candid hogwash

What do I write?

2007-06-15T12:40:00.000+05:30

Free writing- without which I feel incomplete, might not have any value but I will still try and give it a structure. Because a structure makes me feel safe and look at that which I will be unable to look at if it is let loose and allowed to be beheld in a loose way. It seems like I am looking inside my brain and the biological details turn into labyrinths of lava. Could be just a stereotype of a scary place imagined on the lines of hellish fires.
I hate my inability, I hate this stasis and I hate to have to think. Some moments I feel like the thoughts will burst through my ears and letters will come out singing and skipping like in an animated story intended to teach children- ‘learning can be fun’.
And I feel the vomit welling up inside me, and I want to start a scentence with an and, I want to. And the computer this word doc. Reigns in the errors to a large extent, and then makes errors of its own but I want to drum out words like a sexual experience- violent and brutal. Just the drumming and the loss of cramping structures and these letters itself control and bind and cramp- just as desire itself controls and cramps and makes you want to vomit.- its sick when I think I punch in something which I might think is wise. The philosophy. My head would explode with the disgust I feel for all acts of language. There is a freedom I want from language language language language, and still need to express… I clench my fists and wonder- why cant vomit be the more accepted form of self expression.

sneak peak to check if i still got any readers

2007-06-04T17:51:00.000+05:30

Its been long. Now that I am quite sure that nobody reads this blog I am finally comfortable enough to blog again. So, an incomplete post, i dont know why i was thinking like this on Feb 19th, but well i was...Some lines have been duly censored much like war communication...

February 19th
Crazy crazy day. So I did what I am best at…making a complete fool out of myself. I think I’d truly wither away and cease to exist if I don’t do something stupid for a while. Alcohol is an evil vile thing. I think I am going to giveup this satanic spirit, because ofcourse the concept of moderation is completely and totally alien to me. So lets see where that takes us- I have almost given up smoking, I am planning on giving up alcohol, I have actually -------------------------------------------------------------------------*censored*. I am heading towards sainthood.

Firstly, why is alcohol a vile thing. Okay, this might take some time, lets start with why and how I have almost givenup smoking…
There was this stage when all of us were trying it, coughing, getting used to the nicotine hit, feeling cool about ourselves because we smoked (I always had some self esteem issues!), and well being a woman smoker made me feel so liberated. Going and buying a cigarette while the men gaped and looked on disapprovingly made me feel like I was contributing to the feminist movement in such a big way…paving the way for future women smokers, who’d find it not embarrassing to go and buy cigarettes because there sisters before them had the guts to look up at the patriarchal pricks and blow the smoke into their faces. (aside- I am convinced that if I am not dramatic, I will die.) those were the days of sitting outside college and smoking, smoking inside college coz life is all about cheap thrills, smoking in shady corners in the colony, and looking down on moralistic aunties who told us very candidly that ‘girls from good families shouldn’t smoke’, to which I said- what the fuck is a good family and how the hell do you know that I am from one.

The friends I made over cigarettes are going to last me forever. One of the best ice breakers ever. Recently I was spending time with Nandi and her cousin. These two hadn’t seen each other in some time, didn’t know much about each other, as the cousin had moved to Canada when she was about ten. So Nandi was being all goody two shoes in front of the cousin, and cousin was also all polite friendly but wary of talking too much. All it took was me asking if anyone was interested in a smoke, and we three soon endedup sitting on my balcony, guzzling beer, smoking a whole pack and talking about boys, excuses made to the family to go to Cuba with boy, sex-and how its so much better when you are stoned, coz apparently the guy can go for hours- of course, a claim made by the cousin which just begs verification. I’ll just have to find out on my own, all for the sake of knowledge.
Smoking is an institution which evokes trust. If I can lightup in fromt of a person without feeling like he or she is judging me, then I can tell them about some other things in my life and more often than not, find a shared understanding.

My smoking memorabilia includes a photograph of a much rubbed on my face birthday cake, shape of a cigarette with gold flake written across it, and a lit gold flake on it instead of candles; two cigarette holders which I thought were so la-di-da; an ashtray, supposedly a candle stand of some sort, a gift from nanka, but was just always used as an ashtray n I refuse to throw away the last buds that lie in it; a packet(empty now) of Peter Stuyvesant, a gift from a much loved friend; a tacky orange lighter with a bright blue light at the bottom; a bag which will forever smell of smokes… and so many memories of udhaar from panvaris, how a cigarette crackles when its drizzling and the smell of wet earth is mixed with the smooth smoky classic regular, how chai tastes with gold flake, of winter mornings that were warmed by a cigarette, of smoking in a loo in ludhiana and loving the shared complicity in all the sneaking, of the wonders of sitting on the john in the mornings with a lit cigarette, of bad throats from India Kings, of smacking my lips after Gudang Garam, of a father who got mad because his daughter’s friends could smoke inside the house whereas he had to go out on the balcony, cocktail cigs and More, sutta buddies, an eerie park known as the ‘adda’, disapproving glances, lecherous stares, boys wondering how a girl could smoke Regular. Bidi, Davidoff, Marlborough, Goldflake choti and badi, and mine with much love…Classic Regular!!
Now are the days when the same friends, all talk about how they want to quit…earlier the conversation would start with how long have you been smoking, now everyone just seems to ask- so for how long have you been trying to quit?
With me its simple. I had ...

*I dont know what i wanted to say after this, well, it was sometime ago...so there.

To...

2007-01-04T11:46:00.000+05:30

Me lying in his bed, his arms around me,
His hands caressing the curve of my waist, first slowly
Then with an urgency to which my body responds.

The pile of clothes on the floor,
The moving up by bases
Derogatory both to the act of love and to the game.

So, we stop at second and I ask him if he thinks I am fast.
He replies that he’s ready to wait, we do whatever, whenever I decide.
Nestling warm in the cliché of his own decency

I do the mating dance of being hesitant,
he on his part, pretends to understand.
But all I can think is-
sooner murder a child in the cradle , than nurse unacted desires.

I think I am quoting Blake to him, he looks at me askance.
A touch, a shrug, can say much more, than these words ever can.

Tomorrow I’ll get a sepia toned copy of Garden of Love
And hang it on his wall.
Maybe he will understand the joy of my need for him,
and leave it at that.

drive with pompous

2006-08-08T17:46:00.001+05:30

Fridays is the day to travel to the other end of this city. A day for paintings, films, u specials, sexy professors with gravelly voices, sitting in class with boys and a spic macay café.
Friday was a long day. Long classes, new faces and a documentary on Vermeer later, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I decided to hitch a ride with a classmate whom I had met a few times before during conferences and recalled that he stayed in South Delhi too. ‘Pomposh’ as I shall call him henceforth was nice enough about it and said that we had to take the metro till central secretariat as that’s where his car was parked. Maya and I had no clue as to how far the station was, so we took pompy’s word that it was walking distance. We started, with P running in front of us, n breathless maya n I trying to keep up with him. Twenty minutes and a very angry maaya later we reached, and were told by a gleeful pomp that we took a much longer and circuitous route. I had a flitting vision of pompy as a child, lighting crackers tied to the tails of little puppies and grinning while the poor thing jumped about yelping.

On the metro he kept listening to his ‘classical’ music on his ipod nano. Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart; and I thought about my mp3 player with its assorted collection of soft rock, Sufi and down right popular music. While I was musing on my plebian tastes we reached our stop, and before he could introduce an ignorant me to the magic of Chopin, we had to get off. Once in the car the conversation became more general and as we crossed Khan market I told him about this café that I really liked. Not many people knew about it, and so it was mostly empty, situated as it was in an innocuous corner. He mused and said- “—arcadia …wasn’t that the story that spoke about this idea of exclusivety.”
I didn’t have a clue. “O Henry!” he said. I didn’t miss the supercilious note in his voice but usually late to take offence I ignored it. The only O henry I had read were The Last Leaf and The Gift of the Magi. “that’s children’s stuff.”he said. Then he went on to compare him to Saki, and how his style was not quite so great as ‘Mopasha’s’. Mopasha??? After being dismissed once already as being under read, I did not want to sound like a fool by asking him who the hell was mopasha. Assuming that maybe he was a bangoli writer or some such thing, I kept my peace. He went on about how he read Camus when he was 10 and all the while I kept looking at him speechless while feeling extremely stupid.
Then I thought about the book in my bag on faiz’s poetry. Assuming someone so erudite would be interested in one of my favourite poets, asked if he had read any of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s works. Looking down on me as an impertinent thing, he declared that he had no interest what so ever in Indian literature.
Not even Pakistani? I ventured to ask, but the humour was completely lost on him.
Indian literature is something I feel quite strongly about so I persevered. “Agreed that a lot is lost in translation, but don’t you sometimes feel that Indian writing is closer to our immediate context and the connection is less mediated through secondary reading, and more through direct experience?”
Pompy brooded and said-“well I do read some Bengali literature, but I cant stand translations”
Fair enough. But what then of Indian writing in English? I had just finished reading Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel, and hadn’t been able to stop raving about it. It is so amazing to read a satirical allegory and understand almost all the references without footnotes. The only referencing was nagging older people for explanations of names like ‘priyaduryodhani’. A book that is based on a very popular literary piece- the Mahabharat, but discusses the nitty-gritty of the independence movement and the political situation in India was quite an experience.

After my impassioned speech about Indian literature, all pompy could do was smile at me. He gave me the most condescending look ever and snorted a short laugh.
All this while I was wondering as to what good is so much learning if the other person has a closed mind, and so insecure about his achievements that he would denigrate a whole country’s literature or 'literatures', because he doesn’t know anything about it.

Short ride, he dropped me at Nehru place, I took an auto home. Well, at least he knows about Bengali literature, that’s something, and maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe I’ll go home and Google who mopasha is. Wait a minute! ‘mopasha’, short story writer?! Could he have possibly meant Maupassant ?
Breaking into a smile I mused, that maybe after all I wasn’t that ignorant. And even though there was this person trying to break free from all things Indian his pronunciation was still as desi as it got.

--‘oh, gulab jamun,’ she said, imitating Biswas Babu, ‘and the chumchum! And mishti doi. Oh- the bhery mhemory makesh my shallybhery juishes to phlow.’
-Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

drive with pompous

2006-08-08T17:46:00.000+05:30

pointless!!

2006-06-27T16:13:00.000+05:30

There are so many incomplete posts that i never bothered to finish or post. what do i do with them?
while i was writing these posts either there was a powercut, or i was called away by someone, or i ran out of ideas. the stream of thought once broken, and i lost all interest in completing them. now that i am too lazy to write a new post today, how about a series of incomplete posts.

last i was working on a post to be titled- 'Things that i love to hate.' here are bits of it-

"Chino- he absolutely takes the cake, as the topmost ‘thing’ that I love to hate. If I had psychic powers, he’d be dead by now. Now that he has already been hacked, guillotined, scalped by Indians, raped by neo nazis, stoned to death, tortured and made to live with cats, I feel better. NO! I wish. But there is still hope. The last time we brokeup, oh no, the last to last, wait the time before that or was it….grrr…he’s like a chronic ailment, like a sty. Why couldn’t he have been more like chicken pox, or the mumps. Worry not, there is still hope…once when we had brokenup, I came across this email about how a large percentage of left handed people die trying to use things invented for right handed people. Hallelujah!
Online communities- oh my god! Whats wrong with people these days
Sappy movies with meg ryan n Julia Roberts
Ppl who come to my gym
My class in south campus
Ugly love stuff
Women sexier than me….oh wait…I dnt love to hate them…I just hate them
Kids…."

make of it what you will. i am just too lazy...

VARUN

2006-06-11T22:35:00.000+05:30

After watching the Da Vinci code at spice, ma, papa n I got delicious dinner packed for an evening of kebabs n beer. Didi was waiting for us at home. All of us were arguing about what music to listen to. Papa and I wanted Abida and mum absolutely insisted on Kenny g., and the only consensus was on how sucky fm is.

Then we stopped at a red light and an old beggar, with no clothes on his back, and a tattered dhoti around his waist knocked on our car window. He was bent, one could not say whether from age or poverty. Of course this sight made us feel completely guilty for leading the life that we do, and call it pity if u may, papa gave him a five-rupees coin. Just then a guy on a scooter came n hit the beggar on his arm. (I cant keep calling him the beggar, and I don’t know anything more about him, so I shall give him a name, Varun.). Varun staggered a little, and then started walking, but the obscene man on the scooter grabbed him by his spindly arm and slapped him across his face. Varun still didn’t react, he took it as if it’s his lot to be slapped around, n started walking away, without the least retaliation, and it was as if he hadn’t even registered what had just happened. And then the man (who I have no qualms in calling the obnoxious scooter guy) hit him again. Shocked I rolled down my window and yelled at him- “ kyun maar rahe ho use, who toh bechara garib hai, aur galti toh tumhari this.” Immediately papa rolled down his window and shouted at the obnoxious guy to let go of Varun. Mum said- “dekho uske paise bhi gir gaye”.

Three of us were screaming at obnoxious, and Varun just walked away, as if four people fighting would not change his lot. Then obnoxious turned towards us and asked my father to stay out of this, and then asked him to park his car a little ahead so that he could teach us what a mistake it was to standup for a defenseless guy. When he saw that his lame threats weren’t bothering us, he took out his cell phone, and noted the car number.

All this while there were people all around us who saw, but never said a word. The guy on the bike behind obnoxious just signaled to papa that obnoxious was drunk so we should just let things be.

The signal turned to green and all of us drove off. Varun had moved to the other side of the road and was hobbling along as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I felt hot tears sting my cheeks, and a huge sense of shame that crying was all I could do. I stood up for someone, but was it enough?

Here is Varun, who I know nothing about. Who probably is a junkie, sleeps on the streets, is harassed by cops, ill-treated by people, and has become completely numb. People don’t see him anymore. Maybe he doesn’t see himself either. He’s lost himself in the thousands of Varuns who like him sleep on the streets and are like dogs who children pick on for their amusement. He is as speechless as an animal, coz there is no system, no government protecting him, and if someone beats him or even runs him over, the mcd would just put the carcass away . But the fact that we don’t see him, or that he doesn’t see himself either, does that mean he doesn’t exist?

And writing this blog, does it free me from the guilt I feel at living the way I do. At being privileged. The biggest problems in my life, like guys and friends and a career pale…I feel foolish. I have no right to call him Varun. Maybe I should have gotten out of the car and asked him if he was ok, asked him if there was anything I could do apart from giving him money, given him a hug, some sign of acceptance…asked him his name. Do you think he knows what his name is?

i could have danced all night...

2006-04-19T18:16:00.000+05:30

The other day Maya and I were lunching at the Big Chill, one of those hot tired days when we were too pooped out to talk and were just sitting silently and picking on our salad and bread, and you know how Big Chill is full of these movie posters, so all of a sudden, I go like-It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk… and that started a volley of movie quotes- which quikly degenerated in to movie songs…and with my singing that’s never a good idea.

So here I am listing a few of my favourite movie quotes--- lets see how good you guys are---
(btw no quotes from The Godfather-though absolutely want to-but wud be too easy-
urrgh, lemme just get it out of my system- aa aaa AAAAA!! Ok then!!)

1.girl- Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.
Boy-Ehhhh. I'm sorry. I need the judges ruling on this. "Days of the weeks underpants"?
Girl-Yes. They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, "You never wear Sunday." It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? Where had I left Sunday? And I told him, and he didn't believe me.
Boy-what?
Girl-They don't make Sunday
Boy-Why not?
Girl-Because of God.

2. …oh Rick,you have to think for the both of us, you have to think for all of us

3. She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty.

(Another one frum the same, this is too easy…)

The rine in spine sties minely in the pline.

4.
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

5. Why don't you love me, Jenny? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.

6. Dances With Wolves. I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?

7.girl- bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession. Priest-What sins have you to confess? Girl-Twice I took the name of the Lord in vain, once I slept with the brother of my fiancé, and once I bounced a check at the liquor store, but that was really an accident. Priest -Then it's not a sin. But... what was that second thing you said, Loretta?

8.- And then? -No "and then"! -And then!

9.- I'm Cammie, the Russian tease. - Violet, the Jersey nun. - We all play our little parts. That one's Rachel, the New York bitch. Only Rachel really is a bitch, and I really am a tease. - Cammie, you can only be a tease if you stop sleepin' around, babe. - Yeah, I keep forgetting that part!

10. I'm poor, black, I may even be ugly, but dear God I'm here, I'm here!

Leave your answers…love ya!!

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

2006-04-08T21:54:00.000+05:30

I read this forward today and it disturbed me a great deal. It was about women and how special they are. Read on-

Why Women Cry-
A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?""Because I'm a woman," she told him."I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said,"And you never will."Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?""All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on thephone, he asked, "God, why do women cry so easily?"God said:"When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weightof the world,yet gentle enough to give comfort.I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth andthe rejection that many times comes from her children. I gave her a hardnessthat allows her to keep going when everyone else givesup, andtake care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children underany and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her verybadly.I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband neverhurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusivelyto use whenever it is needed.""You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes,because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."
Please send this to five beautiful women you know today.If you do, something good will happen - You will boost anotherwoman's self-esteem!You can also send this to men who would really like to know the value of a woman and why she is so different from others.

Wait a minute. What the fuck!
I was so confounded after the first ten lines that I thought it had to be a joke and there must be something extremely funny at the end. But no such luck. Did I miss something?? Do people actually find such sexist nonsense uplifting- I want to laugh in everyone’s face who was filled with a warm fuzzy feeling after reading it. If you are one of them don’t ever bother to read my blog again.

Ya, ok. So I have never been this rude, but seriously who comes up with stuff like this. It’s down right offensive- women are special because they cry-
Ok-men don’t cry? And it’s women's lot to be miserable so lets celebrate that! Woohoo!!

Another one-Women are made up of contraries- they have to be strong while being gentle, patient while being ill treated by their children, and if their husbands beat em up, they are just testing them. for what??huh!?
and ofcourse what sort of mysoginistic discourse would be complete without a bit of theological reasoning thrown in- eve was born out of adam’s rib- his daughter. Well I think it’s incestuous and makes my stomach turn.
Did anyone notice that it’s a boy asking the questions- I bet this was written by a guy.

What this sort of reasoning does is create an image of the ideal woman- one who doesn’t complain, is pliant, slaves away, is a sensitive punching bag, and how she bears it all is through sense less crying.

Such discourses are a huge problem intoday’s world. Women are economically independent and have their own careers. They are no longer ‘ the angel in the house’. so what has happened is this celebration of a superwoman, who is seen as a cross between a kick ass professional and the perfect home maker. I think such ideas have only enslaved women more as they are constantly living upto this ideal and thus get entrapped into them. lots of people would like to propogate ideas about how women have super human strength to manage everything. Ofcourse this isn’t true.
WOMEN ARE NOT SPECIAL. Don’t put us on a pedestal that we all break our backs trying to reach.
This celebration of a woman’s capabilities is not liberating, it’s just extremely patriarchal discourse, candy flossed.

What really grinds my gears is the fact that a girl sent me this and she is doing a course in gender studies. I am so irritated by the fact that stuff like this dupes intelligent women.

Smartenup people and get rid of these stereotypes which not only hamper the development of the female psyche but the male mind as well.
Arent boys constantly trying to live up to this idea of machismo where they cant cry.
'metrosexual'- umm-that concept is kind of beyond my grasp so shall not delve into it.
But all i know is Men and Women all have the same weaknesses and failings, and same strengths, they just vary from individual to individual, and gender has got nothing to do with it.

I scare myself sometimes..

2006-03-30T21:52:00.000+05:30

Last night was a series of disturbing dreams- In the first one I was a Doctor on the lines of Dr. Moreau in a forest and was conducting some experiments on the eating habits of wild animals, and in the end not unlike what happens to the famous doctor all the animals turn on me and I was running for my life. On the way I found some nails which turned into armadillos, strange flat sorts, but they were armadillos all right.
Then I was standing at the edge of a pool ready to dive in with my costume and my cap on, when I noticed how dirty the water was. It was covered with slime and flies infested. A bunch of women clad in saris (strange crowd to be found next to a pool) told me that this was because of all the children that peed in the pool. Eauuu…
Then I was in a classroom arguing with my teacher for some absurd reason. And then I had a really vivid dream- I was in a house in some hill station-apparently of some family friends. They had a son and he, and I don’t know how I knew this, was my ideal guy. The whole ying yang and searching for the part that Zeus halved bit-that strong. And then I turned into a vampire and tried to suck his blood. I have such rosy ideas about love!!

Phew! No wonder that I couldn’t getup early and start studying.

The whole vampire bit has always been a fantasy of mine. There is something decidedly sensuous about the undead and no one can deny the obvious sex appeal of Count Dracula and Spike(Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, for the information of the less morbid). Once I dressed up as Morticia Addams for my college farewell, that was a lot of fun, especially when I wentup on the stage to serenade to the entire English department. That’ another story and can be saved for a later post. Meanwhile my mind is preoccupied with the idea of finding me Gomez.

Morticia: Gomez, last night - you were unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me. - Do it again!

bluesy!!

2006-03-06T18:03:00.000+05:30

i should be studying right now, but here i am writing this blog. first and foremost reason for doing so is that when maya comes online she has somethign to entertain her(u know i love you), and then, anything to keep me away from my books.
after today's disastrous papers i dont think i want to study, but i do want to get drunk. Get drunk and laugh and get thrown out of V2, i know i always call it V2s. what a shady place that was, but we all loved going there. Usually after exams, so ok even after random assignments, if we happened to be in Gk, if someone was feeling low, and most of the times for no real reason at all. and why not, the beer was unbelievably cheap. hmm...i think i'll stop using the past tense, makes me feel really old and anyway it hasnt even been a whole year since we graduated.

But i miss it all-the smoking outside college, the no reason visits to GK, TSF(even though stopped going there ages ago), getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon and dancing to strange songs and sharing the floor with pre pubescent teenagers who needed to 'get a room'.
I want to go and smoke in shady corners of SV, and scourge for chillad just so that i have enough for momos, or bhelpuri, basically i just want to know that some friends are just a phone call away and would go and do whatever crazy silly thing amused us.

I dont want to be a grouch, i love M.A., and i adore all of my friends, they are seriously fantabulous...but they are all so far away...and in the evenings when i just want to step out for a sutta there is nobody i can call, and now even Didi isnt here. yeah, i am hitting an all time low.

maybe i should get a puppy. but if i make it have beer with me wouldnt it die of liver failure?? i know a friend whose dog died like that...i might be lot of things but i am not a puppy dog killer.
Once i actually made a statement like i dont need a boyfriend i need a puppy dog(had just hit puberty), i have come a long way!!

From a faint hearted Epicurean

2006-02-26T12:16:00.000+05:30

Today I woke up and decided I wanted to make lunch. Told Ma as much on the breakfast table and she wasn’t amused. Why can’t I cook? I could sense ma’s trepidation as a vision of me meddling around in her kitchen flitted across her eyes, so she put on her ‘on the verge of a nervous break down’ act again and told me that I should do it another day as today she wasn’t up for it. Well, I’d be doing the cooking, not she! Anyway, even after I said ,that, I am not at all ‘groomed’ and what would my future in-laws say, how would I bear the insults? My pleas (all done in a melodramatic and highly amusing fashion) fell on deaf ears, so I decided to get pleasure out of writing about food.

Hmm…I love all kinds of food, and seriously there isn’t much that I wont eat, except ofcourse tohri, tinda, parval and lauki...I am allergic…just like I am lactose intolerant.
My absolute favourite is street food, maybe because I cant afford the gourmet delights of the higher end restaurants on my meager pocket money, but then also, street food has a charm all of its own.

The thela- wallahs around Sarita Vihar have some really interesting fare to offer- from tikki burgers to Lebanese wraps. But away from the main market there is this innocuous old man selling boiled corn. He takes some corn and mixes in it this chutney, which is deep rust in colour, made out of red chillies and tamarind. The hot chutney with the mildly sweet corn is amazing, and enough to make your ears smoke, and one plate/pattal is for five rupees!! So much better than the corn you get everywhere else these days.

Now that we are on the corny topic- I also love roasted bhutta with lots of nimbu and masala.(sorry for using all the local terminology but the flavour of the food is lost without it!!). This bhutta is perfect when it’s drizzling, the air is a little nippy, and people are running with umbrellas. Then stop and have freshly roasted bhutta. It has the warm smell of coal and there is nothing like the crackle to beat the cold. Drenched, biting into the nimbu smeared bhutta, while the smell of freshly wet earth fills ur nostrils- umm…divine!!

Another one of my weaknesses is Aloo Chaat. Again from the roadside vendors, crisp, steaming and deep-fried, with masala and very little chutney. Of course then there are the tikki burgers which are ok once in a while, though look extremely suspect, but what’s so wrong with a bit of dirt anyway, if the food is good.

Now I am a die hard Carnivore, so this whole bird flu thingy is something that’s giving me nightmares. So I propounded a reasoning- look, a) No human cases of the flu have been reported in India. b) Very effective government control of the situation. c) It can affect our economy n the poor poultry farm owners very negatively, so we should consume more meat to help them. d) Indian cooking methods kill the flu- so boil n pressurize the chicken, who’s asking you to have it raw? And e) I’ll shrivel up and die if I don’t get some meat soon enough.
Would someone please explain all of this to my mum?

She finds my state extremely amusing and yesterday she said -“whats wrong in being a vegetarian for a little while?”. I’ll tell you whats wrong in being a vegetarian(ghaaseatarian)-as someone I greatly admire, Anthony Bourdain, says- “vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” And that’s one of his more polite remarks.

Now I will dwell into the Tamsic pleasures of MEAT-

Isn’t this post already long enough? - hmm (to be continued…)

nobody loves me, everybody hates me, i think i'll eat worms

2006-02-21T14:13:00.000+05:30

Alone and heart broken. I have officially been abandoned by terrible chintzy Chino(i am glad i gave u that name, u deserve to sound like twilled pants!!). boohoo- i donot believe that they are no PCos where u are. you are online and not even replying to my messages. and here i am missing you so much, that my message on msn is all mush n Sinatraesque- Dream a little dream of me--EEEaauuu!! i feel sick- i shall change it to Victims of Change.

Heart break aside, i had such a great time on sunday. dancing to 0bscure songs, well if u can call that dancing!! made such a complete buffoon out of myself, was delicious fun. i had a great time Leela, sunderBUN, and Cat- thx guys, i love you!

I am ofcourse on an all time high after my sudden burst of philanthropy when i gave my ohh so sexy only mango top (which i wanted to wear) to Rajy and wore my skirt n black spaghetti instead. but still had Leela n SB leching, so was all too glad.

believe it or not- Monday morning i gotup on time and attended all my lectures, then got my act together and made a study schedule for the upcomimg internals- 6th and 8th. Wish me luck!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, all bright and sunny. Spring has come to campus (like the Giant's garden)- there are flowers all over the place and everything smells divine. in the afternoon SB, Leela, Cat and me had ice lollys sitting under a tree on cool grass. Then i picked(not plucked, mind you) soft pink flowers for all of us and we wore em in our hair. ummm....i love spring.

hmm...wasnt this post supposed to be about heart break...well, i might not sound too sad but i am. And on top of that am reading Tristram Shandy so am on the verge of a nervous breakdown coz as AS put it- it does seem like retribution for my past sins that i have to study Sterne.

so as limbo beckons- shall start reading volume 3...

(just reread the post and seems very staccato, but if Sterne could be cannonized for Tristram Shandy, i think i can get away with this...)

Oral Sex!! (how many hits now!!!)

2006-02-14T10:51:00.000+05:30

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice-

One of the greatest mysteries (do I dare say unsolved?) of my adolescence was Oral sex. Well, when I was about thirteen the hottest news was the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton saga and for the first time everyone was discussing, well, sex, and the word most oft heard was oral sex. At that age I was the only one in my class who used to read Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey archer, so was looked up to with a certain degree of awe and respect,(in my defense, I gave up reading those books ages ago!!). anyway, so when the alien concept of oral sex reared it’s head(pun intended) all the kids turned to me for answers, and I didn’t have a clue, but of course I had an image to maintain so I came up with the darndest of ideas.
I knew that oral, of course, was something to do with the mouth so in an extremely sagacious manner I said-when a girl and guy talk about it, say over the phone or something, then that’s oral sex. :-)!
Sometime back I was telling my friends z story and tiny Maya told me that she thought again that of course oral sex was when a girl and a guy spoke about sex but,(and it has to have the Maya touch) they had to be sitting across each other(and here’s the clincher)- naked!!

'But then,' thought Alice. 'shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--but then--always to have lessons to learn!'

After about eight years and two boy friends later I am none the wiser. I have actually had someone use the words ‘tongue tornado’- yeah well he thought it was such a turn on- okayyy then!

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `off with her head! Off--'

While we are on the topic, let me tell you about the most intense description of an orgasm ever. It’s from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway-

“It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then as it spread, one yielded to it’s expansion, and rushed to the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split it’s thin skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores. Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew; the hard softened. It was over- the moment.”

Hmm…

Henna!!

2006-02-09T18:17:00.000+05:30

I woke up today morning with the smell of henna emanating from my palms and it roused in me a warm sense of sensuality. This smell brings back so many memories- Ma's beautiful hand, full of intricate patterns, almost weighing it down. Yes, always just the left hand, never both, 'one has to be practical', karvachauth or come what, you wouldn’t let anything tie you down. Late night 'sangeet' and 'mehandi', tinkling of bangles and anklets, women playing on the dholki and singing some seriously raunchy songs. I was always the one who would never dance, with this complete teeny expression on my face, like how i was so above all this. Hardly ever got mehandi put then, it was silly and I pretended to hate the smell. But ohh, how I loved it!! There is something so warm about it, so soft. Something extremely erotic, maybe because of the snatches I remember from hindi songs, like ‘116 chaand ki raatien, aur tumhaare kaandhe kaatil,gheeli mehandi ki khushboo…” – or like that song from Dil Se, “jiya jale”.

So many spiels surrounding the intensity of the colour, but what I like to believe is that the more passionate a person is, the richer the mehandi, as the heat of ones blood makes the colour bloom. Well, my hands are rust almost,(oh well. I always like to think of myself as this passionate sex goddess anyway!!). But I had no occasion to get my hands thus, except that Chino and I were at the Surajkund Mela yesterday. There was this group in a corner stall selling henna powder and Chino was busy clicking their pictures. They were from Rajasthan and their attire, or faces, I don’t know which he found so interesting that was clicking away to glory. With nothing better to do I started chatting up this little girl, also so that she wouldn’t look straight in the camera and he would get her ‘natural’ look.

Then the smell started working it’s magic on me and I just couldn’t resist getting some put on my palms. Well, I have never been a huge fan of intricate designing with peacocks n what not, so I just asked her to make a circle in the middle of my palms and fill the tips of my fingers. Ofcourse this was something most unusual and quite amusing, so her kid brother also wanted in on it. I was reduced to this guinea pig that the two were testing their skills on, and in the eagerness to out do each other made a complete mess. I could feel the eyes of passerbys gazing at my hands with mirth, and some actually passed some silly comments, but I was least bothered, coz it was so much fun. Sunny afternoon, C with his camera(taking my pics now), two highly amused kids and this Rajasthani woman singing folk songs, I couldn’t have asked for more. Exactly why suraj kund mela was so much fun this year, coz usually its this crazy shopping frenzy with ma, but this time all I bought was a li’l papier-mâché bird to hang in my room and a book mark. All we did was watch folk performers and when C gave them the photographs he had taken last time their faces lit up, and they all surrounded us and wanted him to take more pictures. They performed again and again for the sole purpose of being photographed. Then they clambered around C for the pics and when I smiled they all blushed and looked away shyly. Such simple people who were happy just to see their pictures, and C was so happy to just to see them smile (and yeah I am sure the adulation didn’t hurt too much either!!).

Names To Faces

2006-02-01T18:12:00.000+05:30

This is just something i wrote during a very boring lecture. Usually i just doodle in the margins but somehow i caught a phrase and started penning random thoughts. This is just free writing and not a poem...though i would like to think of it as a rock song, but hey, who am i kidding!!

Names to Faces

Dont ever give faces to names, a whole
Just let me not know I feel
and weep and weep and weep I may, this way

I still cant believe that I've been trapped and my cage is built and ready
I starve and starve and don't remember my own self
There is beauty in all but there is no beauty in pretence

So wish could break free, wish could get away
These years sitting on my eyelids, drooped all day

The man on top of me
Grew and flew away

This bog
I cant follow the lights
I fall into faces and hollow eyes

Touch me, love me or just let me be
It's all torture to my soul and my eyes are like little slits now
So hard to see

Then sanity, and acceptance
End of solipsism
A fond touch, a friendship
Thats beautiful

2006-01-31T19:40:00.000+05:30

Are these storks? i am not too sure but incredible picture C. It sure does look like you are again feeding some sense into me, and i am just listening sheepishly!! hehe!! you know you are gonna be an ace photographer( and according to me,and my untrained eyes, you already are!!).
phew!! what a week. saw Rang De Basanti, err an image transduction sequence according to my dear friend Exiled Taranula :-). BTW where are you? your turn to be incommunicado??Come online sometime and we shall discuss the rights of non human animals!!

>> Just finished reading Great Expectaions. Hmmm...I should be critically analysing it, but all i want to do is curlup under the covers and die. i have this overwhelming urge to sob into my pillow and purge myself of all the pain, sickness and heartbreak. My first reaction to anything is always emotional, never 'critical', Blah! how in the world am i going to answer questions about the political and economic state of Victorian England. All i want to write about is how fascinating I find Estella, fear that i would endup like Miss Havisham, want to be a blacksmith and be the God Mother to Joe and Biddy's children. also, about my worst fear, i think i am like Pumble Chook! I do.
The regular reader, i assume, always associates with one of the main protagonists, align her/himself with the most positive figure and get vicarious pleasure out of it. But I, who was born completely retarded and has such a low self image, that as soon as i can figure out the vilest and most contemptible character in a story, i cling to it as my alter ego (does this happen with anyone else? please tell me so that atleast i know that i am not alone). Then what's to become of me with six million novels to read, most of them tragic? i think that by the end of this term i would probably turn manic-depressive and shoot myself. this blog would then be called - 'candead hogwash'. My sense of humour never fails to disappoint me. urrrgh!!

the perfect cup!!! COSTA!

2006-01-27T19:49:00.000+05:30

yummy!!! thats italian for coffee...
delicious aroma of roasted coffee beans, warm yellow lights, coffee colored all wood furniture, John Denver singing about country roads, and the promise of something new!! yup, thats when chino and i strolled into the Costa outlet at PVR Spice, Noida. we had been here before and Chino ordered what he had the last time- Americano(Espresso with added hot water), black. last time i'd had espresso- traditional italian way- just a shot of strong black coffee. dark and frothy. and if you want to be up all night you can go in for a double shot called 'doplo'. i love these Italian words-'doplo', there something so creamy about the word when i roll it in mouth. doplo, doplo...

gosh, the cups they use are unbelievably adorable. my espresso came in this tiny dun coloured china mug which looked more like a shot glass and chino had to choose mug sizes. there was 'primo'(the usual barista size), 'medio' (almost twice that) and then the largest (i forget the name) is unbelievable. anyhow, chino settled on medio and it was more than enough for the both of us. just then i absent mindedly remarked how i love the way we can choose 'cup sizes' here. it sounded like i was shopping for underwear. and shy chino turned completely crimson. hehe!!

so, completely satisfied with coffee i dared to try the eats. so-blueberry cheesecake. hmm...well lemme just stay they should stick to serving only coffee. coz loading a thin slice of cake with cream n drops of blue berry doesnot make it a cheesecake. so if i steer clear of the food Costa can definately be my new haunt. also the eye candy(behind the counter) aint bad!!

afterwards we just roamed around in the mall and Chino bought me this adorable cuddly(shall post pictures later!!). i am all smiles now and have been pirouetting about the house!!

thankyou Chino- you make me smile. (i know you are going to hate your name, well will change it later). thx!!!

besame mucho!!!!

2006-01-27T19:35:00.000+05:30

Besame besame mucho, each time I bring you a kiss I hear music divine. So besame besame mucho, Yeh I love you for ever say that you'll always be mine...

i dunno .....i am just happy.......so......
besame mucho!!! muah!!

Street Food and Republic Day!!!

2006-01-26T10:27:00.000+05:30

well i had written a fairly long post but my computer bailed out on me so that was lost. well it went something like this-
brrr...cold thursday morning, and the ear still hurts but i am in high spirits. there are 2 reaons for this- 1. i met nannu online today (first thing in the morning), boy do i miss her(i love u sweety), and we spoke about our street food excursions, which made me all hungry. hmm...so today i think i'll go and eat all the junk just like we used to and miss her when i am alone with an aching tummy. nannu , though the food was always from street vendors with deplorable hygiene levels, still somehow we never got sick did we? so, today i'll binge away to glory, or to an upset stomach!!
the other reason for my sunny side up is that today is Republic Day!! now dnt go judging me as this jingoistic individual who gets goosebumps everytime she hears the national anthem. read on....

Some scenes leave indelible impressions. Some are occurrences which one remembers through a flash, through scents, taste, caress. These might be grave or ordinary occurences that just got stowed away in some recess of the mind and surface every now and then. Some of these we remember from the sheer repetition of it. Well, ever since I was a kid, on every Republic Day we used to sit as a family(well almost) n watch the ‘parade’. Papa, Didi and I used to curlup in front of the television and watch with rapt attention. I used to eagerly await the tableaux bit as that was my absolute favorite!! The sheer brilliance of theses huge moving cities almost! Papa ofcourse loved the display of the weapons of war(very masculine and patriarchal I can say now) but he loved it.
The scene changed a bit as years passed. Didi stopped being interested and mummy was always the wise one who saw the sheer waste of such a display.
Well, I have heard it is an ‘image building’ tactic of the nation. We invite foreign dignitaries, display our military might, our diverse culture(this sounds so clichéd!), with VVIPs and blackcat commandos. The audience are all proud Indians from a thriving and well fed economic class. This is the India we would want all to see and believe in. but there are those who are conspicuous by their absence. The millions that are below the poverty line are almost forgotten. The amount of money that goes into this elaborate façade makes one think that, is image building so important? Is this pomp and waste the only way we can derive a sense of national identity? And then isn’t this construct, of a unified so what if diverse India, at the end of it all completely just that, a construct, a fictitious projection of jingoistic ideas?

hmm...still i ponder as should you. but this day would never lose its charm for me which was inculcated in me as a child. but the fact that i am sitting here writing this blog instead of watching the parade (which btw is on rt now) makes me smile at the irony of it all.

2006-01-24T18:35:00.000+05:30

yippy!!! finally my own blog.....after hrs(well not really) of excruciating mind work i have finally started my very own blog!! btw, just to see how my post is gonna look.....this is d very first, the founding piece of hogwash ........nonsense away!!!!