A weally weally creative blog

Okay, in light of the last (lengthy) post I subjected you to, I will keep this one brief and totally to the point.

Just go check out http://krishashok.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/facebook-mahabharatha/

Love how creative this is! And if you have more than a few minutes to spare, do spend some time hanging around this blog - you're sure to find interesting gems of wit & humor. I know I did.

Just for the record, I am not being paid to do this. But I deserve to be, don't you agree?
;)

A Recap. Starring: A checklist!

Over 4 months gone and then one fine day, you’re back. Back with still more stray thoughts running unsupervised around your head, with a little more learnt, and a lot more to think of.

It’s hard to tell where the time has gone. All I know is that, last I checked, it was still 2009 and everything in my mind was in the place where I had put it last. Until something came along and shook it all around. But enough talking in puzzles.

First, the hard facts:

1. I’m co-hosting a corporate party this Friday & just writing it down this way makes me nervous as hell. Wait till I tell you I actually volunteered for this. Guess it had to be done sometime…and sometime just happens to be 4 days away on Friday. This Friday! Yes! I still can’t believe it! Forgive all the superfluous exclamation marks please!
2. In better news, I seem to have finally found a fitness regime that sticks. It involves waking up a Whole 30 Minutes Early (Hey! It’s 5.40 am so wipe that smirk off your face already!) - and walking briskly around a pretty little garden the authorities have been nice enough to construct in my locality.
3. With reference to 2 above, I have also found the flipside to a fitness regime. It’s called guilt-free bingeing & it comes in all flavours - from plum to chocolate…even with gajar ka halwa seasoning.
4. I find myself overwhelmed with work these days. And it’s happening once too often for my liking. But you already knew that, right? What? You mean you didn’t wonder where I was gone for 4 Whole Months?!
5. Attended half a dozen (extended) family engagement/ wedding events over the past one month. That’s the only way to tag them: events. The Big Fat Indian Wedding didn’t seem quite so big or fat until I saw it up close. And now that I have, I still have rather ‘mixed’ feelings about it. (For those not privileged enough to be my friends in real life, ‘mixed’ is my way of keeping things polite).
6. I suddenly find myself with a lot of free time on my hands (yes, I know this contradicts 4 above but they are different matters entirely, trust you me). So using all this free time, I am trying to swing my very own website into cyberspace. Built by myself, 100% from scratch. You will hear all about it from the rooftops. Soon. I promise.
7. I realized - yet again - just how bad it hurts to lose someone you’ve learnt to take for granted. If life is a series of lessons, I had learnt this one already. Really didn’t want to go back to this chapter ever again. But can’t help these things, can we?

…Oh Dang! Just realized that my ‘hard facts’ have taken up more than their fair share of space in this post. Well anyway, with so much catching-up to get done, what’s a girl to do?

So anyway, time to bid adieu again. Shall return with some not-so-hard facts. Soon. I promise. (Did I use that already?! Never mind…)

P.S. Just in case you're wondering, my official blog is still at Wordpress. But all that the site has done this evening is throw glitch upon glitch at me. So this is my way of striking back. However, the arrangement - just like the quarrel - is temporary. Do feel free to visit me again at WP next post :)

P.P.S. It happened! Finally the post is live on WP as well. And with a smashin' new theme to boot! Check-it-out at http://thoughtshopindia.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/a-recap-starring-a-checklist/

Blog shifted to: http://thoughtshopindia.wordpress.com/

Hi everyone, Almost before the love affair began, it's ended. I saw a Wordpress blog & am lusting after its sleek beauty as opposed to the stodgy old look of my Blogger page.

So, from now on, I shall see you around instead at: http://thoughtshopindia.wordpress.com/

Follow me, won't you? Just click http://thoughtshopindia.wordpress.com/

Friday night, Chandler moments

My life is full of Chandler moments (non-fans of Friends, here’s where you get off this post).

Okay, so my life is full of Chandler moments. The sort where he makes a really smart wisecrack every time something even vaguely funny - or downright unfunny - happens. This makes him interesting, hilarious & popular (well, not as popular as Joey is with the ladies, but still fair-enough-popular). And my life is just like that - except, all those wisecracks only occur to me after they should have. Like yesterday.

Out for an evening of unwinding with friends, I spied a kitten under one of the tables (no, it’s not that I unwind at the local pet hotel; it’s just that the Press Club has a terrace sit-out with a long history of resident felines). So of course I went off to meet her & convince her to spend some quality time at (not under) our table as well. Though I generally am rather patient with this sort of thing, I guess I made a false move yesterday. Instead of hovering just close enough for her to either accept or reject my advances (at the most colouring her judgment with a saucer of milk), I made a rapid advance & tried to force her to see what nice people we were. Of course that had the exact opposite effect of the one intended & she scampered off into some dark recess where my probing fingers & entreating hands could not find her.

Anyhow, as I returned dejected to my chair, we saw her again! Technically, it was a pink inquisitive nose that we saw, but naturally we assumed that the rest of her was right behind. Since she was closer this time to A, I asked him to do the needful & entreat her, once more, to sit down to drinks (think milk!) with us. In retrospect, I don’t think he could have been quite too keen to have her around, coz he said: “You want me to get her? You mean, like, pounce on her?” (The reference, obviously, was to my previous unfruitful sortie into this territory). Now, what do you think any self-respecting Chandler would have said to this? (Yes, that’s the point of this story!)

So Chandler would have said: “No No! I already tried that once - and it doesn’t work! You try something new, bro!”

But - you guessed it - it never occurred to me. Not until I was on the train home when, just for consolation, I said it (aloud) to the woman next to me: “No no, it doesn’t work, you try something new!” Just for the record, she was scratching her head with her pen, trying to crack a crossword clue.

So now there are 7 people in this city who think I’m a complete nutcase (there’s got to be more but I’m not that good at keeping track of the numbers).

Illusion, reality & then some rather cheap labour!

Okay, so a lot did happen over the past 3 days - I just haven’t had the time to tell you all about it. Actually no, nothing really out of the ordinary happened. Except that I am a lot more excited about certain things on the personal-professional front. By this, I don’t mean the job front…it’s a wee bit more complicated that that.

However, this does remind me of my recent pay hike which, I admit, did feel good…for about 30 seconds. After which, I was back to being fired up about aforesaid personal-professional developments.

Anyhow, the moment I walked into my office lobby yesterday, I was completely swamped by nostalgia. Overwhelmed is the word. You know those times when you just can’t move for fear of losing your sudden grasp on a moment long past in time/ life? That’s what happened to me!

I guess it has something to do with my olfactory receptors. The place smelled just like the lobby of my hotel, back in time in Malaysia. Now, it’s been 4 years since I visited the country & I didn’t even know I remembered what fragrance they might have been using in the hotel. But there it was! And to think it was as simple as an office in India using the same/ similar brand of air freshener!

Speaking of such memory, by the way, I recently read about a study conducted on crime-scene witnesses. Turns out, we may distinctly remember something with utter conviction but - wait for it - it’s likely that the said event never occurred! Reminds me of the time my dad insisted that mum had called him on her way home one night. This would have been fine except: neither my mum nor I had any memory of her making the said phone call. And the catch was, I’d been sitting right next to him all that time. But so convinced was he that there had been “a mistake”, that he refused to believe the evidence even when the call did not show up in his or mom’s call logs. Worse, he could remember verbatim all that she had said to him over the phone - something about the menu for dinner, apparently.

At this point, I would have loved to have added that, when she did get home, she brought along the exact same items that he thought she had been talking about - but that’s not what happened. This is a story about faulty memory, not about ESP, remember? ;)

But this kind of thing makes you doubt the whole concept of reality, doesn’t it? What if all that you remember of your childhood is a trick being played by your mind? What if the guy you thought killed the woman right in front of your eyes is not the guy who should have been going to the gallows? What if - since everyone is likely to have a different version of it - there is no ‘real’ past or future & all that’s happening is in the here-and-now? Only that it’s happening in some parallel universe/ time zone perhaps? Weird weird weird!

I should tell you here I am really, really interested in discussions of this sort. I love reading about theories like the one Plato is supposed to have had. I don’t know the exact words, but apparently he believed that ‘reality’ was located behind you, somewhere in the space above your head. And all that you saw in the world around you was but an illusion, a reflection of that ‘actual’ world. Sounds cuckoo to me!

But perhaps it’s time I re-checked what he really meant by that. Just as an aside, even Hindu beliefs hold that reality is not what you see around you. The world is all ‘maya’ or illusion. Interesting how the ancients all believed similar stuff no?

Okay, on to more mundane stuff now. In other news, I am extremely pissed off by you, my fellow Indians. All this time, one used to hear all these stories about India being a ‘cheap labour market’. But when I saw for myself how deep the rot has set, I was stunned, to say the least!

Being a writer, I can give you an example from my domain, but I’m assured that this problem is everywhere, in almost every field. Over the past week alone, I have come across dozens of writers who offer their services for as low as 36 bucks for 500 words! That’s a ridiculously sad, low price I would never have accepted for my work. Not even when I was a college student moonlighting as a struggling freelance writer! What’s more, I was working for Indian publications whereas most of these people’s assignments come from the US! Aren’t they supposed to be raking in the dollars or something?! Apparently it’s more like only a dollar - or less - for a whole article!

So no wonder you come across all these gazillion bidding sites where cash-rich companies post projects expecting their work to be done for just $50 (if not less). But here’s the best (or worst) part. Say there is someone in London offering US $50 for 10 “well-written, web-optimized” articles of 500 words each. In itself, this price is ridiculous, if not downright insulting. However, right below this laughable ‘business offer’, you’ll find a serpentine list of dozens of supposed ‘writers’ offering to do the same 10 articles for as less as $10 - for all of them! Rest assured, next time you see a project posted by the same company, their bidding price will start at just about 20 bucks, if that.

It disgusts me to think that there are people out there who value their work so cheaply. As long as this continues, foreigners will continue to see India as the old ‘cheap labour destination’. And even talented Indians will get to work only on bottom-of-the-heap grunt jobs rather than get a chance to do worthwhile projects that can add to their skills & knowledge. Sad indeed! 

Sunday surprise!

Sunday evenings depress me like even Monday morning can’t. I mean, it’s The End of a Golden Age of Wasteful Lethargy, of indulging in all the Seven Deadly Sins, and then some. (Are there any non-deadly sins, by the way?)

So I met up with D & S last evening. It took quite an effort to convince my lazy, depressed self to Just Go, but the evening turned out to be rather fun! This, despite all the guy-bashing we indulged in before S arrived. Oh, and by ‘we’, I mean D & me (I would say ‘D & I’ but that would just confuse all you people who have to make do with initials in place of Christian names).

But before all that happened, she & I first checked out the action at Globus. Not coz we liked what the shop windows had to offer or anything; it’s just something of a ritual with us. If it’s Eternity Mall, it’s gotta be browsing-Globus first. (I had phrased this sentence differently but ‘browsing-Globus’ has such a nice ‘finding-Nemo’ ring to it, don’t you think?)

This time, the store pleasantly surprised us by offering discounts of “up to 50%” (which, as every shopper knows, means: “Remember that one utterly disgusting extinct-animal-printed scarf you saw here 3 years ago? Well, we’re giving that away at a super bargain price of just 5000 bucks! Is your Sunday made or what?!”)

Anyway, so D picked out this okish red kurti/ top with a black pattern around the neck (sorry, my descriptions for such things remain vague out of necessity…I don’t really know or care what the nice black pattern around the neck was). The piece seemed quite all right until we checked out the price tag. It was soo not worth it! That little bit of cardboard scared us right out of the Ethnics & propelled us straight into Accessories. The rest of the browsing went off without incident, though we eventually did leave with our wallets - and our indignity - intact.

Upstairs at the food court, over a plate of spring roll dosa (yum!), we got into the usual collective-introspection-into-our-life-and-relationships session. This part is something of a fixture, also known as: ‘Would-we make-the-guy-happier-by-just-dumping-him?’ session.

By the time we were done with the dosa & had downed one large cold coffee each (Barista, good as always), the mood had turned boisterous with loud giggling, stupid jokes, and hilarious (to us!) one-liners.

And then S joined in, taking the party to a whole new level. With him, there was much CAT, no-work-experience-but-MBA(!) & IIM bashing (for the record, he’s 22, has no work experience but has completed one year of his MBA at IIM Lucknow. And obviously, he got in by scoring rather well in the dreaded, math-oriented CAT). Talk about ammunition to attack! 

Anyway, among the memorable lines I came up with, was one I consider a gem:

D: Hey, order a coffee with ice cream already! You’re obviously lusting after it!

Me (sighing lustfully): Do you even know how many calories are in it?!

D: But you’re thin! You can afford it!

Me: But you don’t understand! I can because I don’t!

[Loud laughter, courtesy me, while the two of them just looked on with sullen faces]

So, to save the situation, I narrated a fantastic Stevie Wonder-in-China joke. It’s my current favorite - remind me to tell you sometime. The best part is, I do a great job of imitating a Chinese accent - no, really, I do - and it’s absolutely essential for this joke! Okay, I bet you really want to hear it right now! So, without further ado…here it is:

Stevie Wonder is playing his 1^st gig in China and the place is packed to the rafters. In a bid to break the ice, he asks if anyone has a request.

One chap jumps out of his seat in the 1^st row and shouts at the top of his voice: “Play a jazz chord! Play a jazz chord!”

Amazed that this guy knows about the jazz influences in Stevie’s career, the blind impresario starts to play an E Minor scale and then goes into a difficult jazz melody for about 10 minutes. When he finishes, the whole place goes wild.

The chap jumps out of his seat again and shouts: “No, no, play a jazz chord, play a jazz chord…!”

A bit cheesed off by this, Stevie, being the professional he is, dives straight into a jazz improvisation around the B Flat Minor chord and really tears the place apart. The crowd goes ballistic with this impromptu show of his musical expertise. But still the little Chinese man jumps up again and shouts: No, no! Play a jazz chord, play a jazz chord!”

Stevie is really peeved off now that this chap doesn't seem to appreciate his playing ability and shouts to him from the stage: “OK smart a**, you get up here and do it!”

The little bloke climbs onto the stage, takes hold of the mike, and starts to sing:

“A jazz chord…to say…I ruv you…”

[Loud laughter, courtesy everyone around!]

And a funny koala bear joke as well…but that one can wait.

Anyway, so the evening passed rather unexpectedly well (considering I’d started off being a little apprehensive about D & S getting along). In the end, D even dropped me all the way home! And S came along for the ride. Nice of them, eh? :)

Where O Where do the weekends go?

It’s one thing to start a blog, quite another to sustain it. That’s my takeaway from the last few days’ neglect of this space. I mean, it’s great when you actually start writing, but before that, it takes loads of motivation for a lazy Virgo to get down to brass tacks (or to her laptop, as the case is).

Anyway, to recap. I’ve had a hectic week at work. And to top it, there are social commitments over the weekend as well! Why O why do people have to want to see me? Or to invite me to any important occasions in their life? Or wish to break bread or sip coffee with me?

Maybe I should indeed consider the reclusive life up in the Himalayas. Maybe I could paint or start a tiny patisserie on that pretty Mall Road in Mussoorie (actually, no - I can’t bake pots. Or bake anything else, for that matter).

I know! I could always teach English to kids in a monastery or write a book or something. Maybe I will, sometime soon.

Meanwhile, don’t get me wrong - I love having friends. As a close friend put it, “There are so many men whose minds I would like to mate with!” In my case, this extends to minds both male & female. I love the process of collaboratively creating pointless stories, endlessly debating issues of national and international importance (such as, the ‘love’ story of Napoleon & Josephine), and so on. Only thing, it should all be on good ole’ gtalk. Guess I do really belong to the nerdy, boring, wired generation.

Here’s the thing though. I love to spend time with almost all these people once I actually get there. Before that, however, it just seems like a chore to me (no, make that a Chore). The showering, the getting-dressed, the planning-what-to-wear…everything!

My ideal weekend will be one spent in a mountain range full of easy peaks to scale, which allows me plenty of solitude and greenery. There’s only one caveat: I should be magically transported to said place with no planning, packing or effort required at my end. Such things don’t really happen, do they? *Sigh* More’s the pity!

So, things being as they are, this weekend finds me gearing up to attend a friend-cum-colleague’s wedding all the way in Powai. Before that, there’s the mandatory salon visit lined up. And of course The Draping Of The Sari. Which is one process so utterly beyond me that I always need mommy to help me out. But tonight, that’s gonna be problematic too - she’s got a work meeting to attend and is likely to leave me high and dry (or alone and frustrated with 6 yards of shimmery, slippery and spinning-out-of-control fabric!) Sob!

To make it worse, N has declined an invitation to be my escort for the evening (yes, again! After years of wooing me, is he now playing hard-to-get or what?!).

Anyway, so let’s see now. I have no inclination to visit the salon on such a HOT afternoon, no one to dress me & no one to drive me in style to the venue and back! No wonder my mind is working out ways to avoid the whole thing altogether. Fall sick? Be honest, tell the truth, and back out gracefully? Tell the boss I won’t be there coz there’s no way I’m coming back alone so late? (A liberated, independent woman like me!) As always, I’m lost.

But somewhere deep within, I know I am gonna go today. Else, every time we’re out taking a post-lunch walk and she talks about her Big Day, I will feel about as big as my ‘Reasons for not making it’ are, today. Ah well, not such a good idea being a nice person, is it?

So that’s decided then. I am going. Somehow. Just called the salon lady to come over to my place instead. At least that’s one Chore off my mind.

But this is just Saturday! Tomorrow I have a brunch plan with S as well as a lunch date with D. There goes all my eagerly-awaited weekend :( 

So, did I tell you A called? She tied the knot less than a month ago and is now back from her honeymoon in Italy. The hour-long phone call culminated in the setting-up of a lunch date. Well, that takes care of next Saturday then…

Update: Didn't go. Nope, just did not.