Bumped into S’s mum yesterday. Over the next 20 mins or so, the conversation was of course about S. ‘Kya hoga uska…’ muttered aunty while staring into space. Her naani, who has to eavesdrop whenever any friend of S is around, sighed audibly.
It’s always like this. S is 28, attractive and working with a business publication. She’s doing very well according to us (her friends) but is the source of constant agony to her parents as she refuses to get married, especially go through the arranged marriage routine.
I tried to tell aunty that she’s doing wonders with her work (she’s been promoted recently, salary hike, et al) but aunty was on her own trip. ‘Beta…yeh natural nahi hai. Why is she being so stubborn? Why isn’t she settling down…’
Why is the Indian mind so demanding? It starts with parents exhorting children to do well in school, get through a good college, get a degree, then get a job. You do all that, start moving up the ladder and earning well but they (parents, maasis, uncles, even some people from your own generation) are far from satisfied. You need to get married. The thing is, even if you do that, the demands, the expectations don’t stop. Now that you are married, you must have your own house, own car and of course, your own kid. Unless and until that happens, the story isn’t complete yet.
According to a friend of mine with a kid of her own, the story isn’t complete even after that. You need to get baby no. two to keep baby number one company, you insensitive parent, you!
Seven of my closest friends aren’t married. One of them is a guy who works with a bank, gets paid decently and leads a happy, carefree life. He doesn’t ask anyone about minute details of their lives but others are really bothered about his ‘wifeless’ one. The other single friends are girls. One of them is a CA and holds a top-notch job with a finance consultancy, the other is S, whom I have described abive. A third works with a popular magazine, has her own flat in Pune and is a happy, contented soul. The fourth one is the top boss where she works. The fifth one has just moved to corporate from journalism and doing very well, touchwood. The seventh is working with Delhi’s number one paper. To me, they all look as ‘settled’ as the word suggests. But I guess the world at large demands more.
The reason for this rant…can’t forget what S’s mum was going on about. And can’t forget what some people often lecture me about. Settle down? Will somebody please define this magic term? What is settling down? Is it buying a house? Getting married? Getting a job that let’s you do both these things? Staying in one city? Producing a baby? Getting the baby married? Going to phoren? Marrying boy from phoren? Making moolah? Marrying Michael Jackson?
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Wouldn't have written this. But a comment from a friend after checking out the steel and glass corporate edifice that another friend works in has got me going.
It has reminded me (due to the lack of work. Otherwise am not one to hanker after materialistic pleasures) that I have always wanted to work in a swanky office. At least for a while. Till I get matter-of-fact about full-length bathroom mirrors and ACTUALLY clean water dispensers.
The closest I came to working in one was with a Chennai based dotcom's branch in Bombay. I was a freelancer for their filmi website and would walk into that office only to key in copy, send mails (and chat on the net), chat up hunky young men, etc. It was another battered building in Fort from the outside but inside they had managed to turn it quite swanky and colourful. Perhaps it had to do with the top boss being a woman :)
Having come to that place from a dying magazine in another crumbling
Fort building with a rickety lift and a newspaper* that functioned out of a bunch of barely held together cubicles with a smelly common loo, I thought the dotcom place was the coolest yet.
Then one day, after a late night Sterling movie, a couple of us went
with a friend to his office nearby, while he picked up the keys to his car to drive us home. It was the end of innocence.
This was a bank. Foreign one obviously, in one of those heritage-type
Fort buildings. Inside, it was a haven of plushness, cleanliness,
comfort, etc, etc. Two of us, the girls in the gang, had to check out
the loo. It was ideal. (Refer to loo demands in appraisal blog ha ha)
The 'workstations' as S, our banker pal called them, were clean, with
ergonomical chairs that didn't have broken legs and didn't plummet down when you wanted to adjust the height.
That was the first. From then on, I have been subjected to a sense of
despair every time some friend talked about her office cafe getting a
makeover (again Fort, again bank) and making it to Inside Outside. It
was of course, bright, cheerful and functional. With clean cups and nice looking coffee machine.
Yet another one started going to his office half an hour earlier to
workout at the gym. By this time I was in Delhi and worked in a duplex flat that would've been nice had 49 people not been crammed into it with strange partitions put up between 'departments'. It boasted of a pantry operated by a man who was addicted to dust, and as we later discovered, fungus on pots and pans. The only bright side was a patch of lawn outside, which was the smokers' and coffee-addicts' corner.
Now I spend my days in a windowless semi cubicle with the most
uncomfortable chairs, overflowing drawers and a dustbin that requires a thorough washing up with the strongest disinfectant available. For recreation and contact with the outside world we have a couple of porthole-type windows near the smokers' staircase and three telephones on our desks, one of them with STD.
The husband works in an ultra modern, glass n steel structure, with
state of the art private lifts, 'workstations', headsets for hands free communication and Italian coffee machine (Yes. The coffee machine is an obsession with me. Period). There's a gym on the terrace, with a swimming pool and a view of the Gurgaon skyline (I'm sure you can see nothing but buildings but I ALWAYS want what I can't have). The cafe has juice, organic bread, five types of yoghurt and five-star catered lunch.
The man of course is totally blasé about the place and says most people he knows work in similar kind of offices. By an act of coincidence most people in such offices ALWAYS work a five-day-week!
Naturelment, any conversation regarding workplaces and workstations at home is PURE TORTURE. Sigh...
PS: For all its lack of amenities, I LOVED the newspaper that functioned
out of barely held together cubicles, including the conference room on
the stairs.
It has reminded me (due to the lack of work. Otherwise am not one to hanker after materialistic pleasures) that I have always wanted to work in a swanky office. At least for a while. Till I get matter-of-fact about full-length bathroom mirrors and ACTUALLY clean water dispensers.
The closest I came to working in one was with a Chennai based dotcom's branch in Bombay. I was a freelancer for their filmi website and would walk into that office only to key in copy, send mails (and chat on the net), chat up hunky young men, etc. It was another battered building in Fort from the outside but inside they had managed to turn it quite swanky and colourful. Perhaps it had to do with the top boss being a woman :)
Having come to that place from a dying magazine in another crumbling
Fort building with a rickety lift and a newspaper* that functioned out of a bunch of barely held together cubicles with a smelly common loo, I thought the dotcom place was the coolest yet.
Then one day, after a late night Sterling movie, a couple of us went
with a friend to his office nearby, while he picked up the keys to his car to drive us home. It was the end of innocence.
This was a bank. Foreign one obviously, in one of those heritage-type
Fort buildings. Inside, it was a haven of plushness, cleanliness,
comfort, etc, etc. Two of us, the girls in the gang, had to check out
the loo. It was ideal. (Refer to loo demands in appraisal blog ha ha)
The 'workstations' as S, our banker pal called them, were clean, with
ergonomical chairs that didn't have broken legs and didn't plummet down when you wanted to adjust the height.
That was the first. From then on, I have been subjected to a sense of
despair every time some friend talked about her office cafe getting a
makeover (again Fort, again bank) and making it to Inside Outside. It
was of course, bright, cheerful and functional. With clean cups and nice looking coffee machine.
Yet another one started going to his office half an hour earlier to
workout at the gym. By this time I was in Delhi and worked in a duplex flat that would've been nice had 49 people not been crammed into it with strange partitions put up between 'departments'. It boasted of a pantry operated by a man who was addicted to dust, and as we later discovered, fungus on pots and pans. The only bright side was a patch of lawn outside, which was the smokers' and coffee-addicts' corner.
Now I spend my days in a windowless semi cubicle with the most
uncomfortable chairs, overflowing drawers and a dustbin that requires a thorough washing up with the strongest disinfectant available. For recreation and contact with the outside world we have a couple of porthole-type windows near the smokers' staircase and three telephones on our desks, one of them with STD.
The husband works in an ultra modern, glass n steel structure, with
state of the art private lifts, 'workstations', headsets for hands free communication and Italian coffee machine (Yes. The coffee machine is an obsession with me. Period). There's a gym on the terrace, with a swimming pool and a view of the Gurgaon skyline (I'm sure you can see nothing but buildings but I ALWAYS want what I can't have). The cafe has juice, organic bread, five types of yoghurt and five-star catered lunch.
The man of course is totally blasé about the place and says most people he knows work in similar kind of offices. By an act of coincidence most people in such offices ALWAYS work a five-day-week!
Naturelment, any conversation regarding workplaces and workstations at home is PURE TORTURE. Sigh...
PS: For all its lack of amenities, I LOVED the newspaper that functioned
out of barely held together cubicles, including the conference room on
the stairs.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Random...
Very listless and bored. It's the heat. To make matters worse am doing trend story on wine and food festivals and high end stuff like that. This means for the better part of the day, am on the fone with hoteliers/sommeliers/PR chicks and other such people who have accents and with whom one has to speak politely coz otherwise they don't understand. Makes me feel very 'back-to-school' trying to remember my Ps and Qs (Does an apostrophe go there?) and smoothing down my wild hair even if they can't see me over the phone.
Hate the heat. Thinking with deepening nostalgia about Bombay, where it's raining and people are lucky enough to not just have the sea but also weather that is not 45 degrees. Also local trains, bhelpuri, chutney sandwich, polite cabbies, nice people, toto's, Mondy's, freedom to move around as you like, fish thalis, bandra, vadapav...
Was planning to drown myself in beer yesterday and pretending I was in Toto's (dimmed the lights at home and all that) when my mother called from Cal to inform me that is had just started pouring there. Why?
Was dreaming about getting out of Delhi over the weekend or on a short weekday break but can't. The man can't take a day off on a weekday and is even booked over the weekend playing for some wrongly punctuated corporate football tournament. I have become bored wife. Yikes!
After mother's fone, called single pal in Bangalore to crib about domesticated life in horrible weather. She is planning to go on some exciting trek this weekend but muttered sad things about men being bastards and nothing ever working out for her. Said she felt ready to settle down at last, blah, blah.
The grass is always greener...
Hate the heat. Thinking with deepening nostalgia about Bombay, where it's raining and people are lucky enough to not just have the sea but also weather that is not 45 degrees. Also local trains, bhelpuri, chutney sandwich, polite cabbies, nice people, toto's, Mondy's, freedom to move around as you like, fish thalis, bandra, vadapav...
Was planning to drown myself in beer yesterday and pretending I was in Toto's (dimmed the lights at home and all that) when my mother called from Cal to inform me that is had just started pouring there. Why?
Was dreaming about getting out of Delhi over the weekend or on a short weekday break but can't. The man can't take a day off on a weekday and is even booked over the weekend playing for some wrongly punctuated corporate football tournament. I have become bored wife. Yikes!
After mother's fone, called single pal in Bangalore to crib about domesticated life in horrible weather. She is planning to go on some exciting trek this weekend but muttered sad things about men being bastards and nothing ever working out for her. Said she felt ready to settle down at last, blah, blah.
The grass is always greener...
Monday, May 17, 2004
Things I want to say in idiotic self-appraisal forms but can’t…
Describe your three major achievements in the last one year:
*Discovered blogs and made friends
*Extensively surfed the net (when your goddamned server allowed it) and found interesting details about travelling in Corsica, jobs in BBC (am overqualified, of course) etc
*Explored and identified restaurants around the workplace
Identify your major strengths
*Ability to survive in claustrophobic environment without air-conditioning for long hours
*High endurance level for salt less, bland canteen food (Strengthens the soul)
*Ability to survive without the Internet or office mail for ONE WHOLE DAY!
*Ability to work efficiently on 300-year-old computer with non-working speakers (Can you even imagine the agony when I get a forward with sound?)
Identify areas where guidance is required
*How to blog and work simultaneously without getting distracted from either
*How to browbeat canteen guy into making edible stuff
*Technical guidance on uploading new comment box, links, etc on the blog
Career ambitions
*Naturally, being the top boss. Do you even need to ask?
Would you prefer a job rotation? If yes, where?
*Yes. We can start with the cooler climes in Himachal (put me up at the Wildflower Hall), move up to Leh, wind down to Goa and zip off to Hong Kong, Venice, Barcelona, Reykjavik, Sun City, London, New York…(You said rotation, remember?)
Suggestions
Many. First, get one of those zany coffee machines they have in MNCs these days. The ones with everything from café au lait to espresso shots. And get clean mugs to match.
* While you are at it, also get a new café, with comfy, loungable sofas. Stock café with everything workplace hunger-pangs can dream of.
* Sanction a spa cum salon. We need to look presentable. Give the loo a makeover. Keep scented towels, little bottles of lotions and perfumes in a basket, etc. Also invest in a full-length mirror.
* Increase my salary eightfold. Remember I’ll be your boss soon.
Describe your three major achievements in the last one year:
*Discovered blogs and made friends
*Extensively surfed the net (when your goddamned server allowed it) and found interesting details about travelling in Corsica, jobs in BBC (am overqualified, of course) etc
*Explored and identified restaurants around the workplace
Identify your major strengths
*Ability to survive in claustrophobic environment without air-conditioning for long hours
*High endurance level for salt less, bland canteen food (Strengthens the soul)
*Ability to survive without the Internet or office mail for ONE WHOLE DAY!
*Ability to work efficiently on 300-year-old computer with non-working speakers (Can you even imagine the agony when I get a forward with sound?)
Identify areas where guidance is required
*How to blog and work simultaneously without getting distracted from either
*How to browbeat canteen guy into making edible stuff
*Technical guidance on uploading new comment box, links, etc on the blog
Career ambitions
*Naturally, being the top boss. Do you even need to ask?
Would you prefer a job rotation? If yes, where?
*Yes. We can start with the cooler climes in Himachal (put me up at the Wildflower Hall), move up to Leh, wind down to Goa and zip off to Hong Kong, Venice, Barcelona, Reykjavik, Sun City, London, New York…(You said rotation, remember?)
Suggestions
Many. First, get one of those zany coffee machines they have in MNCs these days. The ones with everything from café au lait to espresso shots. And get clean mugs to match.
* While you are at it, also get a new café, with comfy, loungable sofas. Stock café with everything workplace hunger-pangs can dream of.
* Sanction a spa cum salon. We need to look presentable. Give the loo a makeover. Keep scented towels, little bottles of lotions and perfumes in a basket, etc. Also invest in a full-length mirror.
* Increase my salary eightfold. Remember I’ll be your boss soon.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Born To Write
In my next life I want to be born as a freelance writer with supernatural confidence. Every second day our office gets a call from some freelance person or the other. The regularity has convinced us that when it comes to freelance writing, age and sex are no bar. All you need is HUGE faith in your writing abilities and choice of topic.
From 65 plus retired bureaucrat (RB) to teenage schoolgirl, they have all called. The RB, after giving a backgrounder on his illustrious career, said he wanted to write on the plight of women in India.
‘Anything specific Sir? We respectfully asked.
RB went through the roof
‘Why do you want specifics…in a country where women are still burnt for dowry, raped every second day…it is a sorry plight…If your mag doesn’t publish…standards going down the drain…Boom Booom BOOM BOOM BOOM’
I can still imagine him in front of his computer. Banging the phone on us, running his eye through a 3,000 word article (with no spell check) and wondering...hmm…now who do I send this brilliant piece of work to? Hindustan Times?
The teenage girl was far more difficult to handle. Not only was she young and vulnerable, she had a mother.
‘Sorry but we don’t publish poems,’ we informed the girl.
Mommy, who was obviously snooping in, cut in from the extension line: Oh! But you used to!
Not any more, I said. My biggest mistake. Mommy launched into a long spiel on her daughter’s creative mind, her numerous trophies (didn’t know they gave them out for poems. Ph, are you listening?), her scholastic achievements and the publications that had made her a star (Bright Youngster's Club, Pitampura). We were clearly nipping the bud, crushing the young spirit, destroying talent, etc.
Just now, the call came from a woman of uncertain age. ‘I am wanting to write,’ she said.
Goodie gumdrops! Please do so, I wanted to say but gave her the spiel about sending her CV to the ed, with sample work, etc. Also corrected her that ed was a ‘she’, not a ‘he’. Then I asked her what she wrote about. ‘Recipes. I will send them to him.’ Came the confidant reply.
Like I said. In my next life…
From 65 plus retired bureaucrat (RB) to teenage schoolgirl, they have all called. The RB, after giving a backgrounder on his illustrious career, said he wanted to write on the plight of women in India.
‘Anything specific Sir? We respectfully asked.
RB went through the roof
‘Why do you want specifics…in a country where women are still burnt for dowry, raped every second day…it is a sorry plight…If your mag doesn’t publish…standards going down the drain…Boom Booom BOOM BOOM BOOM’
I can still imagine him in front of his computer. Banging the phone on us, running his eye through a 3,000 word article (with no spell check) and wondering...hmm…now who do I send this brilliant piece of work to? Hindustan Times?
The teenage girl was far more difficult to handle. Not only was she young and vulnerable, she had a mother.
‘Sorry but we don’t publish poems,’ we informed the girl.
Mommy, who was obviously snooping in, cut in from the extension line: Oh! But you used to!
Not any more, I said. My biggest mistake. Mommy launched into a long spiel on her daughter’s creative mind, her numerous trophies (didn’t know they gave them out for poems. Ph, are you listening?), her scholastic achievements and the publications that had made her a star (Bright Youngster's Club, Pitampura). We were clearly nipping the bud, crushing the young spirit, destroying talent, etc.
Just now, the call came from a woman of uncertain age. ‘I am wanting to write,’ she said.
Goodie gumdrops! Please do so, I wanted to say but gave her the spiel about sending her CV to the ed, with sample work, etc. Also corrected her that ed was a ‘she’, not a ‘he’. Then I asked her what she wrote about. ‘Recipes. I will send them to him.’ Came the confidant reply.
Like I said. In my next life…
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
In black and white...
Watched Le Divorce yesterday. In black and white. Also Usual Suspects and Scent of a Woman. Again in black and white. Not by choice. Something in the DVD player went kaput and rather than fiddle with it and waste time, we thought it was better to leave it the way it was. I have seen all these films before (except for Le Divorce, which is a good book but avoidable film) but absolutely loved Usual Suspects in the black and white version. The movie has that dark, 1960s gangster feel and the unintentional lack of colour added to it. The other black and white scene I loved was the one in Scent of A Woman, where Al Pacino teaches a girl in a New York bar how to tango. It looked very old Hollywood, vintage romance…
There’s something about black and white. Both films and still photographs.
It got me back to movie days during my mass comm. course. Every Thursday afternoon, the chairs would be shifted, the projector set up, a screen put up in the classroom and it was showtime. Films were part of our ‘course’ and we watched everything — from Satyajit Ray’s Charulata and Pather Panchali to Renoir’s Rules of the Game to strange movies you must endure if you are studying cinema, like Battleship Potemkin, Un Chien Andalou, Birth of a Nation; we also watched absolutely fantastic stuff like Breathless, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Rashomon.
Didn’t always look forward to the discussion and analysis that was to follow (Why did Bunuel slice the eye and show ants crawling all over a hand? Because he had a fit of madness, that’s why!) but loved most of the films. Ninety-percent of the stuff was black and white, our course in-charge having a marked partiality for the early part of the 20th century. I loved her for it, never mind Bunuel and movies that sympathised with the Ku Klux Clan. Some films are best seen in black and white. Like old photographs. Madhubala and gang look much better in black and white than they would have looked in colour.
Black and white just seems very classic. And beautiful. Colour can sometimes bring out the flaws that black and white shadows over. Gosh! Shall stop before I sound like arty type. Had fun watching unplanned black and white fest. That’s all.
There’s something about black and white. Both films and still photographs.
It got me back to movie days during my mass comm. course. Every Thursday afternoon, the chairs would be shifted, the projector set up, a screen put up in the classroom and it was showtime. Films were part of our ‘course’ and we watched everything — from Satyajit Ray’s Charulata and Pather Panchali to Renoir’s Rules of the Game to strange movies you must endure if you are studying cinema, like Battleship Potemkin, Un Chien Andalou, Birth of a Nation; we also watched absolutely fantastic stuff like Breathless, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Rashomon.
Didn’t always look forward to the discussion and analysis that was to follow (Why did Bunuel slice the eye and show ants crawling all over a hand? Because he had a fit of madness, that’s why!) but loved most of the films. Ninety-percent of the stuff was black and white, our course in-charge having a marked partiality for the early part of the 20th century. I loved her for it, never mind Bunuel and movies that sympathised with the Ku Klux Clan. Some films are best seen in black and white. Like old photographs. Madhubala and gang look much better in black and white than they would have looked in colour.
Black and white just seems very classic. And beautiful. Colour can sometimes bring out the flaws that black and white shadows over. Gosh! Shall stop before I sound like arty type. Had fun watching unplanned black and white fest. That’s all.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Prawn Vs Paneer
My cousin L, a nice, sweet Bong boy, eleven months younger than I am, is in love. With a ‘vegetarian’ girl, as I have been informed by my aunt, a nice, sweet and extremely Bong woman. She isn’t bothered by mundane facts about the girl’s complexion (wheatish, what else, jokes the cousin), her ‘caste’ or even her slightly tomboyish behaviour (Treks and bikes. Love her already!).
What my aunt is bothered about is that the girl doesn’t eat mangsho (meat) or maach (fish). ‘What am I to cook at home when she comes?’ she wailed into the phone last night, while my cousin chuckled behind.
I haven’t stopped laughing. In my case it was a non-vegetarian coming to live with a vegetarian family. It had some people from both sides in a state of convulsion. The veggies wondered if I would come home from shopping dangling live chickens over my shoulder (Ok. This is extreme. But some did make very rude comments) and the fleshies wondered if I would survive the green revolution or starve to death, and so on...
Shall never understand what drives people to such extreme reactions when it comes to the Veg Vs Non Veg issue. Well, I have survived (singalong!) pretty well, haven't I? So will the 'vegetarian' bikergirl. Now if only someone would pacify my aunt!
What my aunt is bothered about is that the girl doesn’t eat mangsho (meat) or maach (fish). ‘What am I to cook at home when she comes?’ she wailed into the phone last night, while my cousin chuckled behind.
I haven’t stopped laughing. In my case it was a non-vegetarian coming to live with a vegetarian family. It had some people from both sides in a state of convulsion. The veggies wondered if I would come home from shopping dangling live chickens over my shoulder (Ok. This is extreme. But some did make very rude comments) and the fleshies wondered if I would survive the green revolution or starve to death, and so on...
Shall never understand what drives people to such extreme reactions when it comes to the Veg Vs Non Veg issue. Well, I have survived (singalong!) pretty well, haven't I? So will the 'vegetarian' bikergirl. Now if only someone would pacify my aunt!
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
My friend M asked me the other day to explain the name of this blog — hornswoggle. Well, M, it’s because when I started it, I was going through a ‘romantic phase’ in books and reading Georgette Heyer. Her Dukes and Duchesses use a lot of strange words and hornswoggle is one of them. It basically means stupid, idiotic, nonsense, something to that effect at least.
These book phases happen to me occasionally. They start when I’m a little low, build up and then, go on for a month or two. This time, it’s been two months and I’m still stuck at romance. Been reading Georgette Heyer, Daphne Du Maurier and even Jane Austen. A Back To College phase. Completely. But I love it!
Forced to buy some of the books, even if I have read them earlier, as my own copy is either lost or in that old trunk at my parent’s place or I never had it in the first place.
Have no idea if others read like this but I go through phases in books.
My longest lasting phase has been books on travel or food or travel and food. It’s far from over. I’m only taking a romantic break. And there’s a mini-phase inside the travel one — travel and food in France! And then, there was the fun, footloose female phase (trendily called chic-lit) that started with Bridget Jones, hugely raised expectations and ended horribly with something called ‘Does My Butt Look Big In This?’ Yes. I bought that one. Once I go through a phase, I can’t be choosy, I HAVE to buy. I still go back to the chic-lit stuff willingly, only haven’t found anything exciting after ‘Nanny Diaries’, which is not only chic-lit but social commentary as well. There have been many other phases, including, thankfully, a very short-lived feminist one. Oh, and can also remember another short lived sci-fi one. Started and ended with Douglas Adams. The only one that never happened was Ayn Rand. Never had any intellectual pretensions :)
Wondering what the next one would be? Hmm...depends on the impulse of the moment really. Think I shall pick up the rest of the ‘Parlez Vous Franglais’ series and some more Calvin and Hobbes. Meanwhile, I'm very content Darcy for the 1500th time in Pride and Prejudice. Life goes on…
These book phases happen to me occasionally. They start when I’m a little low, build up and then, go on for a month or two. This time, it’s been two months and I’m still stuck at romance. Been reading Georgette Heyer, Daphne Du Maurier and even Jane Austen. A Back To College phase. Completely. But I love it!
Forced to buy some of the books, even if I have read them earlier, as my own copy is either lost or in that old trunk at my parent’s place or I never had it in the first place.
Have no idea if others read like this but I go through phases in books.
My longest lasting phase has been books on travel or food or travel and food. It’s far from over. I’m only taking a romantic break. And there’s a mini-phase inside the travel one — travel and food in France! And then, there was the fun, footloose female phase (trendily called chic-lit) that started with Bridget Jones, hugely raised expectations and ended horribly with something called ‘Does My Butt Look Big In This?’ Yes. I bought that one. Once I go through a phase, I can’t be choosy, I HAVE to buy. I still go back to the chic-lit stuff willingly, only haven’t found anything exciting after ‘Nanny Diaries’, which is not only chic-lit but social commentary as well. There have been many other phases, including, thankfully, a very short-lived feminist one. Oh, and can also remember another short lived sci-fi one. Started and ended with Douglas Adams. The only one that never happened was Ayn Rand. Never had any intellectual pretensions :)
Wondering what the next one would be? Hmm...depends on the impulse of the moment really. Think I shall pick up the rest of the ‘Parlez Vous Franglais’ series and some more Calvin and Hobbes. Meanwhile, I'm very content Darcy for the 1500th time in Pride and Prejudice. Life goes on…
Saturday, May 01, 2004
For no reason at all...Oslo, when it's raining
Wasn’t intending to blog at all but the rainy day has made me nostalgic about Oslo. The day I landed there for the first time was also our first wedding anniversary but all that was quite forgotten by the two of us in the excitement of going somewhere as far as Scandinavia!
The Weather Gods were against us right from the time of the short Frankfurt Oslo flight. The plane bobbed in the air, swung back and forth like a tennis ball and finally landed on Scandinavian soil. The closest call of my life! Post landing, I stuttered, pinching myself to see if I was still alive.
It rained on and off for the larger part of the 20 days that I spent there, though this was the beginning of summer (their summer that is). But I loved Oslo in the rains. The streets, trams, the statues, the parks to the bustling waterfront, Aker Brygge, would wear a windswept, drenched, damp look and while the Norwegians muttered and grumbled about bad weather, I strangely, loved it.
It was also very very windy and cold (by my standards) and I would wrap myself in a thick jacket, put on my sneakers and walk and walk and walk.
The previous monsoon had been in Bombay (which I also love in the rains, never mind wading through water at Elphinstone Station), where it can get a bit grimy, though as I write this I can see my all time fave monsoon scene — the waves breaking on to Marine Drive.
But walking through the rains in Oslo was another thing altogether. It was clean. The rain would come and go and I would sit in a VERY EXPENSIVE café (Ok. I'll stop romanticising. Could only afford McDonalds but it had a nice view of the waterfront) and spend a fortune on a small bite, watching a sudden squall break over the water and the clouds at a distance. The rain vanished suddenly in my last few days there but by then I was so used to it that it actually felt weird. As it did to see a bright sky very late at night. It wasn’t as bright when it rained, keeping my desi sense of time almost intact.
I’ve also seen Oslo at its sunniest best, when everyone takes their clothes off, but in my mind, that city is associated with rain. I can see it now, washing the café chairs on Karl Johan Gate, people rushing to cover everything up in their stalls at Youngstorget bazaar and the wind swelling up the sails of some of the boats anchored on Aker Brygge.
And if I imagine a bit, I can still feel that weather it on my face — cold, breezy, with the smell of sea salt and fresh air.
The Weather Gods were against us right from the time of the short Frankfurt Oslo flight. The plane bobbed in the air, swung back and forth like a tennis ball and finally landed on Scandinavian soil. The closest call of my life! Post landing, I stuttered, pinching myself to see if I was still alive.
It rained on and off for the larger part of the 20 days that I spent there, though this was the beginning of summer (their summer that is). But I loved Oslo in the rains. The streets, trams, the statues, the parks to the bustling waterfront, Aker Brygge, would wear a windswept, drenched, damp look and while the Norwegians muttered and grumbled about bad weather, I strangely, loved it.
It was also very very windy and cold (by my standards) and I would wrap myself in a thick jacket, put on my sneakers and walk and walk and walk.
The previous monsoon had been in Bombay (which I also love in the rains, never mind wading through water at Elphinstone Station), where it can get a bit grimy, though as I write this I can see my all time fave monsoon scene — the waves breaking on to Marine Drive.
But walking through the rains in Oslo was another thing altogether. It was clean. The rain would come and go and I would sit in a VERY EXPENSIVE café (Ok. I'll stop romanticising. Could only afford McDonalds but it had a nice view of the waterfront) and spend a fortune on a small bite, watching a sudden squall break over the water and the clouds at a distance. The rain vanished suddenly in my last few days there but by then I was so used to it that it actually felt weird. As it did to see a bright sky very late at night. It wasn’t as bright when it rained, keeping my desi sense of time almost intact.
I’ve also seen Oslo at its sunniest best, when everyone takes their clothes off, but in my mind, that city is associated with rain. I can see it now, washing the café chairs on Karl Johan Gate, people rushing to cover everything up in their stalls at Youngstorget bazaar and the wind swelling up the sails of some of the boats anchored on Aker Brygge.
And if I imagine a bit, I can still feel that weather it on my face — cold, breezy, with the smell of sea salt and fresh air.
Main Hoon Na. Filmi. Very Filmi
Nope. This ain’t a review. All I will say is that movie is worth a watch because you will laugh. A lot. Sometimes at Farah Khan, the director, for being silly and sometimes, at Farah Khan the director for being genuinely funny. I would like to remember the fun. Because look close and this movie had the potential to be a Bollywood buff’s delight if only the main plot wasn’t so ridiculous. Here’s the filmi part:
* Shah Rukh Khan is the product of Naseeruddin Shah’s affair with another woman. Naseer’s wife doesn’t like the kid and wants him to leave. Masoom, hmmm…
* The names. The brothers are called Ram Prasad Sharma and Laxman Prasad Sharma alias Lucky. Remember Amol Palekar in Golmaal?
* Shah Rukh goes to watch Sholay with the college kids, averts an attack and chases the killers in a cyclerickshaw, named, guess what…Dhanno!
* Everytime Shah Rukh spots Sushmita Sen, he breaks into a song. All those Rishi Kapoor type numbers from Nasir Husain films. Loved it!
* The Qawwali, it’s colourful, catchy and a vastly modified take on the ‘Hum Kisise Ka Nahin’ qawwalis of yesteryears.
* The heroine is drenched under the waterfall, and thank God, finally, so is the hero!
* Shah Rukh Khan’s army avatar keeps repeating ‘Koi Shaq?’ Maybe this wasn’t intended but I do remember him repeating that line in Fauji, the first time the man ever appeared before us.
And there must be lots more. This is all I can remember. Your additions, provided you are as hopelessly filmi as I am, are welcome. J
* Shah Rukh Khan is the product of Naseeruddin Shah’s affair with another woman. Naseer’s wife doesn’t like the kid and wants him to leave. Masoom, hmmm…
* The names. The brothers are called Ram Prasad Sharma and Laxman Prasad Sharma alias Lucky. Remember Amol Palekar in Golmaal?
* Shah Rukh goes to watch Sholay with the college kids, averts an attack and chases the killers in a cyclerickshaw, named, guess what…Dhanno!
* Everytime Shah Rukh spots Sushmita Sen, he breaks into a song. All those Rishi Kapoor type numbers from Nasir Husain films. Loved it!
* The Qawwali, it’s colourful, catchy and a vastly modified take on the ‘Hum Kisise Ka Nahin’ qawwalis of yesteryears.
* The heroine is drenched under the waterfall, and thank God, finally, so is the hero!
* Shah Rukh Khan’s army avatar keeps repeating ‘Koi Shaq?’ Maybe this wasn’t intended but I do remember him repeating that line in Fauji, the first time the man ever appeared before us.
And there must be lots more. This is all I can remember. Your additions, provided you are as hopelessly filmi as I am, are welcome. J
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