A Journeylist's Diary

T20 = Tamasha20 ?

2007-09-26T17:32:00.000+05:30

Is it only me or was anyone else put off by the ridiculously elaborate reception accorded to the Indian cricket team in Mumbai and the excessive politicising of the event?
Now I am as happy as the next Indian about the team winning. In fact, the day of the final saw me pacing about restlessly and jumping up and down with tension and glee. I also believe that the team deserved to get a wonderful welcome on their return home. But what passed off as the 'victory march' and 'felicitation ceremony' on Wednesday turned into a total farce. Yes, fans would have wanted to connect with the players, to cheer them on, to wave at them; but making the poor jetlagged souls travel in that ridiculous open-topped bus in pouring rain for close to six hours was a bit much.
When will the Indian junta learn to become mature and respect some boundaries and rules set up to make life a little bit easier for others: in this case the players as well as the harassed commuters who may have other urgent tasks to attend to? As if the crowds breaking barricades along the route to Wankhede was not bad enough, in the end the way the people ran out onto the field was toe-curlingly cringeworthy and made me want to hang my head in shame.
Also, most off-putting was the excessive politicising of the event. At the airport, wherever one saw, it was NCP workers who were milling about with their flags, on the dais it was the minsters and BCCI babus who grabbed the centrestage seats, blocking out the players whom the people had turned up to watch. Then, the state governments jostling with each other to announce cash rewards also reeked of political opportunism, rather than recognition of merit. I am totally on the side of the Indian hockey team on this one.
Most of the media coverage was absolutely puerile. The channels seemed to be unnecessarily glorifying unruly behaviour by the masses. The inch-by-inch progress reports of the journey, repeatedly playing the Chak De India song, behaving as though there was no other news coming in from any other part of the country, were juevenile and irritating.
When will we learn to treat cricket as what it was originally intended to be, just another game?

Purani Genes aur Nayi Genes

2007-08-30T09:42:00.000+05:30

Last night, was chatting with an old friend about how far we had come from those singleton days of first-day-first-show fillum viewings, mindless shopping sprees, strange excursions to even stranger restaurants. Post-marriage we seemed to have become milder versions of Ekta Kapoor kkkkreations (or kretins, same difference), trying to balance home and hearth while trying to retain some semblance of the fun person we used to be.
My theory was that maybe, somewhere we all have a dormant "bahu" gene (associated with Responsibilities) which suddenly comes alive after we get married. Then, after some days, the now-repressed "Sex and the City" gene (associated with our singleton independence) slowly starts to register protest. Then battle ensues between the "bahu" gene and the "Sex and the City" gene. And what you see below is just one manifestation of the resultant chaos.
(This is a collaborative work-in progress envisaged by Cynic and moi during an afternoon crib session about hunger pangs, lack of chai, nuisance of bais and how all poems about wandering away from responsibilities seemed to have been written only by men and not women.)

(With due apologies to Yeats)

I will arise now and go and make some tea
And a small breakfast built of eggs and bread made
Nine baked beans will I have there and a hive for honey for the toast
And eat all this in some cozy tree-shade

And I shall have some juice there
for juice comes dripping slow
Dropping from the juicer into the tall big glass
Dripping after whales of effort
To where the bai groans

I will arise and go now
For always night and day
I hear sounds of the dhobi, milkman, maid
Banging on the door,
Or moping with low sounds by the floor

Small Town Saga, Big City Blues

2007-08-21T19:24:00.000+05:30

Chhotein chhotein shaharon se
Khali-bore dupaharon se
Hum toh jhola uthake chale...

Back when I was a proud Mumbaikar and loving every minute of it, if anyone had told me that a few years down the line I would baulk at the prospect of having to stay there, I would have laughed, nay, jeered at them. Me and hate Bombay? Wha..?! After all, wasn't I the one who sang paens about the muddy-grey Arabian sea, how at 3 am near Plaza cinema, 'the city that never sleeps' smelt of fresh coriander, the fact that I could take a train back home at 1 am all by myself, the panipuripavbhajivadapavmisalsizzlingbrowniesundaegoldenbutteredbhuttainmonsoons, how I could rub shoulders with actors and actresses while buying bhaji at the local market?
Last week, I tried to revive just a tiny portion of that love for Bombay as I struggled with the difficult choice of either being gainfully employed but miserable in the metropolis or being jobless in a small town. For the time being at least, I have opted for the latter.
I was born in a small town and couldn't wait to get out of there. So I don't know when I turned into someone who preferred the minimal creature comforts of such places as opposed to the hustle and bustle of a boomtown.
People ask me how I find Baroda in comparison to Bombay and look surprised when I tell them that I love it. (Of course, I would love it even more had there been more job openings for me here, but that's another story altogether.) But I do, seriously. I love that even the most distant suburb of Baroda is barely half an hour away from the rest of the city. I love the spacious garden in my house where birds and bees socialise with squirrels, frogs, monkeys and sundry other creatures that I'm happy not to be acquainted with. And I am seriously in love with the tiny, quaint airport.
While I have had my share of Bombay's hep and bindaas offerings, Baroda has almost everything that I would be content with in my old age: nice eating joints, a couple of good bookstores, good multiplexes, a decent amount of shopping, the odd play or two.
Take away the cattle which double up as mobile roadblocks and magnanimously drop their "holy, purifying offerings" outside my gate each morning, take away the motorists who feel that driving on the right side of the road is only for sissies, take away the unique ability of Baroda to transmorgify into Venice or Amsterdam during the monsoons, throw in a couple of decent-paying jobs for me, and you would have a place where I would ideally like to retire.
Now, if only someone could bring the muddy-grey Arabian Sea here, I would achieve nirvana.

Missing Pujo

2006-09-28T19:03:00.000+05:30

Growing up in Jamshedpur, I realise we used to observe a lot of traditionally non-Tam festivals. Which is the reason why even today Durga Puja is very special to me, although it has been almost 16 years since I actually celebrated it. It's just that the memories attached to it have a surefire way of tugging at the heartstrings.
Still remember how every year on Mahalaya in the wee hours of the morning, Amma used to switch on the tiny radio in the kitchen to hear the Mahishasura Mardini incantation on AIR. She would keep the volume slightly low so that we did not get disturbed. But inevitably, I remember I used to wake up somehow and would walk in somewhere towards the tail end of the piece. For some reason, Amma would be so moved by the rendition that she would get all misty-eyed, and looking at her so would I.
I remember my parents used to buy me at least three sets of new clothes to wear when I went pandal-hopping with my friends. In retrospect, I realise how lucky I was. Diwali would be just around the corner and that was more important to us. They needn't have bought me the stuff for Durga Puja, but they did only so that I did not feel left out. I am still thankful for that.
Walking from one pandal to another with friends, trying to figure out which locality had the best pandal and idol, gorging on the yummiest bhog ever, hogging on gol-guppas as well as ice-creams and packet "pepsis" on the sly; in the night, piling into a bus with my folks and other families from the colony to check out the pandals in far-off localities like Sonari and Burma Mines_all these and more formed the mainstay of my life for those 3-four days from Shashti to Bijoya. In between, going to Sabuj Kalyan Sangh with folks to attend the fun fair, trying to gather up courage to sit on the giant wheel, especially after that one year when Anna and his friends were stuck on it for a while after the electricity went off. On Dashami, shedding a tear or two when the idol would be taken away for immersion but by evening recovering well enough to go to houses of friends, many many friends, and feasting on sweets.
Of course, in parallel there would also be the Navratri celebrations at home, Tam-style, full of chundal and kolu and dreading going to the houses of some maamis for vettali-paaka as one would be forcefully invited to sing and one's repitoire was limited to Hindi film songs, not something which befitted a nalla ponna!
When leaving Jamshedpur, never realised that I was really leaving behind a very formative part of my life and that Durga Puja in the years to come would never be the same for me.

Macavity Macavity, There's no one like Macavity

2006-08-26T18:16:00.000+05:30

For the last few months, I have had a stalker. A female stalker, who has even managed to invade my bedroom!
I never even noticed when she first started slinking into the house. It used to be quite spooky, to suddenly feel somebody's unwavering gaze on me and then turn around to catch just a glimpse of her swooshing by. I had absolutely no clue how she managed do do it night after night without fail. Then one day, determined to catch her in the act, I waited and waited till I saw her come into the garden. I quietly followed her. First she clambered onto the karuvepelai (curry leaf) tree in the garden, then she leapt onto the ledge above a ground floor window which is at least 6 feet away from the nearest branch. Then, and this was the best part, she did a Spiderman and actually scaled the wall to my bedroom window, which is a good 5 feet above the ledge. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.
Not particularly desirous of a threesome, I tried to keep the intruder out of my room by putting up a makeshift screen apart from the curtain and securing it to the window grill with clips. I close the window but don't bolt it. In the middle of the night, I heard rustling noises and, lo and behold, this shadowy entity jumped onto my bed and ran away. She had managed to actually open the nearly-closed window, find a gap through the screen and squeeze through.
I have no clue how and why I became a victim of feline fascination. What's worse is that I am a dog person, not a cat person. That being that, I would have managed to tolerate this entire fatal attraction except for a teeny-weeny fact: I draw the line at cleaning up crap left behind by my admirers. Which is what I have been forced to do of late. Wonder which of its nine janams ka badla the creature is taking from me.
Speaking of janams, I'm sure she must have been a Russian gymnast in at least one of its lives. That, or she must have been really moved by TS Eliot's Macavity the Mystery Cat, one of my all-time faves and I suspect that of many ICSE students as well.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law,
He breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare
And when you reach the scene of crime
Macavity's not there.

Yay, it works!

2006-08-08T18:35:00.000+05:30

For the last few days, blogger was blocked both at office and home. And today, when I finally decide to wander over to the old blog to see if it was still alive, my blogger emerges from a deep slumber.
Any-veg, I shall hopefully try and make sense of all the nascent posts that were floating around in my head in this duration and put them down here soon.
But, yay! For a non-regular blogger, I never realised I would miss blogging so much.

C'est la vie

2006-07-13T18:42:00.000+05:30

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Robert Frost

Why??? God, why????

2006-07-11T19:38:00.000+05:30

Shit, shit shit. Why is this happening?
Oh god, why?

Hot, Hot, Hot

2006-07-07T18:06:00.000+05:30

Beedi Jalai-le Jigar Se Piya,
Jigar-ma Badi Aag Hai

Only, but only Gulzar can take a so-called item number, and turn it into sheer poetry. Take the above lines from a sexy nautanki number in Vishal Bharadwaj's forthcoming Omkara. I have only heard snatches, but they have been more than enough to convince me that this song is a winner. In fact, I think the rest of the Omkara soundtrack will also be hatke and quite interesting.
Apart from the paisa-vasool nature of the song which has Bips doing all the dehati jhatkas-matkas with great gusto, the music, by Bharadwaj himself, has a certain R D Burman feel to it. And teamed with Gulzar's lyrics, how can one go wrong?
If just the first two lines manage to ooze all that passion, sassiness and earthiness, then I can only imagine what the rest will be like.
Now only hope that the hon'ble Censor Board of India does not ban this number on the grounds that it "glorifies" smoking!

Reflected Glory

2006-06-23T19:32:00.000+05:30

Just saw the fiery reflection of the setting sun in the top left-hand corner of my computer.
That is about as much relevance the title is going to have with the rest of the post.
So, it's been a while. Had no excuses when someone from my minuscule, and, by now probably non-existent, readership used to ask, 'why aren't you posting these days?' Was it ennui, sadness, loneliness, something out of Godot? Wouldn't it be fun to just assume the persona of wilting violet, and with deep, long sighs go 'my life is meaningless'. Hmmmmm?
Well, the thing is, I had become lazy: lazy to collect my thoughts, lazy to collate them, lazy to take snapshots from my mental album and transfer them into word stories.
A few years back, I had seen this movie, How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Besides Whoopi Goldberg, and some older woman-younger guy romantic track, there is not much that I remember about the film. The title, though, is another story. Maybe I could buy the rights for the sequel: How Journeylist is Struggling to Get Her Groove Back.
Or, is it too risky to go with titles in the How... series these days, what with all the 'internalising' likely to happen?

Royal Gaffe

2006-03-23T21:01:00.000+05:30

So, the other day at the gym, I'm half-heartedly marching away on the treadmill when, through the glass partition, in the neighbouring aerobics studio I see this girl who I used to work with at the Delhi newspaper. Funny kid and pretty nice. Also, I vaguely remember that she came of some blue-blooded lineage.
Anyway, she didn't seem to have changed much; looked the same and going by the crazy antics she was attempting with the gym ball, was probably as mad as she used to be.
Delighted at finally finding someone I knew of my own accord (I'm a wee bit tired of most of my acquaintences here being through the husband), I rushed to say hi to her.
"Hey XYZ. Long time, how have you been," I venture.
"Oh my god. Journeylist, what are you doing here in Baroda of all places," XYZ squeals.
"Oh I got married and I work for ABC ," I say.
XYZ: "Wow! you are still with them? I wanted to start working with them also but it didn't work out."
Then we begin the usual catching-up number about old colleagues, and the 'are you in touch with him/her', and 'I think this one is working here' routine.
XYZ says: "I still remember this one headline you gave for E's article. It said _____. That was fantastic!"
I feel happy as that was one helluva good headline, at the same time I wonder about how pathetic the life of a copy desk person is that he/she is remembered only for some obscure headline.
Then I ask her how she was here and she said that she had gotten married some 4 years back to someone here.
While saying bye to her, I ask: "So where is it that you live?"
XYZ: "Oh, I'm at the palace here."
Of course! Royal family and all that. Later on in office I found out that she was, in fact, married to the scion of the family.
Anyway, just before leaving she told me: "Listen, you and your husband MUST come home sometime."
Ahem...and all that!

The Way We Were

2006-02-25T18:27:00.000+05:30

Twenty Years Ago
Singer: Kenny Rogers

It's been a long time since I walked
Through this old town
But oh how the memories start to flow
And there`s the old movie house
They finally closed it down
You could find me there every Friday night
Twenty years ago.

I worked the counter at the drugstore down the street
But nobody's left there I would know
On Saturday mornings that`s where
All my friends would meet
You'd be surprised what a dime would buy
Twenty years ago.

All my memories from those days come gather round me
What I'd give if they could take me back in time
It almost seems like yesterday
Where do the good times go?
Life was so much easier twenty years ago.

I guess I should stop by Mr. Johnson`s hardware store
His only son was my friend Joe
But he joined the army back in 1964
How could we know he would never come back
Twenty years ago.

Was idly googling stuff on the net when I came across this, this and this. And unbidden tears sprang to my eyes. Never realised just how much I missed this home of my growing up days. Never realised how pained I would be at the betrayal of my memory which did not let me remember the names of places whose picture is crystal clear in my mind.
I have to, just have to visit it. Now I know what Eliot meant when he wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring will be
To arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

From Four Quartets

Chance Encounters

2006-01-31T19:55:00.000+05:30

In the last few days I have met some people from my past.
Going through some ancient photos, which Amma had dug up, I met a bratty 9-year-old with two long braids who cried when she came “third in class”, who loved to participate in recitation contests and was part of the school choir.
While collecting a belated wedding gift which P, a school friend now in the States had left behind for me in Hyderabad, I met the giggly 17-year-old who could not wink to save her life. So she would always end up losing while playing “Killer” with the other girls in the school playground during lunch break.
While catching up with school pals or parents of school pals at close friend’s wedding, I met the 18-year-old who hated calculus and trigonometry with a vengeance and so dropped maths before her final exam, thereby killing any chance of her doing economics in college.
However, at the same wedding I also met the 25-year-old who lived in up Bombay with the other three members of her “awesome foursome” gang, who hopped across to Lonavla, Ganpatipule, Harihareshwar at the drop of a hat, who she planned to go on a Eurorail trip with. But now with all of them married and scattered across the country, she wonders if that trip will ever happen.
While playing a prank on the bride, an old college pal, I also came across the 21-year-old who sat at the breakfast table in the hostel mess where the idea for the prank had taken shape in the heads of some third- and second-years whose breakfast consisted of veg nashta and non-veg jokes.
While watching Rang De Basanti, I met the 19-year-old who used to breeze about Delhi, Gurgaon, Jaipur alongwith her dudette gal pals without a care in the world.
A few weeks ago, singing along to Sweet Child of Mine, I met the jilted 23-year-old who thought she could never ever bear to listen to that song again as its associations wrenched open her heart each time she did.
Today I heard that R, cousin who I was very close to in the past but have fallen out of touch with, is expecting. Then I met the 12-year-old who had a crush on RI, the guy that even R fancied. Twelve years later when RI had just finished tying the mangalsutra around R’s neck, she pulled this other girl close and told her brand-new hubby, “You know, she used to have a crush on you as well and I’m sorry I never let anything happen between you both!” Mortified at this untimely revelation, the other girl willed for the earth to open up and swallow her, but that did not happen.
Yes, I have met some rather interesting people from my past.

Go, Fly a Kite

2006-01-16T17:37:00.000+05:30

Over the weekend, the state of Gujarat was held hostage by some bits of coloured paper and sharp string. The sky was dotted with millions of multicoloured specks. Kites, kites everywhere: some lazily sauntering around, some slashers aggressively on the lookout for "victims". Patang enthusiasts stringing along family and friends could be found on every roof top, every terrace, every open ground.
Here, if you told someone to go fly a kite, you would not be telling them off. The hubby, an honorary Gujju by virtue of being born and brought up here, got a wonderful opportunity to show off what serious business kite-flying was here by taking me to the crowded kite market in the heart of the old city. The spectacle was breathtaking: kites of all hues, shapes and sizes; from teeny-weeny ones to gigantic ones; the single-hued plain Janes in turquoise, ruby red, magenta, pristine white; the ones with colourful patterns on them, some carrying the mug of local posterboy Irfan Pathan while others with a backless Bollywood nymphet. Colourful manja being rolled on frames, charkhis and iron frames to hold the charkhis, condom-shaped finger guards to protect your digits from serious injuries, noise-making implements like crude horns and drums and cheep-cheeping toys to create a racket when your kite cut someone else's. That's not all, also on offer were cheap sunglasses to ward off the sun and knock-off binoculors to get the full view of the kite-cutting action.
Some superheroes tried to navigate their cars through the narrow lanes made even narrower by the encroaching vendors who had spread their wares on the greater portion of the road. It took them 40 minutes to cover a five-minute stretch. Minor skirmishes, like choice gaalis being hurled and fists being waved at an ST bus driver who had the temerity to venture out onto what was rightfully his bus route, added to the fun. Of course, we didn't stay there long enough to find out what the outcome of the bus invasion was.
Saturday dawned for us at 7 am with some shrieks and blaring Hindi music. The neighbours had decided to usher in the kite festival with panache. I realised that this would be the signature tune of the weekend: loud toot-tooting with the makeshift horns, cries of exultation and despair, and seven loud songs from five different directions as everyone and their uncle set up booming sound systems on their terraces. Unlike in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's world, the air was not rent with cries of kaipo chhe. Instead, all I could hear was that nasal Pakistani singer belting out Aashiq Banaya Aapne and Aapki Kashish. Seriously, my ears are still ringing with those songs.
It being my first Pongal after marriage, there was stuff I needed to do like make the pongals and the vadais and draw the kolams. Could not wait to finish all that and get to the terrace. S had begun pacing around restlessly, so much so that he decided to draw some of the kolams to expedite the process. Anyway, it was afternoon by the time we finally got free and managed to go upto the terrace. The breeze was non-existant and managed to dampen whatever little enthu we had left. But Sunday was better. S was a total pro and again got the opportunity to show off, while I was struggling to have my kite lift off the ground. When it did move a couple of inches into the air, it headed straight for a giant tree in our yard. Hmpf!
However, the best was yet to come. At night we saw a kite that had been strung at regular intervals with several phaanas or paper lanterns, in which candles were lit. It was amazing, from afar you just saw these beautiful lights rising higher and higher as the kite rose and finally became an indistiguishable dot in the sky.
Can't wait for next year. I'll make sure that I steer the kite in the right direction, even if it means that I have to cut that tree down.

Katra Katra...

2006-01-09T15:52:00.000+05:30

Tujhse naaraz nahin zindagi, hairan hoon main
Tere masoom sawalon se pareshan hoon main

Jeene ke liye socha hi nahin dard sambhalne honge
Muskurao to, muskurane ke karz utarne hoge
Muskurao kabhi to lagta hain jaise hoton pe karz rakha hai

Aaj agar bhar aayi hain, boondein baras jayengi
Kal kya pata, kin ke liye aankhein taras jayenge
Jaane kab gum hua, kahan khoya, ek aansoo chupa ke rakha tha

Some days are just made for sitting out in the balcony, soaking the sun and listening to Gulzar's soulful lyrics set to haunting tunes by RD Burman.
Today was one of them, till rude reality intervened in the form of the clock hands informing me that it was almost time to go to work.
Sometimes, you just have to make the most of the little things in life in whatever little time you are given to enjoy them.

Katra katra milti hai
Katra katra jeene do
Zindagi hai, bahne do
Pyaasi hoon main pyasi rahne do

PS: Click title for full lyrics.

Is That Why They Call It A “Mess”?

2005-12-28T19:29:00.000+05:30

A friend who studied at IIT-Kharagpur used to narrate an interesting anecdote. One night at dinner in their hostel mess, they came face to face with a dark, gooey substance masquerading as the sabzi for the day. It was as foul-looking as it smelt. None of them had a clue as to what vegetable had been mutilated thus. They came out of the mess, read the dinner menu on the notice board, only to discover that the near-toxic substance was meant to be baigan ka bharta.
Almost everyone who has lived in a hostel will have these messy tales to narrate: of how their tastebuds were held hostage for three or four years by people resembling the cook character in Beau Peep comics.
My experience is much better than my friend’s and as such I don’t have any horror tales to narrate. If you were willing to put up with the rubbery rotis and the unimaginative and oily curries, or, alternately, if you were willing to survive three years solely on the strength of thayir-sadam and avakai, you would do just fine. That is what I used to do on most of the days, just eat the chawal with dahi embellished with Amma’s endless supply of yummy pickle. Sundays were special with thick, fat aaloo parathas and mixed veg pickle and lots of creamy dahi: more than adequate compensation for the rest of the week.
Of course, for the 300-hungry denizens of the ‘residence hall’, the most important meal of the day was tea. Never mind that the bread pakodas came swimming with their very own oil slicks, or that the puffs were as dry as ‘Jaani’ Rajkumar’s dialogue delivery, ignore the fact that the servings of pizza were measly. Forget nutritional value, forget everything else, the fun lay in the anticipation with which we would all troop down to the mess to see was on offer: poha, puffs, pastry, pakoda, (heck! Never noticed the p-fixation of the menu earlier). All this downed with several cupfuls of good, strong chai.
But the meal that I personally looked forward to the most was breakfast. And to their credit, the mess guys at my hostel did manage to make it a gala affair. There was plain bread, toast (buttered and unbuttered), jam, cheese spread, baked beans, eggs (boiled, poached and omlettes), corn flakes, milk, fruit and coffee and tea.
I remembered all this as today I had this irresistible craving for toast-butter: the crisp and crunchy on the outside but slightly soft inside, oozing golden maska variety of toast-butter that the bhaiyyajis at my mess turned out by the shovelfuls each morning.
The health-conscious lot would veer towards the crisp, dry, unbuttered variety while the gluttons would make a dash for the buttered toast racks. Move on further down, hand a spoon to the miserly assistant warden and watch her slightly dip it into a cheese spread jar and shake it and shake it and shake it and shake it till a very thin film of the creamish condiment apologetically clung to the spoon. Pick up a bowl, fill it with cornflakes, pick up a glass of milk, pick up a fruit, greedily eye the fruit on friend’s plate and pointedly ask, ‘You sure you want to eat that’, suppress a satisfied smirk as friend unceremoniously dumps aforementioned fruit into your plate, cautiously balance the piled-up place while staving off the hungry masses who trooped in bleary-eyed. Go to your customary table plonk down next to the window and dig in. Sheer bliss. Soon enough, the sun would seem brighter and cheerier and if you strained your ears, through the din of all that morning traffic you could even hear the birds chirp. Grrrraaahh!! Now I am hungry.

Night Shi(f)t

2005-12-14T18:50:00.000+05:30

Ouch, ouch and ouch! Just read this and cringed on behalf of my compatriots in the media and BPO sectors. Having been there and done that for nearly seven years, I know how these ungodly timings can play havoc with your system. At least in the newspaper, it was slighhhhhtly better. We got to go home "relatively early", say by 2 am or so. But my BPO stint was living hell. For three-odd months, a colleague and I were forced to do complete all-nighters every alternate week. Come in to work at 10.30 pm and leave by 7 am. I could never manage to make up for the lack of sleep even in the daytime. The doorbell or the phone would keep ringing: someone trying to sell me a credit card or a loan, the dhobi, the cook, the postman, or the landlord's nosy watchman wanting to know why my flatmate had been dropped home late at night by "a-guy-who-did-not-really-look-like-her-brother-and-was-he-really-her-cousin-as-she-claims..."
As a result of all the sleep debt which kept accumulating, I began to look and sound like something out of The Living Dead. Meanwhile, the health of my colleague took a major beating. When the doctor gave him an ultimatum to do something about the crazy timings, we both figured enough was enough.
At that time, we did not do too much work for the US. The bulk of our work came from Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and India. The rationale for introducing night shifts in our department was the "off-chance" that someone in the Far East may decide to send in something very early. My colleague and I systematically tabulated the volume of work that came in during the night in those three months. We found that most of the work which came in later in the evening was something that could be dealt with by the earlier shift which left at 11.30, or even if work landed at night, it was something that could wait till the next morning when the 8 'o' clock shift came in. And if it was that urgent, we could always put in an extra hour or two.
Armed with this excel sheet, we went to our boss and argued that we were ready to come in earlier and stay on till 2.30 am, but if the all-nighters continued, she would have the distinction of having two corpses as her employees. She was not too keen, nevertheless relented half-heartedly. And things marginally improved thereon.
I am back in a newspaper now. This time round, I have shamelessly laid down terms that I will not RPT not work night shifts. I realise that I may be committing professional harakiri because the bulk of the work happens at night. And this being a small centre, they will be more than happy to hand it over to me. And yes, sometimes when I wake up in the morning and look at the paper, I cringe at something which I know had it been done by me, would have turned out better.
But I remind myself that I was the one who chose to put family ahead of everything else. And in the end, that is what is most important to me in the long term.

I realise...

2005-12-05T18:51:00.000+05:30

I love Bombay. I hate Bombay. A two-day trip over the weekend reinforced this.
Got a chance to meet up with old flatmates and a friend from the old office. It is amazing how just six months can make a world of difference, not just in my life, but also in the lives of those who were in it.
I thought this trip would assuage that unfathomable longing that has been tugging at me . But now I realise that what I was missing was not a geographical place per se but a place in time. And nothing I do can ever bring that back.
This trip also made me realise that this city, home to me for 4 years, is no longer mine. Neil Diamond comes to mind:
...these days I'm caught between two shores
LA's fine but it ain't home,
New York's home but it ain't mine no more...

Drought Relief Needed Urgently

2005-11-18T17:24:00.000+05:30

Have been thinking a lot. Of late, I seem to have lost my imagination. I know it sounds strange, especially considering that I have now come back to what is purportedly a creative field. I just seem to have run dry. Compared to my last avatar in blogging (http://afishcalledgoonda.rediffblogs.com) where again I wasn't really the prolific, posting-everyday kind of blogger, this time round I don't seem to have much to say. The last blog was started to keep myself occupied during frequent spells of joblessness at work. From there, it grew to become a feel-good arena where backpatting from fellow bloggers spurred me on to write some more. Strangely enough, It's not like I don't have material which can be written about. I do, it's just the translation process from thought-in-the-head to post-in-the-blog which is the stumbling block.
I have been blog-hopping like crazy, reading random blogs, a whole bunch of them. And what amazes me is the authors' ability to churn out stuff. Of course, at some point or the other, most people talk of blogger's block, talk of throwing in the towel, talk of quitting blogging for good, but then they never do. I wonder what keeps them going. I wonder what that certain something is ...I wonder...now what could it be? Oh yes! An audience. For all that jazz about this is My blog, I write for myself, I believe a friendly 'hello in there' does, in fact, spur on the author. It is a very human trait after all, this desire to be admired, to be praised, or, on a more basic level simply to be heard.
Not just writing, I seem to have stopped dreaming as well. I used to be the kind who dreamt in technicolour, 70mm, with Dolby Digital Stereo effect. Of late, I just go to sleep and next thing I wake up: the interim is devoid of any kind of mental audio-visual show. Sigh! How boring have I gotten!
Anyway, just found out that one of my contemporaries from the field has got a contract for her first book. She is a good friend of a good friend and someone whose articles I used to really admire. She has that, for lack of a better word, flair for writing. She has a way with words, of getting them to say what exactly she wants them to say. For example, you won't ever find her saying 'for lack of a better word'. I admire and envy her for that ability.
Yesterday, one of the kids at work kind of made my day when he asked me for writing tips, on how to improve his copies. At least someone feels my coming here has made some difference. For the time being that's enough for me. The book contract can wait a couple of years.

Flipping the Calender

2005-10-26T18:28:00.000+05:30

This time last year. Of late, I have been going back there quite often. October-November-December 2004 happened to be the most busy period in my three-year-long find-a-groom project. And the most productive as well.
Have been re-reading my mail archives for these months the previous year. Go back and taste bittersweet moments: of wondering if I was some sort of a magnet who attracted only wierdos and losers, of saying no to some suitors who were really nice guys but lacked that one essential quality which fate had deemed essential-they were not S.
This time last year, S and I serendipitously crossed paths in the rush-hour traffic of cyber-matrimony. Looking back, I am thankful that I can now smile at the entire agony of "he seems to be The One, I hope this works out" and occasionally venturing into "I have no idea what I will do if this does not work out" , the endless waits for replies to e-mails, careful dissection of each syllable, the eternal dilemma of "why hasn't he called/should I wait for him to call/how long should I wait before I call/theheckwithit maybe I should just call." At the end, I can say that it was all worth it.
This time last year, as though caught up in a whirlwind, things started falling out of place and then fell back into place simultaneously.
The other day, I playfully took some kohl from my eyes and applied a small dot behind his ear. "Crazy woman, what are you doing?," he asked bewilderedly. "Drishti pottu," I replied. All this introspection about 'this time last year' has made me a superstitious old hag.

Driving Miss Crazy

2005-10-20T17:40:00.000+05:30

Driving lessons are almost over now, just a couple left. And I'm still not sure if what I do everyday between 11 and 11.30 am can be qualified as driving. Dunno why, but I have this great fear of traffic. Since I moved from Jamshedpur to Hyderabad 15 years back, I just gave up trying to navigate anything on wheels by myself (with the honourable exceptions of trolleys at supermarkets and airports). Before that, in good old Jampot I was one of them kids that one sees zipping around on a cycle without a care in the world about those huge monsters called trucks and buses belching toxic fumes. But now, I believe in letting everything in sight go ahead of me, till the exasperated instructor has to yell at me: "Arre madam, road khali padi hai, aise ruk ruk ke chalenge to aap gaadi kaise chalayenge?" Sigh. What if i flunk the driving test? Double sigh!?!
On another note, someone gave me this giant bunch of lemon grass yesterday and have trying to look for some easy thai veg recipes where I can use it in. Not sure though if I would like to subject people at home to the result of the experiment. Sigh...when single, trying out recipes was so much easier. Even if it turned out to be a disaster, flatmates would happily volunteer to gobble it up and pretend to make lip-smacking noises. Ah, miss those days!!

Hmmmm-bug

2005-09-30T18:25:00.000+05:30

So hubby got back today after 24 days of touring. He has been away for most of September, come to think of it, from August-end itself. He came back for 2 days in between but again had to go for purpotedly 10-odd days, and ended up having to stay on for 24. Poor guy, I didn't make life any easier for him what with my constant sulking over the phone. But then again, in four months of marriage, if we have been together for barely two months, am I not entitled to be miffed about it?
Anyway, he has to go back again on Tuesday for another week. Sigh! Am getting used to it now. And anyway, these days have so much to do that I don't miss him as much as I used to earlier when I was jobless and unemployed (yes, the two have different connotations.) And now that sis-in-law is here, it is much better. Seriously, otherwise these 24 days would not have been easy. But she made it seem like 4 days. Thank god for her.
On the work front, I am still encountering partial joblessness. Which is why I think I wil come back to blogging.
Bunked driving class because S got back in the morning. Have not been practising on the bike either. My SIL, who is teaching me to ride the bike, has more confidence in my driving abilities than me. But honestly, feels great to be able to ride the bike. Of course, they say nothing ever comes out of nothing. So the fall I took the other day, eventually did lead to me driving her back home all the way, right?! Everyone else drives a Kinetic or a Honda, but I cannot wait to become dudette on motorcycle zipping around on the roads here.

Having a Wheel of a Time

2005-09-17T08:34:00.000+05:30

Enrolled in driving class yesterday after procastinating for months, maybe even years. Also, yesterday was the red-letter "FiRST-DAY-IN-NEW-JOB-AFTER-FIVE-MONTHS-UNEMPLOYMENT day".
Was speaking to P the previous night, wishing her luck for her first day in new office. Typically she asked, are you nervous about job. I say I'm not, not nervous, not happy, not sad, not nothing. Just relieved that from now on there will be a pay check to my name every month and I will no longer have to leech off S. Tis sad, but that's about he only drive I have left to make myself go in to work. Love of the job, the idea of making a difference, all that stuff which made me become a journalist have disappeared somewhere, and I wish I knew how to get it back.
Anyway, driving lesson was kind of ... fun?!?! Was a nervous wreck behind the wheel. was gripping the steering wheel so hard that I thought my knuckles would crack. The instructor was a kindly man who kept making encouraging comments.
In the afternoon, office was pretty ok, except for the nearly non-existent dirty, stinky loo. Was kicked that I had not forgotten the systems and the commands. I guess I was being sized up by one and all. But I have decided, this time round will be emotionally detaching myself from the workplace, I will do what is required and leave office worries behind in office, not carry them back home as I am already carrying around excess emotional baggage.
Coming to that, last night had a mother of all rows with S. I have no clue what sparked it off but there it was and it just kept spiralling out of control. It's just too crazy. I hate who I have become, I was never ever like this. Never.
I wish I was more religious or something so that I could find an outlet for all that is there inside me.

And All That I Can See Is A Yellow Lemon Tree

2005-08-13T22:21:00.000+05:30

I'm back in spite of damned Rediff which didn't let me log onto my blog. What is it that they say about the pen being mightier than the sword and all that blahblah.
Anyway, thought a new avatar would befit all the newness surrounding me.
I always wondered about the adage "If life gives you lemons make lemonade". Life has literally been flinging them at me by the armfuls. The lemon tree in the backyard sheds at least 4-5 every day (Hmmmmmm!! Wonder if there is any deeper significance attached to this.) I cannot make pickles because there are several bottles of those already stocked up. I don't have the patience to sit and squeeze single lemons to make lemonade.
Whattodo ?