Recipe of me!

The Recipe For Harini

3 parts Drive 2 parts Wit 1 part Attractiveness Splash of Naughtiness Finish off with an olive

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Of Dard-e Disco and 4 year olds

Of course, Om Shanti Om and SRK have been in the news for SRK's abs and more.
I have been watching rushes of OSO , with the detached involvement of a channel surfer- at breakfast and other meals in front of the TV.
With my friend's 4 year old- its been a lot more, I figured.
While driving for lunch, the cute li'il fellow, decided to quiz me.
Bemusedly, I decided to enlighten the kid.
So I said , " Go on".
He says, " Do you know my favourite song?".
I said , " No Sam - you tell me".
He says, " will you sing it, if I tell you?"
Thinking, it must be some popular ad jingle or Cartoon n/w theme song, I urged him to go on.
He said, " Dard-e Disco!"
Me, "What?", thinking I heard him wrong, never heard of '...Disco' something.
He latched on to it, and chuckled, "YOU DONT KNOW- DARD E DISCO!"
After expressing his shock and joy that, I " don't know anything", he proceeded to sing - " Woh haseena woh neelam pari, kar gayi kaisi jadoogari, Dil me mere hai dard-e disco".
He had me repeat after him, until he was rest assured that I had learnt the 2 lines.

So then, I saw the song on TV yesterday for a whole 2 mins and was surprised at the kid's accuracy.

Sow sure has an absorbent sponge for a son.

so... I am back from my vacation

Tra..la..la..la!
My birthday gift was 5 days in Thailand, and what a gift it was...
Of course, we still argued every 150 seconds on the last day of the trip and it was allowed, because, my birthday was technically just over.
And of course, my husband proved,to be just as easily irritable as mom says, dad is.
But of course, this doesn't take away from him the pretty garnet ring and other sweet things he got me.
He is such a stickler for airport rules, in a weirdly fanatical manner.
"you are allowed only one piece of cabin baggage-so shove your handbag inside your backpack."
Other people who lug around some 6 shopping bags are just rule breakers, who say "Sawatdee Khaa" and flout airline rules. That the airline doesn't mind, as this is a relatively empty weekday late night flight, hardly matters.
Sheesh!
Also, the husband shall not experiment with Thai food, cos we burnt our very intestines one day, with authentic Thai food(its all the wife's fault - you know).
Husband will only eat chicken variations from bloody KFC (no offence, but KFC... oh please)or Mac D's - the wife on the other hand can experiment with other variations of Thai food, because she is a " retarded culture soaking extremist", who wants to drown her self in "local stuff", all the time. And oh , did we mention, how difficult it is find to find vegetarian Thai food in pork, sharkfin,seafood, beef loving Thai Land! But hell, the extremist wife will seek the very hard to get things.

Of Shoelaces...

Did you know, its rather impossible to buy ONLY shoelaces in Bangalore?
Rather, impossible to get.
I scoured the "you get anything here" areas of Bangalore and just about every shoe shop (huge brand, chinty shoe shop etc.) for a specific color -type (cream/blue- thin round)for A's ID shoes.

You only have the plump broad black/white ones, which a) dont match with a weird blue and crean shoe and b) more importantly-don't slither thru' the shoe eyelets

Damn those shoes and damn the woman (ME)who insisted that the shoelace be pulled off, when the shoes were washed and also the woman (ME AGAIN) who , while fidgeting with the lace, pulled the tag thingy that lets you lead the lace thru' the eyelets.

My Aura

Your Aura is Blue

Spiritual and calm, you tend to live a quiet but enriching life. You are very giving of yourself. And it's hard for you to let go of relationships. The purpose of your life: showing love to other people Famous blues include: Angelina Jolie, the Dali Lama, Oprah Careers for you to try: Psychic, Peace Corps Volunteer, Counselor

What Color Is Your Aura?

maybe i just should stop questioning, the purpose of my life.
may be i just need to understand that i have no hidden role in the larger scheme of things.
may be i should focus on reading with my heart and soul. And not just flip thru the pages.

totally out of focus- there is a heavy fog in my head. its a fog that envelopes the direction of my thoughts and life. My bubbly exterior is slowly dropping its visage to reveal a completely clueless, unfocused thought process.
I don't know if its the new job , the cold, or the fact that another birthday is fast approaching.
I take stock periodically (period varying by degree of happiness).

storybookboard

1. Wee Willie Winkie- Rudyard Kipling
2. While the Auto Waits - O'Henry
3. Witches Loaves- O'Henry
4. Salmon fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday(in progress)
5. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (in progress)

UnSiblings and such like...

I used to have an imaginary younger sister.
I created her, on the fly, each morning, her supposedly annoying antics et. al.
I wonder what people with siblings feel about me...
Not having a sibling was the worst thing that could have befallen a kid in Class 6, except maybe, having to wear glasses. Now that was worse- but in a whole other way.

I think i tried to evade glasses, until, the teachers would catch me squinting at the board or copying notes from the neighboring kid and force me to put them on.

I think I had a pretty traumatic kidhood.

Rest of weekend

Shopped !

nice laceup sandals...from 6th Block, KM

A is soooo lucky, he gave Sivaji a miss...

Laila and Mariams ghosts have been put to rest.

Am on Linbaba now.

'Sivaji'

i saw it...

really nothing more to add...

EXCEPT, Rajanikanth can get away with bull crap...

EXCEPT, i spent the longest 3 hours of my life, watching 'Sivaji".

WAS almost thulped for announcing the above, in public.

WILL dig down into the Rajani archives...JUST!

A Perfect Fri'day'

Cold, wet, morning

• Hair set successfully, despite rushed morning. :-)

• Task mails, quickly dispatched

Drizzly rainy afternoon

• Hair still 'well set' :-P

• Awesome pepper paneer fry in Shezan made with lotsa 'kadipatta'

• Window shopping thru' Pantaloons new collection (happiest moment)

Rest of office time well spent in listening to Radio Indigo.

Packs many splendid 'reads'

I have been tripping through Khaled "Kite Runner " Hosseini's 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'.
It has been a compelling read and has been keeping me up till dawn even at the end of really tiring days...

I am anxious, to get back to Laila and Mariams life, later tonight.

Among other noteworthy events, lined up for the weekend:

Rajanikanth's Sivaji.

Shopping for shoes/ bag/clothes.


heehawhaw

Trainspotting!

Mark Renton, the narrator:

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life...

But why would I want to do a thing like that?

I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you've got heroin?

Anyone, who talks about missing the good old days- has obviously not seen the stationery, thats out there these days.



Its so cool- I want to hoard stationery period.

I quite like this philosophy myself!

"I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time."

~Charles M Shulz

Updates as of 3:00 pm IST


A bad throat infection is setting and nothing can avert it, from its destination of choice.

BBC Entertainment Rocks!

This conversation between the protagonists of My Family, the show on BBC, is a carbon copy of my conversation with the better half- only thrown in with more abuses and insults..

The scene : Husband and wife, on a Saturday evening, wondering what to do.

Wife (repeatedly, to the husband, who is ignoring her and reading newspaper) : We should do something together, you know.

Husband (after much nagging): Why cant you just 'be', honey, and not 'do'- we are human beings after all; not human doings.

Wife : you are a human doing, you know, and not a necessarily good one, at that!

G.O.A

A 3 letter word that describes 4 days of my life.
A new meaning for bliss, for relaxation, for happiness.
I am so overwhelmed by bliss, that the pain of the 10 hour journey can be easily ignored.

I don't think people in GOA have a real career, I mean how can you work in GOA ? Why would you? I think I am envious of folks who actually live and work in GOA.
BAEH!

I think my favoritest place in GOA is Anjuna. I almost nearly drowned here, playing water frisbee, but it was so cool. I came out laughing and sputtering and coughing up sea water.

A particular bull strayed on to Anjuna beach and drove a bunch of people crazy. Now this lucky dog(I mean bull) got his portfolio shot free of cost, from a bunch of expensive imported digicams. The goras went crazy and started posing with it, left right and center. The bull, waking up to his new found popularity, posed arrogantly and had quite an impressive photo shoot, I'd think.
I hope I don't see this footage on NatGeo :-P. I really have seen enough.

I shopped at a late night Tibetan bazaar for trinkets and stuff. Shouted myself hoarse bargaining!

Oh, and yes, also got fooled by an Ukrainian dancing couple on a cruise, who claimed to dance the Samba, Salsa and the Waltz. The Waltz looked, vaguely familiar, but the others were rip offs.

4 days in GOA is just not enough. A week- 10 days may be mildly satisfying.

I hate people who only have to travel 5 hours to get to GOA!

January Musings...

The entire phase between, my last post and now, has been eventful to say the least.
Catching up with friends, running the marathon and then, the promotion. Its been a good 'high' , so far!

I fear the coming of an ebb - the Bhata. The Bhata, technically is the placid calm phase but surprisingly, my mind equates it to a 'low'. I liken my current 'high' to the turbulent trough of the Jwar - the flood, marked by the turbulence of high tide.

The feeling of complete control on my life, has never been as palpable as now.
But along with it comes the fear that, it'll all slip through my fingers. The gossamer strands-the reins of control are strong, but I wonder if I'd stop noticing when, strong becomes taut and tense.

I realize, that I am destroying my high, with the compelling but remote shadows of a low. Maybe, a low is just not imminent, a low does not necessarily follow a high. But what about Edward Murphy and his law then?

Maybe, I am on track to discover a new phobia. The fear of Murphy's Law - Murphiophobia.

Maybe, it exists already. I need enlightenment. I think my friend D will call me a FREAK.

I dont know what I was thinking when I wrote this :-)

Over time, the lines between right and wrong, good and bad, have blurred. So much -so that the line is now an imperceptible dot. A dot, whose boundaries are blotting into the background ...The dot is fighting to retain its identity, to grow, to produce more of its ilk.

This Thanksgiving Message from the Google Team, caught my attention and required to be etched someplace for posterity:

"A Gobble approach to email.

In 1621, a few hundred Pilgrims and Native Americans sat down to celebrate a bountiful harvest. The feast lasted three days, and included fowl, venison, fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, and plums. There was no pumpkin pie, however. There was also an alarming lack of user-friendly webmail services.

Now, 383 years later, it's once again time to celebrate what has come to be known as Thanksgiving - a time to gather with family and friends and give thanks for all that we have. We have many things to be thankful for. But mostly, we are thankful for you - our users - who remind us of why we work so hard all year and why we love what we do. That's better than all the dried fruit and clams in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for making our approach to email yours.

Gobble gobble,
The Gmail Team"

Friends, Shopping, Bangalore, Pictures, Partying

A blur of events...
One and a half years of catching up.
Shopping with fun gal pals.
Tripping.
Drinking.
Initiation into a funny stoned clique.

Dee told me about my preoccupation with the past. I am shaken out of my state of denial by a tear shower. A welling resolve to bury the hatchet and all strings binding me to my past, surfaces and for once I let it burst to the surface. I have a past but it shall not bog me down. I am above the past. I have a life so much better, cleaner and honest now.

Work slips into the background almost incongruously. Deadlines don't seem to matter much. A distinct sense of detachment from "i gotta deliver on time" settles in.

A couple of well shot pics of you can be truly life altering huh?

Yesterday

Last evening:
The soft thudding of feet on concrete under the moonlight was welcome music. I had forgotten, the feeling of strangled breath, the rhythmic sound of hair swishing in the wind, the pounding of a heart forced to pump more in your ear, the warmth of blood rushing to your head flowing into your ears and then the sweat pouring down.

I like running in the moonlight.


Today

I played my first ever game of Sudoku. Sometime in the last 6 months, this game caught the fancy of a bunch of friends and a newspaper (I read). I was obviously removed from the Sudoku wave, until, I saw a hoarding in South Mumbai and then promptly launched myself into Sudoku world enthusiastically. You can see, it doesn't take much to draw me into another "waste time at work" medium.

http://www.websudoku.com/

I like, the Evil level, to describe the toughest Sudoku level. It conjures mental images of a Japanese monstrous dragon grinning and clapping :-) (also the colors - gold and purple, of scheming royalty)

2 days In Nuce!

3 days in a row...
The Sun is shining down on Mumbai.
The skies have emptied their largesse over the last 4 months and have no more to drench us with.
It is nice to feel the sun beating down your neck.The dusty streets have never looked this welcoming.

And now we approach October heat!
There shall be cribbing about the intolerable heat in 2 weeks now.
Its amazing how short-lived human memory and satisfaction is. We shall always ask for what we don't have. We shall consistently forget how much we yearned for the very thing we crib about.
Sigh! Human Nature.

Post hibernatum...

20 odd days since the last time I blogged - Bad, very bad.
Work, more work, running around, sleeping. "Sleep", my personal paradise reduced to a mere 6 hours. Sometimes I wonder what I do with my time - I don't think I have been doing any "me " stuff. Work has robbed me of vestiges of personal time and space.
I haven't done anything remotely creative.
My attempts to read "Sophie's Choice", which is truly engrossing, have been repeatedly shot down by my tired eyes. William Styron deserves better so, Sophie's Choice waits until, I try to get some order in my life.

Today is a new day - another one of those days- when I promise, myself a new order and sanity in my haphazard existence.

My social networking is at an all time low - a thumbs down on that account as well!

As a step towards 'me time', I saw, the Amitabh- Rani starrer Black on TV,and loved it. Tear shedding and a quick thankful prayer for the world of sight and sound followed.

My mother loves the movie Khakhee with the crazy enthusiasm of an Amitabh fan. She sat me through, parts of the movie- only so that, she could regale me with dialogues, she has learnt, by watching the movie 5 times.

Meanwhile, I think I can produce a decent rendition of Vertigo considering it plays in my ear almost all day.

I don't quite know, how to sign off, so here go -abruptly!

On an extended bout of paranoia...

left work early with most others, as I saw storm clouds gathering over the Mumbai sky.
A "dark as night" sky at 5:00 p.m.
Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder- reminiscent of the biggie- 26th July!!!
Well, so far, it has just been another dark wet day- nothing bad, nothing flooded, nobody stranded.

Weather Check at 8:09 p.m, Monday, 5th Sep'05 - all is well.

A South Indian Soiree

I had quite forgotten, what a South Indian wedding can do to you.
Two weddings in quick succession, were enough to tire me of the soft rustle of Kancheevaram Sarees- not that I'd stop hoarding them, now ;-) and banana leaf feasts.

A South Indian wedding, like any other of its ilk, elevates the subtle act of people watching, to undisguised proportions. Each woman, is reveling in the variegated display of jewels and silks and probably conjuring up images of her next must-have bauble/saree.
No self respecting "native" at one of these South Indian weddings shall be caught dead in anything but a Kancheevaram, unless of course, you are a man or a child.

I like, "the steeped in culture" feel of eating the wedding feast on a banana leaf, but, I cannot manage the mad scramble, to gulp my meal, before it decides to flow out the central rib of the banana leaf. For someone used, to holding a plate of food in one hand for eternity, perched, on the couch, staring at TV or reading, the nimble agility that is required of the banana leaf is a tough ask.

The South Indian wedding ,though I make it sound like that, is not all silk and food and plantain. Agreed, we don't usually make a song and dance out of much,wedding or otherwise, but we do have some interesting rituals preceding and following a wedding.

For the first time, I saw a little song and dance sequence as an optional pre-wedding ritual, where, Radha is married to Krishna, and devotees organize a mock dance competition to honour the Lord Krishna. What was most interesting was, only men, partook in this competition and these, men were not young, except maybe in spirit. The entire sequence, is enacted with a rice pestle, as a prop. This, perhaps because, the child Krishna, was bound to this pestle, as punishment for stealing butter.
Cool huh?

Book Read Status:

• Re-read Rebecca, loved the experience. need to hunt down my old copy
• Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma- Very interesting read
  
• Ah Sweet Mystery of Life - Passable-not Dahl's best work
• Squeezed in Rule of Four-so far, ok!
• Grappling with Catch -22(sigh)
  

Odors

Being myopic confers one with an innately sharp sense of smell.
I wouldn't call that a very good thing,because, there is a wire connecting the nasal nerve to the head and the extremely sensitive nose in contact with unpleasant odor triggers a headache, when it gets irritated by any odor which,well, irritates it:-).

Sequence of events as it occurs:

Odors wage war on the nasal nerve (I think some knowledgeable types call it Olfactory or something)
Odor Type: Happy/ Unpleasant
Result: Peace/Jangling
Result (Result): Tug at the connecting wire
Result (Result(Result)): Sniff seeking out odor/Irritating headache.

Its interesting, the number of odors that I encountered today. I probably paid too much attention to them today.
In retrospect, must have looked quite a mutt, sniffing and crinkling my nose :

• Shampoo and conditioner on freshly washed hair (happy odor) -sense of freshness
• Warm vanilla sugar (ditto)- ditto
• Filtered coffee at 7:30 am - zingy
• Crisp toast-delicious
• Dusty road- puky
• Chlorine/sulfurous odor on the factories belt- terrible, nauseous, puky.
  

Note: In the midst of all the chloriny sulfury affair, I could swear, that for a brief moment in time, I smelt Davidoff Cool Waters. Thinkworthy!
I try holding my breath, the entire time the chloriny affair prevails, but when I exhale a li'il, the odors attack with a vengeance. So I am going to throw all that unwanted effort outta the window.

I only just discovered that dried sunflower has an extremely earthy, herby smell- likee
I also like the smell of green tea and aloe and so the folks in Bath & Body Works stopped making it!

P.S: Also discovered a connection between the odors and the throat.

I am one hypochondriac mutt- my olfactories (yes that's what they are called) rest!

I ask myself

...if there is a specific reason, why I was put where I am and if anybody thought up a good enough reason to answer this question.
Am I here as part of a mission that I am not yet aware of?
Am I a just a miniscule speck in the bigger scheme of things?
If yes, what the hell is the "bigger scheme of things"?
And am I really that "miniscule"?

Is someone watching while, my life unfolds with each passing day, to reveal, more people, things, emotions, secrets,activities.

Is someone, checking stuff I do, off a general list of human flaws?
Does this person, insert a little smiley, against a particular horrible deed, and annotate " I knew she'd do this ".

Is someone taking stock?

"How long does a journey have to be before it qualifies as one?
I ask because I've had some that were four feet long, some 25 feet, others that were the length of India, and yet others that, with a slender needle of a silver plane, tacked together great sheets of ocean and continent.
The four-foot journey was the longest.
Four feet is the breadth of an average surgical cot.
For two years it was the breadth of my world too-a world that smelt of cold, canned oxygen, and sweetly sickening ether.
....The way I was positioned lying on my side like a child's rag doll, and looking through the railings of the surgical cot, it seemed to me that the world had bars superimposed on it and life could be viewed only in segments, if one had to make sense of it."

-Geralyn Pinto, Re-Routing

Crash Triads

I knew it was waiting to happen.
When the Cypriot crash , was followed in quick succession by the Venezuela plane crash, I told friends, "There is going to be a third - plane crashes in the past have always been in threes", and today, I read about the third crash- the Peru crash.

Sad, spooky, but hell a triad ...

Things about monsoon I only just noticed

• There are 5 little waterfalls on the dirt track to the office - very pretty.
  
• Occasional cows on this dirt track, are the brazen types, who stare the car in the face and dont budge, even on honking incessantly - talk about feeling cowed!
  
• Lanky stray dogs, have their paws splattered with slush on account of splish-splashing about in the potholed streets- they look like teddy bears with painted paws.
  
• When I step out of the car just outside the office, it rains really hard and stops as soon as I get into the lobby - also interesting to note is the fact that it doesn't rain all the ways from home to office.
• You spend much more on pot-pourri in monsoons trying to get the musty smell outta the house.

Books I am reading

Joseph Heller: Catch -22
Roald Dahl: Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life
Amitav Ghosh: Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma

Time: 8:50 am IST

My friend Ruby brought into this world a beautiful baby boy.:-)


Precious Ernest...I think.

Week 1-back in Mumbai

At the end of week one in Mumbai, I have to my credit the following:

• Peeved Mom
• Cellphone with outgoing barred
• A totally pissed rickshaw wallah( make that 2)
• One eve-teaser less in my side of town (I hope)
• Lighter wallet

Peeved Mom story:

Tue, 2nd Aug '05, 7:45 am.

Step out from shower. Need to blow dry hair, to make it look unlike raggedy doll. Discover that hair dryer is broken- motor burnt while self was away across 7 seas. Sigh exasperatedly, about looking like raggedy doll on day 1 in Mumbai office. Keep grumbling about broken hair dryer through breakfast. Mom gives me a piece of her mind: do you realize that Mumbai has just faced a natural disaster where people have lost lives ,among things, all you worry about is a "Hair Dryer". Feel ashamed. Mom goes on about a lack of civic responsibility. Feel more ashamed.

Cellphone with outgoing barred:

My cell phone operator decides to bill me for charges incurred in Feb' 05 in Jun'05. I take my time understanding that delayed billing scenario. Operator loses patience, sends several warning messages that outgoing shall be barred-self ignores messages, outgoing barred, continue to receive messages about incoming to be barred if payment not made. Finally, shake myself out of lazy stupor and walk in to make appropriate payments. All credit cards declined and debit card not accepted. Sheesh! My cellphone woes continue until, I go pay cash now.

The rickshaw wallah piece

Walking around with only indian currency notes of denomination 10, 20 and higher. No small change. Rainy day, 7 pm IST, rickshaw meter display : Rs. 11 . Apologetically explain to rickshaw man that have 10/ 20 and will require Rs 9 in change. He hears change jangling in my wallet (i.e quarters, dimes, pennies etc..). Explain that I cannot transact with that kinda currency. RM (rickshaw man) gives me withering look, grumbles loudly about losing a Rupee, shoos me out of the rickshaw. Feel embarrassed and walk away.

Another rickshaw wallah, explained to me that I have absolutely no sense of direction, on my way to a friend's pound party luncheon. I argued otherwise and told him about having lived in the locality for at least 18 years. He was not convinced, said he had not seen me in the last 6 months. Sigh !

One rickshaw wallah who was actually nice to me was an old Allahabadi man, who chattered on incessantly about the changing times and explained that, "beti..zamaana kharaab ho gaya hai". Faced with the same change trouble while getting off, I let him keep the change, for fear of making another enemy in the Rickshaw wallah community. He blessed me and said that I'd have a wonderful day.:-)

The eve-teaser.

Running an errand in the locality, a man, who looked at least 45-50 years old, passed a cheap comment on me. I bristled with anger and uncharacteristically turned back, walked up to the man and told him in Hindi, " Out of respect for your age, I am not going to say this rudely, but, please talk with a little more decency". He said " Sorry Madam". I felt good and surprised at my self. I know, that 6 months ago, I would have ignored the comment and walked on in embarrassment. I feel empowered.

Lighter wallet

I got myself, expensive rain shoes from Catwalk. For the rains, for sloshing around in Mumbai type potholed roads - Rs 900. Insane freaking idiot. Still like shoes.

A particularly sweet gesture

Retrospect:

I picked out a customized number plate for my friend's Merc: AETOS.
AETOS- Eagle, almost defines his glider of an E430. I was going through a particular "Greek words are so cool" phase, when I chose this for his plate. A fairly effective phase, involving rummaging through Greek name sites. Truth be told- the phase lasted for 3 days, after which, I was sick outta my mind of Greek/Latin/ Hebrew names et all.

Getting on to the gesture, which is the subject of the blog- I never thought I'd get to see the plate before I left Charlotte for Mumbai. But the plate was ready the day before I left, and my friend made me a "I'm goin to miss you card" with the picture of the plate- 'AETOS 9' , it said.

It feels nice to have christened something - Almost parentesque!
Is this how you feel when you name a baby or a pet???
I don't know yet , how that feels, but this sure feels good!

On my way to Mumbai

29th July '05

My friend Suds, gave me a GW notebook and pen. Kinda cool...
I started writing/sketching in it...on my flight from NY to Paris to Mumbai

It feels good to pen thoughts...and re-read them back to yourself.

I like the sound of my thoughts..."Narcissa" or getting there!

Excerpts from my scribbles

My first entry in the book was a sketch, badly drawn, but hell, it was a visual imprinted on my mind while peering out of my cramped window seat on the Charlotte to NY leg. It is an aerial view of NY, taken while waiting for landing clearance at JFK. I compared my sketch to the Google satellite map, and well, I was looking at the Fort Wadsworth area which ran through the middle of the New York Bay and created an Upper NY and Lower NY Bay Area.

Google has the most awesome satellite pictures...

Woman at Security Check In at JFK: Very nice!
Seeing that I was having a hard time saying BYE to Avi and Prach (I walked in and out of the security check-in queue 3 times), this nice lady said, " Don't worry, I'll let you know, when you absolutely HAVE to go in. Talk to your friends till its time."

Me (all gushy): You will???, thanks that's awesome!

Thank you, 'nice lady'!

29th July'05 (Airborne between NY and Paris)

Misty eyed after reading Sud's letter. Immediately thought of our common mantra 'b**** to the world' and new 'happy me' and dismissed angst.

30th July '05 (Towards Paris)

The sky (somewhere on European territory): Whipped cream over blue granita.

30th July'05 (5 mins before landing at DeGaulle)

Neat, symmetric, triangular,trapezoidal and several unnamed bounded spaces created by straight lines. French meadows huh? Undulating...

Smooth touchdown in French territory...(9:21 am Local time, 3:30 am EST, 1:00 pm IST)

Taxiing....

Number of times re-read all received cards and letters : 3 times.

Misty-eyed: equal number of times.

Still Taxiing...

Acutely aware of pain in back and lower back.

Long awaited "Welcome to Paris message " in French and in English.

Finally got off the freaking plane (a good 30 minutes after touchdown).

De Gaulle, Paris ( 11:00 am Local)

My Nextel phone miraculously rings.. displaying Avi's number. Talk to him until battery dies. Happy Girl. (For the joy of communicating in English...)

Pick up a KENZO parfum for MA. Scent is "Rice Steam"- I have a thing for weird scents. Dismissed Ginger as ORDINARY and Bamboo (spinach smelling) and White Lotus (stale flower smelling) as over the top.

Ran into French family from NY-Paris leg. The kids still vying for 'Papa's attention'. (Screamathon- 9 hours straight). The Papa in question was my travel companion (in the aisle seat) who spoke only one English word- Good Morning (ok two!).

Sitting right across from an ABCD family on its way to a Bandra wedding. Hear snatches of choli, zardozi and ghaghra type conversation. Also hear a forceful piece on conservative dressing in India from Mom to 3 daughters. Daughters SIGH.

Sleepy...Tired....Switch off.

My Last day in the United States...

Heading back to India tomorrow.
Mixed feelings about return.
Had so much fun.
I will miss so many people, places and most of all- my space.
The "Staying in touch"phase, begins.
What seemed like second nature, while here, will suddenly be slotted as a task.
But its something I want to do, because, the task and the people around the task make me happy.

And Happy Karma, will do just that..Stay Happy!!!