lackey waiting at home to clean those precious boots.

I do hope the Jt. Commissioner took this step because of some physical problem. Arthritis perhaps. Or maybe a wound that's taking days to heal.

But if this is the way he moves around, whenever there's a bit of muck, who says we've moved away from the days of the Raj?

Do I know these people?

I don't use yahoo mail any more as paranoid ex-office had included it in its strange list of banned websites (Dear employees, surf porn by all means but no going on yahoo, rediff and DEFINITELY NOT HINDUSTAN TIMES!).

So I checked my yahoo address book after ages and have made interesting discoveries.

The number one name in the address book belongs to the former regional editor of the newspaper I worked for. In fact I have not one but two email IDs for a man who positively disliked me and whose feelings I reciprocated. When did I this ID down? Also I was acquainted with him in those pre-email days, so still wondering how...

I have email IDs of several people whose existence I seem to have forgotten. One of them is interestingly called silky followed by a number. The other calls herself/himself teekhimirchi.
There is one called Sujata but she isn't one of the two Sujatas I know. Who on earth are these people??!!!!

Discovery of the afternoon: email IDs of two ex-crushes. Hatching evil plan. Hehe

There are four alternative IDs for one certain person who was part of the alcoholics network masquerading as the features team at one point. Shows the strength of our friendship in those days I suspect, though I can't seem to remember much of it.

Strange are the ways of the world and the internet.

I’ve always hated being asked this question.

‘What’s your caste?’ Aap logon ka caste kya hai?

I see no reason why someone needs to know such intimate details of my background within 15 minutes of being introduced to me. And I’m always at loss to understand what they mean by the word ‘caste.’

Very often, in my experience, people mean community when they wrongly say caste. Though some never-say-die types also want to know what your caste (now meant correctly) is after they’ve figured out the community.

Among friends, we do make jokes about each other’s community and we do at times want to know what they do similarly or differently from us but what I don’t understand is when people plunge into the question almost right away.

Believe it or not, leaving aside other instances, I’ve heard this question from a teenager in Delhi (yes, she wanted to know what my friend’s caste was) and yesterday from a reasonably young mother in the neighbourhood during my evening walk, which is a lovely thing people who stay at home can do, though not when strange questions are coming their way.

Well why do people need to know? Are they going to further their interaction with you based on your answer? Or is it plain curiosity, sheer habit or perhaps mummy papa didn't tell them it wasn't an important thing to ask?

When I lived in Bombay I never once had to face the caste question. At most, people asked where you were from as it was apparent you lived on your own. Thankfully, I never had a landlady who brought such things up either.

But I inhabited a different world in those days. We made friends easily and how far it would go was based on that person’s capacity to work, laugh, party and imbibe first day first shows rather than on personal details they had no control over.

Rainsong

Now that it's raining in Mumbai and newspapers and TV channels can't get enough of the waves splashing on Worli Seaface and Marine Drive, am getting very nostalgic. True my memories of Mumbai rains include many that involve a lot of muck but nostalgia always excludes those ones.

I loved getting soaked by the waves on Marine Drive during the rains but my two absolute favourite rainspots were Bandra Bandstand where the wind could carry you off and the grotto with the curving srairway opposite Mount Mary church. You couldn't feel the waves there but you could keep standing there, sometimes alone for hours, get soaked and watch the sea merge into the blue grey sky.

That place was my zone of peace. Went there when I was feeling happy, sad, strange or nothing at all. And during the rains.

Going To KV

Subs’ comment about some parents not sending their kids to a middle class school got me writing this one. WARNING: LONG RANT. HAVE POSSIBLY RANTED ON THIS BEFORE

From Class II till Class X, I attended the most middle class school of all in India — Kendriya Vidyalaya or Central School as it’s better known. A number of them actually as dad had a transferable job. No matter which remote area we went to, the syllabus remained the same and admission was more or less guaranteed so mom and dad were happy with the arrangement. It did occur to them to send us to a boarding school for a while but both me and brother threw ultimate tantrums at just the mention of it and till date, I’m glad they never took that step.

I studied with all sorts of kids. If the squadron leader’s daughter was in the same class with me, so were the school’s clerk’s twins. My parents did not seem to have a problem with this mixing of classes. Strangely though, scores of other people did as I realised gradually.

The general perception about KVs is that it is a ‘Hindi medium school,’ teaching standards are extremely low and that crowd that studies there has ‘all types.’ Some allegations aren’t very far off the mark. There are some 800 plus KVs around the country and abroad and there is a possibility of poor teaching standard in some of them. I’ve gone through a terrible history teacher, a wonderful English teacher who taught me to love reading and two Maths teachers, one of whom made me hate the subject and the other ensured I ended up liking it enough to get a decent score in my board exams. This lack of uniformity isn’t unique to KV. There are several upper middle class schools across the country where the teaching standard isn’t uniformly excellent.

A friend and I had an argument once. She is a young mom and pretty concerned about which school her two year old will eventually get into. She’s limited her choices to the crème de la crème (at least by repute) schools of Delhi. It HAS to be Vasant Valley, Modern, Mother’s International, Sanskriti or something else in that super school category. Her argument: A good school shapes you for life. And you study with people from good families.

I don’t know how much of that argument I agree with as I've never quite understood school snobbery. I’ve seen kids from the best of schools do miserably in competitive exams while someone from a school we hadn’t even heard about has sailed past with ease. Of course these aren’t generalisations. The opposite can be true as well. The thing is whether you study in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Ferozpur Cantonment. or Cathedral and John Connon Bombay, how you ultimately shape up depends on a lot more factors than just which school you went to.

I studied with kids from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures. I may not have ‘connections’ with the vice admiral’s kids as my friend Adi does thanks to his days in Modern Barakhamba, Delhi but I do have friends from diverse backgrounds and communities and a reasonable amount of knowledge and level of tolerance about them than in many other people I know. People who think all Gaons are Catholics and Maharashtrian cuisine consists mainly of pao bhaji.

And no, am not bragging.


PS: On an absolutely different note have a problem maid at hand. Does the work well and claims to understand Hindi but the moment I want her to do things a certain way, pretends to lack all knowledge of the language and gets weepy.

My two bits...

ON PARINEETA
Very nice period details. Esp. the Saridon ad and the switches which sent me back to my grandparent's old house in Cal. Saif looks hot. Vidya Balan is a discovery. Good they picked her out of those chai ka patti and washing powder ads. Only sore point, did they need to have such a dramatic climax?

ON GARBAGE SEGREGATION
Recently started in the building. Largely due to the efforts of two ladies, one of them retired, the other a post graduate student. The reaction? Surprisingly varied according to the volunteers. An 80 plus grandmom has no objection doing it after a lifetime of habit where she probably had maids dumping all the garbage in one bin. On the other hand a 30 something woman has been complaining about how such stuff takes up a lot of time and is almost impossible for a busy working woman like her. Some things can be eye-openers in a strange way.

ON A CERTAIN HOT SHOT INTERIOR DESIGNER IN BANGALORE
Was talking to her for a story I'm working on. Her response to one of my remarks: 'I don't do middle class homes my dear. They're too many people involevd and they aren't just worth it.'

The Best?

I don't know about you but all these best blog listing always leave me cold. Esp the ones about Indian blogs. Find most of the blogs featured there either too opinionated or trying too hard (but please note, I said 'most') to be cool. And do we really need to know the life of every kid in every B school? Spare us for God's sake.

Some of the best blogs I read regularly are private so that rules them out but some aren't and in my opinion they would rate highly in any blog list anywhere. But that's my opinion and perhaps the listmakers of blogworld differ.

What brought about this current grouse, went to a listing of best Asian blogs (sorry can't gove the url, have deleted address bar history) and with the exception of a genuine blog or two, there wasn't much to cheer for. So I have some 'koshchens.' Do you get the same feeling whenever you visit a best blog list? Why does this happen and er...am I sounding terribly opinionated too?

Have discovered the magic word to get work done -- 'sahab gussa karega,' 'sahab ko achcha nahi lagega' and various other combinations with the word ‘sahab’. This is how it happened. Was fruitlessly telling the cable guy to tune Travel and Living and National Geographic properly so that I can actually watch them instead of just hearing disembodied voices when inspiration struck. 'Sahab sham ko aake yehi channel dekhta hai. Ye achcha nahi ayega to sahab gussa karega.' I told the guy. The next thing you knew the man had pulled some wires and the reception was crystal clear. Never mind that 'sahab' (P who is blissfully ignorant of the things that get done in his ‘name’) doesn’t venture beyond HBO and ESPN.

Tried same tact with the carpenters next. Was unhappy with the work done on one of the kitchen pullouts and had been unsuccessfully chasing them. Just had to pick up the phone last Sunday and utter, ‘Sahab bahut gussa kar raha hai,’ and bingo, the men came running. Had to of course train ‘sahab’ to look suitably angry when they arrived.

Similar story with man who came to fix the computer. Now am no techie but I do know the basics (I’d like to think so) and it’s me who’s going to be a permanent fixture on the home comp. ‘Let me speak to Mr P madam,’ said the computer guy after finishing his work.
‘Mr P wouldn’t be using this computer much. You can speak to me.’
‘I need to explain certain things to him madam,’ our man persisted with the look one preparing to battle with a five-year-old kid.
I ended the conversation the only way possible: ‘Look here. It’s me who uses this machine. So it’s me who has to know and understand the complicated stuff. NOT MY HUSBAND. UNDERSTAND?’

All that brings me to a slightly disturbing thought. Why is this happening suddenly to me? Is it because people automatically assume that a lady cannot take decisions without getting it approved by her husband (especially if she’s a housewife) or doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand technology? Or is it just mild-mannered, gentle (ahem) me?

On a different note:

Have discovered two good things. Daily Bread. A company that makes very exciting types of bread from spinach to whole wheat. Even one with mustard and curry leaves that smells like avial!

And Biryani Merchant. They even do a hilsa biryani!

...and the fact that I posted this in red tells you I don't have much to do.

My interesting life as a stay-at-home girl officially begins today. Well it should have technically begun about one and half months back in Delhi when I said bye to the girlie mag but circumstances kept me busy and circulating.
We finally shifted to the apartment in Bangalore yesterday. It’s pretty nice. High up again. We seem to be catching an aversion to anything below the 15th floor. The two balconies have excellent views of Bangalore’s unending greenery (yes, have fallen for the greens) and within the complex, you can feast your eyes on the manicured lawns. Ok. Not so manicured but at least that’s what they look like from this height. There’s also a lovely blue swimming pool. Again, the height helps.
Earlier in the day decided to do the following today or some of it at least from this list:
* Walk in nice looking (from above) garden. Only it was 11:00 am and a bit sunny for a walk. Wish had dog. Great excuse for walk.
* Check out the pool. Only can’t swim. So could only go, gape and get back. Could do that from the living room balcony so avoided.
* Check out the shops around. There isn’t much though, except Jai Hari Supermarket which isn’t very high on the excitement factor.
* Check out Bangalore.
* Find a beautician who offers door step services and get various body parts scrubbed and polished. Just the thought made me go zzzzzz…
It's about 4 in the evening now and haven't done any of these exciting things. Instead have spent the day finding a plumber, chasing the cable guy, getting washing machine repaired and shouting at the carpenter. Now awaiting man to come and fix aquaguard. Humph!

Wow! Feels great to be online at last. although only for a while as the furniture and the rest of our stuff hasn't reached so it will be a while till I get the computer fixed and running. Have finally landed in Bangalore. Welcomed by bad traffic and great weather. Coming from 40 degree plus Delhi the weather more than makes up for the traffic. And yes, the greenery too. Think am going to like thic city, unlike the previous shitty I stayed in.
Feels weird to have been cut off from the blog world for so long. Time for catching up.

What do you do when a colleague you do not particularly like insists on taking you for a farewell lunch, gives you nice farewell gift and proceeds to tell you what a great help to her you have been through all these years.

You stay silent. At least for a while. Concentrate on food. Then smile shiftily (remembering all those bitching sessions that centred around her) and say...oh no...c'mon...I did nothing.

And feel like a total fraud.

Life should be easy. You should have some memory box in your head with easy to operate buttons and depending on the mood of the person or the moment just press start the required memories.

You'd look funny of course but that's quite another matter.

Just read somewhere that Gauri Nanda, the MIT scientist who invented 'Clocky' (an alarm clock that rolls off your bedside table, hides around the room and basically keeps pestering you until you wake up) has also developed an amazing handbag.
It makes sure you haven't forgetten your wallet or house keys (My lifelong ailment!) and even lights up in the dark to make rummaging through it easier (I need this!).
And wait, there's more. It even tells you if you've forgotten something you will probably need later in the day. An umbrella for instance.
It takes a girl to invent the really smart and useful things, haan?

I am on a deleting spree. With barely 10 days left in this office, I’ve started getting organised about which files to take, which papers to shred and most importantly, which documents to delete. I don’t want person who inherits this rickety chair and hundred year old computer (not to mention the footrest!) to accidentally open any half-written blog or mails from friends that I’d saved in ‘My documents’ coz they were hysterical.
Deleting’s a tedious job and I quite hate it. Especially when I realise that I have lovingly stored copy written as far back as July 2001. What if I needed that info some other time? Small wonder that my doddering computer crashed so often!
Being a newly-turned alert and methodical person, I’ve also proceeded to delete my entire contacts list, which means I’m now grovelling before the systems guys to retrieve it some way or the other.
Minor hitches apart some of it has been fun. I’ve dug out a story I did with a group of travelling musicians in Oslo, which for some reason I never sent my editor. Something told me her ‘Indian values’ wouldn’t quite appreciate a family where the daughter was openly in lust with a ‘borrowed’ percussionist and the merry group of father, mother, daughter and ‘borrowed lover’ got happily sozzled after a well-paying performance. I think it's a keepsake. :)
Then there is the promptly sent but never used story on child sexual abuse, which despite all our hard work over it, went into cold storage as they wanted a ‘happy cover.’ That document will be deleted of course but it’s proof that perhaps I needed to say bye to this place much earlier. The happiest has been finding the Malaysia story. I wrote it with a friend who’d been there. We came back from our trip, exchanged a huge number of giddy and hilarious emails and that’s what became our travel story. It was fun while it lasted haan, fellow emailer?

I felt like blogging today after a long time. Was going to write about something else. The lecherous building uncle for instance. But how can you think of humour and laughter when the person you associate it with, the girl with the super-enviable zest for adventure, is going through what is probably is the most trying time of her life.
Perhaps you've come across Lee's blogearlier, perhaps you haven't. But take a look today. She, her niece, her family and most of all her sister, need all our positive thoughts and prayers.

Do you ever go through a blank mind phase? I do. This is one of them. So shall get back when I have something to say. For my own sake, hope that happens soon. :)