Wicked Woman, KG

KG’s losing the wicked streak in her and getting all soppy. Notice how she hasn’t churned one fun post in the last so many months? Naheeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

So I’ve decided to let my wicked genes take over on Friday. I can’t afford being gloomy today. No no. Even if it looks like someone’s painted the town grey. An ugly shade of grey. So today I bring to you two terribly wicked things I did, but never revealed it to the victim of my wickedness.

At a you-gimme-the-heebie-jeebies-if-you-sit-on-my-sofa person’s home (WTF, really. You have a sofa, so I will sit. But trust you me, I still encounter such people. There is one right here in Sydney.) I saw a little tear on the sofa’s side. Not conspicuous at all. Very tiny tear. Like a hole. So very casually put in one of my fingers and then another and rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiipp. I tore it. Of course the person wasn’t around. But I did it. Heeeeehawwwww. I felt terrible later. But today when i think of it I can’t stop laughing at my puerile behaviour. Well, she is still a darling. So what if she still doesn’t let me sit on her sofa. :D . No. she doesn’t read this space.

Second one- I was at a very close friend’s place in Hyderabad. I was spending the night there. I was pregnant then. I went into the shower to take a bath, and like all the showers in Hyderabad the excess salt in the water had clogged the shower holes. I looked around for a pin, but couldn’t find one. So I guilelessly picked up my friend’s toothbrush and scrubbed the shower clean. :D. And as innocently put it back into the toothbrush mug. Haven’t told her yet. And I know she doesn’t read this space all that ardently. I should have told her when I met her this time. Will tell her today. :D

I have plenty more to share, but I know I should do that only at the cost of losing my readers.

Last and final call for all 9W 478 passengers travelling to Mumbai

Checking in.. Jet early morning flight.
In my Allen Solly trousers, laptop in hand.
Exasperated with the 10 minute delay in the flight’s arrival.
Catching up on email, in those 10 minutes.
Make that last call.
Sms him – on board.
Sms boss- running late.
Get into meeting.
Hug boss. (*Smile* I loved her. Still do)
endless cups of coffee. Black tea too.
Check into Taj.
Call my Bombay friends.
Meet some.
Order room service.
Catch a movie.
Sleep on a kings bed, Without being kicked out by your toddler. Without having to hear snores like a scooter without a silencer.
breakfast. Big one.
Hop into company car. Meet people.
More meetings.
Rush to airport.
Buy a bunch of kiddy books from Crossword at the airport terminal.
Get home. Give her a hug and the books. (he was away, as usual, remember?)
Appreciate your family more.

I could give anything to get back to this life again. Just to get my self esteem back. To feel important, to be taken more seriously. To feel like an individual, unfettered and independent.

Slow down, take a walk instead.

Sometimes, it is the unfamiliar that is more comforting. How surprisingly satisfying it can be to nod at a stranger, watch kids unknown to you, play in a park, and walk an untrodden path.

It was this craving to be away from the familiar, my very own people and things, that took me out - along a bush walk trail, near our suburb. Called the ‘Callicoma walk’ within the Berowra Valley Regional Park, it is a 1 hr 45 mins trail. From home it makes for a good 2 hour walk. I didn’t go all the way to the end (Thornleigh), but did 3/4th of it and have come back with so many sights and sounds in my head, that its enough to make world peace :). Sandstone rocks, ferns, creeks, little birds, huge tall trees, lizards, and a favourite playlist on my iphone were my only company.

Next time this world irks you no end, just set off. Take a walk, literally. Nothing can beat a good walk.

Here are glimpses from my little hike.

Taken with my phone. Not great quality images, but good enough for a keepsake memory.

‘I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in’.  ~John Muir, 1913, in L.M. Wolfe, ed., John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

Friday

I have mulled often over you, Friday,
trying to understand what in you makes my heart so blithe,
my mind so light.

Much like one’s first love-
when one is utterly unmindful of what’s to come,
and so sure of happy times ahead.
Heedless of the past,
of anything.

When you think anew, work with an unknown ardour,
unfettered, you smile excessively ,
and are always, overtly gracious.

Yes, completely oblivious that you,
my lovely day, fizzle away.

Much like one’s first love.

(Friday to me is way more romantic that the weekend itself. I guess its the feeling that surrounds it..that is a generally happy and liberated feeling. Hehehehe!! I know I exaggerate and romanticize too much. :D But Friday indeed is a sunny day.)

When I was Away

Happy Earth Day, my lovelies! I’ve been postponing just about everything in my life for a little later. The ‘later’ like ‘tomorrow’ never came. So I forced myself to take a walk- apparently a walk clears your mind and multiplies thoughts in your head. So it did. And it has now left me so stimulated that I want to do everything this very minute!

Let me at least feel the satisfaction of translating my high into words, will then get the show on road :D.

Wanted to share the two absolutely worthwhile things I did in the last few weeks.

1. Watched Kannathil Muthamittal

2. Finished Reading Sea of Poppies by Amitava Ghosh

Kannathil Muthamittal is a film I’d been meaning to see for the longest time and finally did over mugs of steaming cha. Sometimes when I think of Mani Ratnam’s films, I can never really point to his best work, because each one is such a pièce de résistance. And with Kannathil, I look at him with the same reverence as I have for Ray. It was delightful to watch a Tamil film, owing to the fact that I do understand the language in bits, though couldn’t have done without the subs. (Can I let out a secret? I need subs for Engileees phillums too. Ma kasam their  firangi confounding accents can get the better of me :D) Kannathil Muthamittal, literarily translated as ‘A peck on the cheek’, had me thinking for a long while about adoption and children who cannot accept the reality when told. How hard it must be for both, the parent and the child. But that aside, do watch the film- rarely will you come across a film that indeed touches your soul…and watch it for Srilanka’s breath taking beauty and the civil war that didn’t let us see the other face of SL.

Sea of Poppies- OH. MY. God. What a tremendous book. Each and every line is a literary masterpiece, and I don’t for even one bit understand why this book didn’t win the booker (it was published around the time White Tiger was and Adiga won it). The language, the sheer amount of research that must have gone into it, and those characters had me asking for more. And I so can’t wait for the next in the trilogy. Any idea what its called?

So then, I have been up to all this monkey business. You?

And before I end- can I say a simple Thank YOU? No no, not in the ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ sense. I really do want to thank you bloggiques, who I look forward to entertaining every day. Though off late I’ve barely written anything that’s even remotely hilarious. Still, it matters that you read. And send me emails out of the blue to say mostly good things :D. So then, Danke, for being around.

hmmm items of my life

Bath- hmmmmmm
Laundry- hmmmmmmm
Cook Dinner- hmmmmmmm
Walk - hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
job applications- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Exercise- hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Write Chapter 5- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Of last minute urges and smells

Oh God. Just when I know I have just 4 hours left before the guests come and I haven’t even embarked on the main phase of making the Biriyani, and the entrées are still just an idea swimming in my head, i get this terribly deep urge to scribble something. I need to write. Have you ever had this feeling? You know the last minute feeling, before which you gotta do that thing. Like reading the entire Paradise Lost before entering the exam hall for your final year literature paper. Or how you have to take that last hug from your boyfriend before the train left. And then again you come back for a kiss?  Even steal an extra few gooseberries from your neighbour’s backyard before she caught you just on time? (I have done that BTW. Gunu, you reading this?)

SO i have exactly that feeling right now. I have guests for dinner, tonight. And i am here blogging to save my life. So then this urge comes straight from the shower. Last weekend, I got tired of asking my man to fund my expensive Body Shop creams, and so did some shopping that wouldn’t dent his pocket or my ego. I bought KEO KARPIN BODY OIL. Before you imagine any further lemme get one fact straight- every true blue east Indian must have his/her body moisturized. That used to be done with a good rub of mustard oil before bath and soon conscious people upgraded to coconut oil and then came Keo Karpin body oil. I am not even getting into the olive oil segment. I hated this oil massage ritual as a child, but you know it just stuck. (When you are standing next to a bong/oriya you cam literally SMELL them out!!)  I gave it up for a bit- a couple of years between college and marriage when I took refuge in the Elizabeth Ardens, Lush and Body Shops of the world. And then when I couldn’t fund my own cosmetics, I decided to go desi. Whey waste 100 dollars when 4 dollars can do the same job. (A little too fragrant for my liking, but who cares :D. As long as there are no scales on my hands this winter.)

This afternoon when I opened the bottle to take some, I almost jumped out of my skin. That smell. Oh MY GAWD. Was I Kolkata or was my grandmom standing behind me? It was like reliving an entire patch of childhood again! Its amazing how some smells take you back and a horde of memories come screaming back to you. And boy, ain’t that smell STRONG :D. OK, it ain’t as bad as the Navratna oil. But still. It was pretty pungent though sweet smelling. All my bath required was a lal gamcha (the red checked cloth towel) and a Lifebuoy soap, to transport me to a time a place I so so crave for, suddenly.

Sigh.

But I still detest a mustard oil rub. UGH.

My Biriyaaaaaniiiiiiiiiii!!!!

Intolerance

Have you ever noticed, how intolerant we are of others? Intolerant at various levels. Why do we look for similarities when we meet people? Why do we gel better with people who share interests with us? Have you ever wondered why you feel happier or more secure around a person who is ‘a lot like you’ in many ways? Even if you are really dissimilar there must be that one thing that binds you together- like say reading books. You and I can have totally different interest areas and hobbies or for that matter even opposed attitudes, be we still like each other because we connect at a certain level.

But why is that important? Why do we accept or reject people on the basis of some self created biased ‘connection’?

I was giving this very phenomena a thought. Isn’t this intolerance of some kind?

Why can’t we just accept people without preconceived biases?

Mine.

In between you lie,
hands outstretched.
One on him, the other on me,
displaying your allegiance,
even in deep sleep.
I notice,
my index finger clasped tighter,
than his.
Pleased, I smile.
Carefully, I wriggle in,
making room for another finger or two,
in your wee palm.