Rain*

Rain should be seen in silver beads,
threaded on soft, dark hair.

It should be breathed in, off skin,
in the nook of a neck.

It should be felt, fingertip to raisined fingertip
Its trail, tracing furrows down a chest.

It should be tasted, teased,
sipped off smokey lips.

Heard, whispered,
against the sound of your name.


Addendum: It should be banned, for moving souls like me,
to poetry.

*Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit (a) of GP. And you can't say I didn't warn you - that profile's been up for ages now.

Television - How much is too much, Part II

In other news I have realised that being a freelance writer is no less fraught with danger than say, being a crocodile psychotherapist.

The thing is, when I was gainfully employed with a legitimate company, I stuck to office timings. Which meant that my television watching was seriously restricted to about one hour in a day, if that. Now, since I work (using the term loosely) from home I am forced to watch more television that I could ever be comfortable with. (And yes, I mean ‘forced’. YOU try ignoring it when you have to walk past the damn thing fifty thousand times in a day). So yes, I watch a lot of television. Some days I watch so much of it that by the time the SB gets back from work, the couch and I have moulded ourselves around each other and the only movement in the room is that of my thumb, frantically pressing buttons in the forlorn hope that one channel out of 99 will play something that can hold my attention for a whole minute.

It was during one such day that I came across Shekhar Suman’s debut album. And I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen.

It starts with a man’s torso silhouetted - framed lovingly, so you can count every muscle - in a window. The camera pans around and it is Shekhar Suman! In possibly the most self conscious ooh-look-at-me-wake-up stretch ever to be seen. SS scans the horizon, looking for, we know not what. But wait! His eyes narrow…he’s spotted something! And the camera sweeps to the beach, where lies a mysteriously abandoned guitar! SS looks around – after ascertaining that no one’s watching, follows the finders-keepers principle and filches it.

He’s dreamily strumming a few chords when suddenly! There is a bikini-clad woman! Lying languorously on the rocks, letting the waves wash over her! As SS blinks in disbelief, she walks towards the camera, then does the standard break-surface-and-toss-hair-backwards thing. After a few more babe-on-a-beach moves, the camera cuts to SS, who has changed out of his pyjamas (but stuck with the vest) and is now wearing jeans. He sits on a rock, strumming the guitar and singing, vanishing and reappearing alternately with the beach-babe until the last frame, where there are two SS’s a strummin’ an’ a singin’.

Babe does some more babe-on-a-beach things.

SS has now ditched his vest for a shirt and a jacket. And put on a pair of I’m-so-cool shades. He sits on some stairs in the middle of nowhere and plays the guitar, while a bunch of random children gather around him. The beach-babe has, in the meantime, put on a pretty summer dress, got herself a bunch of flowers and is running, o’er hill and err…around/away from a church.

Babe finds the aforementioned random children and hands each of them a flower. The children smilingly accept the flowers, probably worried about what the crazy-smiling-lady-with-the-flowers might do if they refuse. SS wipes his hand on his shirt and asks her for one too. She simpers, and obliges. This is obviously a sign that they can now wear colour-coordinated outfits because in the very next scene, SS and Babe, clad in matching-matching pink, are running around trees. Babe decides that she wants to go solo and waves around a couple of yards of diaphanous-pink-fabric.

Swirl, swirl.

It is now night. And SS and Babe are doing the salsa. Or something like it. Only, since babe’s dress has no pockets, she has hung her keys on the back of it. (Not too smart I think; they’re bound to fall off with all that twirling). They salsa for a little while then retire to a bonfire (see? Told you she’d lose the keys) which obviously warrants another change of clothes.

They clink their glasses together and kiss and this is where it goes from just ‘icky’ to the code yellow of ickiness. SS runs his hand across babe’s collarbones and round to the back of her neck, while his elbow rests comfortably on her chestal region (eeuw). His gaily patterned Hawaiian shirt vanishes as though it never was, and babe snuggles up against his bare chest. (Code Orange! Your toes are refusing to uncurl!)

SS wakes up hugging a pillow and wonders where babe went until he realizes that she was but a dream. He sits up in bed and sorta laughs to himself then walks up to his window and lo! There in the distance, is the guitar that started it all! He runs towards in slow motion, picks it up, gives a look-over (decides that well, whaddya know! This one’s filch-able too!), turns to the camera and winks the creepiest, crawliest, make-your-skin-want-to-get-up-and-run wink I have ever seen (Code Red! Code Red!! Someone send in the Haitian!!).

Do take a look.*


*Why should I be the only one to suffer?

Thanking her Lucky Stars

At a recent drunken gathering I was asked what my will-he-make-it-to-a-second-date tests were. (Which probably just goes to show just how drunken the gathering was, because asking ME for second-date-tests is a bit like asking a kake-da-dhaba-da-butter-chicken eater, whether they want their beluga caviar on crackers or plain chilled. ‘Pointless’ is what I mean). So anyway, I thought really, really hard (I was drunk too) and came up with this:

”He shall not be queasy about street food.”

And then I thought about it some more and I realised that I’m probably at my wisest when drunk. Because you know, not-queasy-about-street-food says so much about a man. No, seriously. I will not date a guy who goes all ‘organic aloos’ on me. A man who is NQaSF is a man who is not afraid to take chances. He’s been there, eaten that, had the jaundice and risen like a phoenix from the ashes. What has not killed him, has given him a stomach of cast-iron and an immune system that pooh-poohs at sissy amoeba.

The NQaSF guy is not just tough, oh no he’s not. This man, much like the perfect vada, is all crispy crust and soft insides. You might not think it to look at him, but ladies and gentlemen, he’s a romantic! This is a man who knows the joys of eating roasted bhutta while walking along bandstand, and the comfort that comes from conversations punctuated with the silent, contemplative munching of corn-kernels. He knows the sense of community that comes with standing around the paani-puri-vaala’s red-cloth-draped matka and struggling to finish the paani-puri in your plate before the lightning-fast vendor starts his second round. He knows the stomach-flipping way of using his (clean) handkerchief to wipe off that dab of imli-chutney from the corner of your mouth (which might sound gross but is actually all awww-inducing when the hormones are a-ragin’).

He knows that nothing completes a rainy day better than a glass of sweet cutting-chai, strong with the flavours of adrak and elaichi, and he knows that the best accompaniment to this chai is piping hot samosas, smothered in green chutney, served in those faded-green leaf donas.

And now, the government wants to ban them all.

It’s a good thing I went and got married when I did.

With Apologies to Nike

So. In my mother’s endless quest for more grandchildren than she knows what to do with, I have been instructed to buy a panchang. For those of you in the dark (from me, who has had an occasional glimpse of light and winced) a panchang is a Vedic calendar based largely on the phases of the moon with an occasional nod to the sun, the nine* real planets in our solar system and two mythical ones (Yes, we have mythical planets. Don’t you?).

The panchang is pretty much the how-to-live-every-day-of-your-life guide for all good, religious, Hindus (I score exactly zero out of three). It has every single day of (however remote) religious significance marked out on it and if you’re even borderline familiar with Hinduism, that is a LOT of days. There is ekadashi, which happens once every month – I know some people fast on this day, there is amavas, which is essentially a moonless night, so I’m assuming people switch on the street-lights this day, and a whole plethora of other days which I have no clue about. All I know is that some involve fasting, some involve feasting and some involve wearing yellow clothes and feeding cows (unless this one of my mother’s twisted little ways of getting a laugh off her children).

’What does this have to do with my mother’s potential grandchildren?’, you might ask.
‘Apparently, lots’, I will say.

You see, since my mother has realised that mere badgering has done nothing to increase her tribe, she has switched to plan B i.e. tempt your daughter with the promise of “super” offspring. Apparently, doing the deed on days specifically earmarked for er…such activity will ensure that the resultant bundle of joy will be the kind of bundle of joy that is the very epitome of joyousness. As they were wont to say in shady seventies Hindi movies, “Heera hoga, heera!!" (He will be a diamond, a diamond!).

But it’s not as simple as it sounds. You can’t ‘just do it’ (sorry nike) on the days circled in red marker. There is A Process. The two parties involved must first have gone though a period of celibacy (ten days, I think). On the designated day, when the clock strikes the magic hour, both parties must bathe, wear clean clothes and light a diya in front of bhagwaan-jis of their choosing. They must then invoke their individual ancestors, inform them of their intentions to further (deepen?) their gene pools, seek their blessings and then get down and do the dirty.

Because of course, *nothing* gets you in the mood like the mental image of an audience of stern-faced gods and grey-beard ancestors watching you as you get it on.


*or is that eight now?

Not merry, not even close.

You know what this heat is? It’s insidious. It gets under your skin. You can shed your layers of clothing till you’re naked as a jaybird, and even that won’t be enough, you’ll want to take off more. This heat. It lies low all morning, patient, waiting, pretending to be all ‘oh pay no attention to me, I’ll just lie here in this corner doing nothing at all’ and then, when the sun’s at its peak, it pounces. Runs under your skin like an army of spiders, starting at the back of your neck, then spreading. Across your shoulder blades, down your arms, in the crease of your neck. A million little metallic spiders under your skin.

God I hate May.

And like that’s not bad enough, there are clouds. They’ll hide the sun for a couple of minutes every now and then, fill you with longing, make you turn your face up to the sky in anticipation, and then float away.

If May were a man, he’d totally be the kind all your girlfriends told you to stay away from, knowing all the while that you were too far gone to listen. Because May? May was Bad News. He was the kind who’d never call when he said he would, vanish without a trace for three months and then, without any warning, show up at your doorstep. You’d be all casual because you couldn't possibly let him know, he’d know, but pretend not to.

Crafty bugger, that May.

But I’m three summers old in this city and I know that these clouds mean nothing. I know there’s going to be no rain till June. I know. So you can stop flitting across the sky, stop your hide-and-seek with the sun, just stop with the goddamn teasing alright?

I’m on to you, May.

Warm Fuzzy Feeling

> Told suspicious security card at college gate, "Hum purane students hain, yaaden taaza karne aayen hain!" Where confident and authoritative failed, bambi eyes and plenty of "Please bhaiyya, bas dus minute main vaapis aa jaayenge, promise!" worked like a charm. Heh, men are such suckers, and no we have no pride.

> Wandered around the place and got completely disoriented because fucking progress has ensured that those lovely green lawns where we'd spend hours bunking classes, have now grown ugly brick buildings like a rash. Goddamn progress.

> Got into TGIF after driving around Connaught Place (and I will NOT call it goddamn 'rajiv chowk') three times, in an attempt to find someplace that served cheap alcohol. After attempt three in a rapidly heating-up car, any alcohol was just fine.

> Went to Janpath and fulfilled the cold-coffee at De Pauls ritual. Ran into THREE other classmates doing the same. Exchanged gossip and phone numbers.

> Squealed at everything that had changed in the five years that I'd been away. Got punched by N and called a b******** tourist for acting like a, well...b******** tourist. Basked in the warmth of authentic punjabi-accented abuse.

Good times. *sigh*

Aandhi

I walked through a dust-storm today. Cloudy when I left home, and then the wind whipped up. Dust and leaves and the funniest sight - those little cottony balls of fluff that hold seeds, rolling faster and faster down the road as the wind gave chase.

I must've been quite a sight. Lone girl in a red kurti and jeans, hand held up to shield her eyes, the wind whipping up dust devils all around her, her magenta silk scarf struggling to make a break for it.

Not that there was much of an audience.

Just a few measly drops of rain though. And I was praying for hail. Have you seen one of those in Delhi? If you're outside when they hit, you're torn between wanting to take cover (those things *hurt*) and staying out because this is ice falling from the sky in a city that was an oven till a few minutes back.

And if you're indoors, you hear them rattle as they hit the windows, the AC, the mosaic floor of the balcony. When it's over, if you get outdoors fast enough and if it was a big storm, the roads are shiny black and the hailstones look like melting stars.

Nostalgia*

She sees them from way off. Blue and white against the night sky, black on yellow, white on green. They're lit up by streetlights, headlights and on the quieter stretches, moonlight. She reads, rolling the words on her tongue, testing them, tasting them.

'Mehrauli'. Open-mouthed, soft-exhaled, palate-brushing. 'Motibagh'. Stronger, tongue-pressed-against-teeth, from the back of the throat. 'Dhaulakuan'. A complete tempest of a word.

The air smells of dust and dried flowers.

'Purani Dilli'. She reads, invoking Dalrymple's djinns. 'Shalimar Bagh', 'Hazrat Nizamuddin', 'Neeli Chatri', 'Kalkaji'. 'Hauz Khaz', 'Sarai Kale Khan' and then, 'Chirag Dilli'. "What an absurdly poetic name for a flyover," she thinks to herself. "Light of Delhi indeed!"

But she can't stop looking out the window, like some country bumpkin, trying to drink in a whole city in a half-hour trip. And her steady, senseless half-smile prompts her cab-driver to finally ask,

"Aap bahut dinon baad aayin hain madam?"
"Haan bhaiyya...kaafi dinon baad."


*Or, How to Make *Anything* Pretty.**
** I give her three days, tops. You?

How to make an effective decision-making tool wish it had never been born

She sits on the cold floor, her back against the wall, her knees pulled up close to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She picks up her pen, her sketch-pad, draws a line down the center of the page and starts writing.

1. "Lies. (in block letters, underlined twice. The second line so fiercely that the paper tears a little). Lies all the time. About everything. His family, his holidays, even his goddamn internships! Why would anyone lie about something like that?! I didn’t even get an internship, did it ever occur to me to lie about it? No! Lies about his mother, for crying out loud. Says she’s suffering from a life-threatening disease of the spine. And (of course!) she used to be a dancer. "

2. "Steals ideas from Creativity editions and passes them off as his own. I can’t believe how much I praised his India Ink idea, how slack-jawed with awe I was, how stupid I felt for not being able to come up with a concept even a fourth as intelligent as that. And how he was all modest and self-effacing about it. “Oh I was just doodling and it came to me. It’s no big deal.” Arrgh! D, you bloody stupid fool!"

3. "Copies down Robert Browning’s poems and claims he’s written them. Apparently, having the same initials as a Victorian poet implies that you are him. Apparently, he also thinks he’s the only one in college with a library card. And like that's not enough, he denies it so vehemently when confronted, that I begin to doubt myself.


And in the right column, in a much less forceful hand, she writes, “Makes me laugh.”

Hot Chocolate and friends

They were together for about two months. Two months of dates in which he'd tell her stories of how he'd been with two women (twins, no less!) at the same time, how he'd been the stripper for his friend's bachelorette party, how he'd been picked up by so many women that he'd almost lost count; that he was a loner and 'not a nice guy'. And there she'd be, lying in his bed, in the dark of his room, thinking about the many faces people put on to hide hurt, and of how well both of them played the couldn't-care-less game.

She almost laughed at the fact that she was playing body-double for a girl whose ex-boyfriend was playing her rebound guy. Almost.

But the thing with body-doubles and ghost-exes, was that you knew they weren't the real thing - they weren't supposed to last. It was what they call 'a willing suspension of belief'. You bought your ticket, watched your movie, lived someone else's life for a few comfortably numb hours and then went back to reality.

Which is why when he started calling her again (a year after that movie ended) she refused to take his calls, deleted his number, then re-saved it as 'Bad Idea'*.

And then she remembered that one night when they'd been something like buddies. When they silly-danced with each other on You Sexy Thing - doing the butt-wiggle, the gospel-hands and the pretend strip-tease. For that one night, she had to admit, they had been friends...good friends. The kind who told you to stop whining and get on with your life. The kind that held your hand and fake-flirted you back to smiling, laughing and realising that life didn't stop just because people moved on.

she never did take his calls, but she smiles every time she hears that song.


*Which probably just goes to show that there's no such thing as a completely bad idea - 99% fucking stupid, yes, but hey, how else would you learn?

Oscar Material

A phone conversation with a friend, with whom I spent all 2 1/2 years of post-grad, just showed me that I am (despite the whole shy, quiet person deal) a frickin’ *brilliant* actress (or is that ‘actor’ now? Man, PC is so not my thing).

She: So I’m going to be in Bombay on Tuesday, and since you’re unemployed (yeah, rub it in, why dontcha? Bitch.) you’re coming out to meet me.
Me: *sigh* Oh alright, but there must be alcohol.
She: Yes, yes, there will be.
Me: Oh wait…you’re with Raymonds…which means, you’re staying in fucking Thane*!!
She: (shocked silence)
Me: (wonders what the hell the ‘shocked silence’ is all about)
Me: (slaps forehead as memory surfaces: this is the friend with whom I spent all of post-grad in Hyderabad)

Post-grad in Hyderabad = 2 1/2 years of not saying ‘fuck’, or c***, or even haraami out loud because the classmates would wince if I said anything stronger than kamina. The word ‘asshole’ would elicit horrified stares and the one day I said ch***** aloud, all the boys in my class - all fuckin’ 28 of them - drew in their breaths collectively and just stopped short of screaming ‘get thee behind me spawn of satan!’ and hiding behind the desks. It was just too tiring to train all of them into accepting that girls occasionally swore too (picking my battles and all of that), so I just switched to doing it in my head.

”Here is the *_______* project, you *_________*, *_________*, excuse for a project partner.”

”Keep your *_________* neanderthal ideas to your *_________* self, won’t you please?”


And I managed for 2 1/2 years. 2 1/2 years of being a ‘good girl’, of being a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth-no-siree girl and a who-needs-their-mouth-washed-out-with-soap?-not-ME girl.

Or alternately, 21/2 years of being the girl who spoke with inexplicable pauses in the middle of her sentences.


*By which I only mean really-really-*far*-from-where-I-live-Thane. I’m not a location snob** or anything.

** I’ve lived in Kandivali and Kalina. The latter, which is guaranteed to elicit looks of ‘Oh you poor thing! However did you *manage*?!’ So no, no location snobbery at all.

Coincidence?

That the one day in the year that getting smashed out of your skull is legitimate, done, approved of, is the day yours truly was born.

Now I'm not superstitious, but really, coincidence?

I think not.

Happy St. Patrick's all! I'm off to get very, very drunk and pass out on a beach.

Television: How much is too much?

So we’re lying on the rug in a morning-lit room…my cheek against his back as I breathe in the smell of his cologne. He’s talking but I can’t hear what he’s saying - I’m listening to his voice, soft, low, drawly. He decides that this isn’t enough; I should know what he’s talking about. So he picks up a bunch of post-its and starts writing me notes. He scribbles, folds, then passes them over his shoulder, I open them and laugh. They’re drawings. Anatomical drawings, like the kind you see in biology textbooks.

And then goddamit, I wake up. And HE goes back to being gay*.

*Which is, of course, the only reason why we’re not a couple.

Reeling

I dodge behind a pillar when I see them approach. I wear sunglasses and avoid eye contact with anyone once I step outside the building. I even take the stairs if I see that the lift is already occupied by one whole person.

You never know whom she’s gone and made friends with.

No, I haven’t suddenly decided to enter the gumshoe business, nor am I practicing writing a bad spy novel. What I am doing, is reeling in the aftermath of the four-foot-ten-inch hurricane of friendliness and outgoing that is my mother.

She was here for two days. Two measly days. And in those two days? She went and befriended, advised and made life-long devotees of everybody within a ten-mile radius of my life.

My frequent admonitions through gritted teeth as I tugged on her sari aanchal, were of no avail. No amount of - “Ma! Stop smiling at strangers in the lift!” and “You don’t have to make conversation with the sabziwalla for christ’s sake!” or even “Please ma, let him drive his cab. Do we really need to know which part of UP he’s from?” - helped. And now she’s gone, and left me to fend for myself against this sea of super-friendly strangers.

Somedays I am convinced that I am a victim of a baby-swapping episode.

In the last one-year, all my lift rides had been spent in a peaceful contemplative silence during which the lift-attendant and I conducted in-depth studies of our personal footwear. I wondered whether my shoelaces were tied into perfect bows, how the pink swoosh contrasted nicely against the dark blue background, whether the soles were bouncy enough…you know? Lift thoughts. Now? I am suddenly and without warning being addressed as ‘baby’ ('baby'??) and asked solicitous questions about whether the house-keeping staff turn up on time, whether my bai is doing her work well and that if I ever need anything, I only need to inform security to send ‘Manoj’.

Every gaggle of aunties I meet now, accosts me with friendly cries of “Hello beta! You must tell your mummy that the boy/medicine/yoga exercise she recommended for my young-female-relative/age-related-ailment/random-joint-pain worked wonderfully! She’s getting married! / I’m cured! /Look at me do cartwheels now!” At which I can only smile weakly and reply, “Yes auntie, I definitely will” because I have no idea who these women are.

The sabziwallas now all flash friendly smiles at me, conduct conversations in Bhojpuri, which I don’t understand and offer me vegetables I don’t know how to cook. When I tell them I cannot understand a word they are saying, they laugh and say, “Achcha aap nahin samajhti hain? Koi baat nahin. Apni mataji ko hamari taraf se namaste kah dijiyega.”

The neighbours, whom till today, I only knew as the people who shifted their furniture at odd hours of the night, now stop me and tell me what a nice, friendly, social lady my mother is.

I have to fight the temptation to lean against their shoulders and brokenly sob, “You don’t know the half of it!”

I’m sure my real mother is a quiet, reclusive academic, who lives in a small, secluded cottage in some remote hill station. And then I wonder how she must cope with her unintentionally adopted miniature hurricane.

***

Update on the Baby Front:
The only thing more horrifying than your mother telling you to start making babies, is when she starts telling you how.

Excuse me while I go and pick up my ears. They sort of melted off the sides of my head while she was talking.

The Mommy Returns

Be afraid, be very afraid.

I've been practicing the eye-rolling and the exasperated sighing, only this time, the problem is likely to be slightly bigger than grimy masala bottles or recalcitrant maids.

I am being interrogated as to why, after a whole year of being married, I do not have anything substantial (i.e. a baby. or two, or three) to show for it.

My mother is strangely obsessed with babies. Strangely, I say, because people, she has had *five* of her own. Five. And like that's not enough? She now has four grandchildren. It seems that no matter how many babies there are in her immediate vicinity, there is always room for more*.

And whose job is it to fill up the empty-baby spaces? You guessed it! Yours truly.

Now, Yours Truly is rather partial to the creatures; she loves their little pudgy hands, their toothless grins and their small wiggly-ness, but has seen enough of them to know that babies are just little bundles of TNT, camouflaged in cuteness.

So while she might someday be persuaded to see her present life collapse like a house of cards, (only to be picked up, chewed, and drooled over), today is not that day.

And the next three years don't look like it either.


*You could stick my mother in a room full of babies and over the gurgling and crying and cooing, you would still hear her saying, "Send in the babies! We need more babies!!"

Because I am *nothing*, if not courteous.

Dear Spambots*,

I wouldn't know what tramadol, diet(?!) phentermine or carisoprodol were if they jumped up collectively and bit me. If they did, I would probably just wonder, "What are these things that have jumped up out of nowhere and why are they biting me?".

Yes, I'm slow that way.

But one thing I do know, is that I have never, at any point in my life, ever worried about my, err...staying power.

So you can stop offering me all the goddamn Viagra.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Who Has Never Had to Worry About ED.


*If there's anybody out there who knows how to block/stop/destroy the damn things, help me! Please?

God is a Surly Cab Driver

Yesterday, after frantically running around in circles for a cab at Churchgate station, I find one, get into it and a little out of breath I ask the cab-driver:

Me: “Bhaiyya, aap Horniman Circle jaante ho?
Cab Driver: (in slow, deep, deadpan voice) “Main sab kuch jaanta hoon.”


There go my chances of ever getting into The Great Big Taxi in the Sky.

Blog-people, meet Henry, Henry, Blog-people.

Darlings! We’re back!

And oh it feels good to be back. A little strange also, because now we’re using a new computer (Henry), which is actually not new at all (and we mean that in the best way Henry, you know we always had a soft corner for the older ones), but it is much better than nothing.

Yes, that is it, my precious fluffy kittens. I was away because I was temporarily technology deprived - having quit old job and therefore, its accompanying spiffy laptop - and being back in employment limbo once again.

Somehow changing systems disorients me like nothing else - even if it involves moving higher up the technology pyramid.

I remember how strange it was to switch from a PC to Mac. My right hand index finger began to suffer from an identity crisis, all the keyboard shortcuts had to be re-wired in my brain and I had to get used to the CD drive as part of the monitor. That was the hardest part. I felt so guilty every time I inserted a CD into the drive, like I was violating my monitor in some horrible, unspeakable manner.

But then I got used to it and it got used to me and we got along well for almost two years. Until terminal wanderlust reared its ugly head and I was once again, forced to get used to a new computer – this time, a laptop.

The only thing I disliked about the laptop was the touch pad. I hated the unpredictability of it, the easiness of it. The darn thing worked no matter where you touched it, and even when you didn’t mean to. You know? Like it had no boundaries. You could never get comfortable with a touch pad; make friends with it, because it was always too aloof. There was just no sense of discovery, and…settling in and you know, familiarity. And it was just unnatural to have to use digits from both hands to click and drag things from one folder to another.

But I did love the whole oyster-shell-y-ness of it. The way it closed up and kept your secrets until the time you felt like raising its lid again. And of course, the fact that it took up so little space on our tiny dining table (which we have never, till date actually dined at) on which we keep everything else that that we don’t know where to keep.

So (sigh) I fell in love with laptop too and when it went away, I was beset by inexplicable urges to break my chooris against the nearest wall.

But now I have new-old system (Henry) and I’m happy again! Henry, blog-people, has a CPU! Isn’t that so adorably quaint? And a floppy drive (floppies! Do you have fond memories of floppies? I do)! And a keyboard that goes clickety-clack when I type and has, for some reason which I cannot fathom, a bright red ‘i’ key*. The mouse is huge compared to my last three mice (this sentence is beginning to sound inexplicably dirty to me) and my hand suddenly seems small in comparison.

I know now that the shift key on the right of the keyboard is on the shy side; she takes time to open up. Mr. Mouse is thankfully, not moody at all (unlike the last Mr. Mouse who needed to be picked up and shaken every few minutes to get the cursor to move) and I have dropped ceremonial cookie crumbs on the last row of keys.

This could be the beginning of beautiful friendship.


*A hint, you think? Does it mean I need to start talking about myself more? Is that possible? I think not.

Salaam-e-Ishq

(Many, many spoilers ahead)

'Tedious, long and requires two aspirin' is how we'd describe this movie.

This is a lumpy-patchwork-quilt of stories from Shall We Dance, Love Actually, Raja Hindustani (why, WHY would anybody do this??) and Pyar ke Side Effects. Nikhil Advani, the director of Kal Ho Na Ho (which we thought was eminently watchable), brings you six love stories in one movie. Most of them badly written, vaguely connected, and interspersed with songs which prove to be the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio's worst movie score so far.

What *happened* boys??

Whither the young-and-in-love perkiness of Kuch to Hua Hai? Or the happy-bollywood-shaadi-ness of a Maahi ve? Or even the eighties-disco-sity of, well, It's the time to Disco? Where has it all gone? Okay granted, there is the title track which is okay (thought it lacks a certain something) and the Tenu leke main javanga* which starts off well, but somehow loses direction after the opening bars. And as for the Babuji dheere chalna remix...*pained sigh*. We don't know what to say anymore boys, really we don't. Except maybe, WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING?? It's *ghastly*! You've done absolutely nothing with that song and it's completely pointless to throw in an old song unless you put a new spin on it (think Bluffmaster and Sabse bada rupaiyya).

On to the stories now.

Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan: KKamini (Priyanka) is an item girl who dreams of being cast in a Karan Johar movie. Rahul (Salman) is a con-man (in the first half of the movie), who plans to make big bucks out of a publicity stunt staged by Priyanka, which involves her falling in love in with a mysterious man who will eventually die. Priyanka is not terribly convincing as the wannabe-bollywood-starlet, but gets better in the second half of the movie. Salman is ...there, doing what he does (I considered saying 'acting' but I think I'd be pushing the word too far).

Ayesha Takia and Akshaye Khanna: Gia (Ayesha), is Shiven (Akshaye)-the-commitment-phobe's long-suffering girlfriend. Hiccups in their relationship are overcome by Ayesha's unwavering faith in Akshaye UNTIL she comes across a video-recording of Akshaye in a drunken moment, telling her that he can't see himself getting married.

A fairly decent performance by both of them. Akshaye carries off comedy better in this than he manages in Hulchul and Ayesha is convincing as the girlfriend who-has-had-enough.

Anil Kapoor and the Bimbo: This story has just about as much substance as clear soup. Vinay (Anil Kapoor) sees bimbo (Anjana) on train and is hypnotised by her cleavage. Bimbo drops diary on train. AK finds diary and despite diary containing no details of address/telephone number/last name, AK manages to locate bimbo who is (surprise! surprise!) a St. Vitus' itch dance carrier teacher to a bunch of foreigners who are attending her class to (presumably) get a nasty skin disease a taste of Indian Culture (ri-i-ight).

(Honestly, if THAT is what mid-life crisis does to you then I refuse to have it. I absolutely REFUSE. Anything that can make you think that extreme dumbness + cellulite + hotpants (aarrgghh!) + graceless dancing + a godawful remix of Babuji dheere chalna = Hot, is NOT something I will have anything to do with thankyouverymuch)

Bimbo, when done with her demonstration of the 'truly horrid things you can do to audiences in three minutes' squeals with joy when presented with her diary and gives AK a peck on the cheek for being such a sweet guy (because of course, guys who ogle at your cleavage are so sweet!), and AK is promptly smitten.

Juhi Chawla, as AK's devoted wife, and mother of his two children, plays the doormat to a T, sacrificing all her dreams so that he can fulfill his. You will be tempted at this point, to wonder if her character is just partially blind or mildly deranged. Apparently, according to the film, she is neither.

Govinda and Shannon Ersa: One of the best/most entertaining stories in this entire film. Govinda is the die-hard-romantic taxi-driver who dreams of falling in love with a white woman. On cue, Shannon enters his life only, she has come to India to win back her Indian boyfriend who refuses to marry her because his family wants an Indian daughter-in-law. Govinda, predictably enough, vows to help her find the absconding boyfriend (because he 'louwes' her!), and together they traipse across the length and breadth of India, where they are met with they-just-left-here stories in all their pit-stops.

John Abraham and Vidya Balan: Johnny boy and Balan play a happily inter-religion-married couple until Balan has an accident and suffers from amnesia. Johnny boy then spends the entire second half of the film taking her to places and meeting people in an effort to get her memory back. Balan is much better in this film and appears to have realised that coy-eye-rolling does not a good actress make. Johnny boy is better than he was in Taxi No. 9211 (which is actually not saying much, but it's the best we can do).

Arbaaz Khan and Isha Kopikkar: Arbaaz and Isha are the frisky newly-weds whose attempts at having sex are thwarted everytime by a. a dupatta catching fire and burning the house down, b. an audience of five children, c. a runaway car and d. an errant rig which holds up Arbaaz's plaster-cast-leg, in that order. We figured that this was an attempt at comedy.

To summarise, watch it if you have plenty of free time. And yes, aspirin.


*And I get that throwing in Punjabi lyrics has proved successful in the past but MUST you force the language down our ears this way? Isn't that the most clumsy set of lyrics ever? What was wrong with saying it in Hindi??

Step up! Step right up!

All ye who have drunk mothers' milk to participate in these writing contests!

I'm off to get me some coffee.