What would you think, if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Don’t the days seem to be going by awfully fast? Here it is practically Saturday morning already, and the week seems like it’s just begun. I now understand the meaning of timelessness—it is this. The fluidity, the days merging into one without a beginning or an end. The sky is a hopeless blue, the traffic is just one red light. And here I am in the middle of it all--waiting for something, anything to happen. Waiting for my life to begin.

"I'm getting a reputation as a party reporter," I told my Features head the other day, "I want to do more serious stuff."

"Okay," she said, eyes twinkling, "But do you still want to do the speed dating thing?"

"Ooh, yes, please," I said, grinning, because y'know, speed dating is what I saw in Hitch and what I totally wanted to do.

So here it is, my "last" party assignment, before I hopefully move on to more serious things. Like what Delhi girls feel like after the whole Dhaula Kuan rape. Or even serious writers and their craft. Why they write what they write. Books is a beat that everyone seems to take seriously and I bask in the reflected glory, happy to be taken for an intellectual, when really I'm far from that.

Anyway, so entering Athena tonight I met many girls, all thirty-something, all a little disillusioned with the whole dating scene. They had to sit around and wait for the guys to come to them which was way not in keeping with the feminist ideals I was brought up with. I live to make the first move, baby. But I do it damn subtly and all. Looks from under lowered lashes, wide smiles, head thrown back in a laugh, I do it all. And then the guys come to talk to me. And they say stuff like, "Oh you have a cute smile." And I pretend like it's the first time I've ever heard that. Guys can be so stupid sometimes.

VJ Gaurav was there tonight, looking like Mr. Hottie Hotness himself. He's grown his hair, so it curls softly around his face, he's tall and lean, and he dresses well. AND he speaks well. What more could anyone want? I certainly didn't. When I interviewed him I was all smiles and all pulling at my fringe and then later I struck up an easy camaraderie too. He was coming over and talking to me and everything. Very smooth, eM, I told myself and took to batting my eyelashes whenever he was within a 100 metres of me. I don't know whether it worked or not, but he definitely was giving me more attention than he normally would've.


And as for the speed dating itself, the contestants were pretty sad. Definitely no one I would date. Though many boys asked me wistfully, "Are you participating?" And I had to say no, which I did most regretfully, but some of them stayed anyway, just to talk. One said, "Oh i've seen you in TC many times" and another said, "You're too pretty to be a contestant." (Sorry, but I had to put that in! No one compliments me these days!) And a third thought the most savvy move he could make was to keep bumming my smokes. (How could he know, poor old fuck, that that's the worst way to my heart. Seriously, all a guy needs to do to turn me OFF is to keep smoking my cigarettes.) And then he smiled at me and said with a lisp, "You know, if you were participating, I would definitely tick a 'yes' for you." Awww... NOT!!!

Coz that's what they did. Ticked off their cards, if they wanted to see anyone again. Please. Speed dating in my opinion is about as effective as matching horoscopes. Though it was fun to watch though.

Ooh and I met a boy. A very sweet boy who's my age, and about to do an MBA. A boy who doesn't read (but who needs more readers anyway?) a boy who looked a little naive (but who needs street smarts?) a boy who denounced religion (woo hoo!) a boy who lives in Gurgaon (bummer) and a boy who took my number and said he'd call me tomorrow. I flirted shamelessly, I might as well tell you, much to the amusement of the photographer and guessed his zodiac sign in one go. (Aquarius). Yes, it was one of those evenings.

And there was also a very hot DJ, who reminded me strongly of K., and who I batted my eyelashes at too. He's invited me to Nasha this Wednesday, and if I can drum up a crowd, I'll probably go.

Even though the days merge into one, there's always hope for tomorrow.

UPDATE, SUNDAY NIGHT:

So Athena Chappie has called a couple of times, and I realise more and more, how absofuckinglutely picky I have become. It was all very well, flirting at Athena with nice music and some alcohol and pretty boy. But later, when he's calling, I realise I really have nothing to say to him. Darn.
So, yeah, that's that then. Another one bites the dust (and is struck off my list).

And other stuff

For The Sake Of Auld Lang Syne

I thought I had a date yesterday. See, when I was at TC this weekend, sitting sulkily by myself in a corner while Priya and her boyfriend Abhinav slow danced and smiled into each other's eyes, this guy came up to me.
"Um... excuse me?"
"Yes?" I said, turning around, all prepared to be sharp and huffy, till I noticed he was sorta cute. So I kept some of the brusqueness and dropped the huffiness.
"Um.. are you eM?"
"Yes..." I said, now raising my eyebrows.
"Hey, hi, I don't know whether you remember me, I'm Karthik and we used to be in boarding together!"
(Wait, pause, just a second. Recent events have brought to light that some people think when I use names on this blog, I'm using real life actual names. Well, hello, no. I'm not stupid. All names are psuedonyms and are in no way meant as actual names. Has it ever occured to you that there might be two Devyanis in this huge country we live in? Or more than one Karthik? Anyway, now that that's settled, moving on with my story.)
Anyway, I remember Karthik as this little guy, one of the shortest in our class and he remembered me as this girl with long curly hair and braces and so we had a good time looking each other up and down and going, "Oh my god, you've changed!" (I love it when that happens).
And after yelling over TC's sonic boom volume music we fixed up to meet in the next couple of days. And he asked me, "Are you dating anyone?" and I said, "No" very demurely and "Are you?" and he said, "I don't know." Hmmm.
So we met yesterday for coffee and he was very nice and sweet and we discussed school and how this one guy I used to hit on majorly was actually gay and hit on many of the boys in our batch. And work and what we had done in the last seven years. And his girlfriend.
Yeah, he has one. Been dating for a year and a half now. Sigh.
And then we decided to fix up to meet over the weekend, before he leaves for Canada. But it was nice, all the same. Not a date, like I expected, but there is something to be said for platonicity. (Is that even a word?)

Now With 100 Per Cent More Moisturiser!

Yesterday this photographer told me that the systems guys have nicknames for all the women in office. She told him she was going on assignment with me and he said, "Oh the Dove Girl?" Dove Girl??? Hallo, explaination please? Perhaps it's because I look so pure :)

We're Updated

Yeah baby.
Guess who has a brand new Windows XP OS? Me, that's who.
Guess who can finally play the Sims 2 she was given for her birthday? Me again.
Guess who's waiting for a new monitor because she can't see any dark colours on her present one? Yup, that would be me.

Welcomes Are In Order
Because over 20k visitors is no joke. I should probably make this site more serious and all, considering *gasp* so many people! I throw the floor open. Now accepting reader feedback. But whoever my 20 thousandth person was, you're very cool! Yay! :)

Touch if you will my stomach, feel how it trembles inside, you've got the butterflies all tied up, don't make me chase you, even doves have pride

We've all dated a few duds in our lifetimes, but I think I possibly hold the record. Ever since I first started seeing people, I have had one bad relationship after another. And the few good ones that happened by chance, fleetingly, pausing to caress my soul before they moved on, just showed me how awful the other men I was choosing were.

My friends claim their exes were bad too. After all, exes are only there for us to abuse, for us to squeal, "Ohmygod, what was I thinking!" Okay, p'raps not. I mean, I do have some exes who I am still friends with. But being friends with someone is very different from being in love with them and I have a theory that you can never be friends with anyone you were once in love with. Seriously. Or if you can, you're a better person than me.

Take David for instance. Oh, I loved David with all my eighteen-year-old heart. I loved David with the kind of passion I imagined, and living up to my imagination is pretty hard. Many dates I've had have bombed because the real thing never lives up to the blow-by-blow I've been doing in my head for many days before the actual event. David slouched, he was bohemian in a way I longed to be, he smoked cigarettes with consummate ease and he quoted the Smashing Pumpkins. He was just so cool. And I was fresh out of school, recently returned from a trip to the States and had gotten into the college of my choice and I thought life was pretty good. Only it wasn't.

David had an ex, looming in his recent past, an ex he had dated for some five or six years before she decided to take a break to "find herself." Leaving David growing wistful every time he mentioned her and leaving me to grit my teeth and love him harder. He was a decent guy. He liked me as much as he could. He played Bittersweet Symphony over and over again while we talked because I liked the song so much. He actually got down on his knees to ask me out and then gave me a bubblegum-tasting kiss. He was the one who produced the grass the first time I mentioned wanting to experiment with marijuana. I had never seen him more excited than when he rolled that joint, looking over at me animatedly, smiling as I broke into very stoned giggles.

But he cheated on me. With his ex-girlfriend who was having several flings of her own but couldn't stand the idea of him having any. Or maybe she resented that while she was having only flings, he was looking and sounding happy. I found out about the cheating and broke up with him, only to have him woo me again with promises. And his quirky mouth and his labrador eyes melted my resolve and so I agreed. And the second time he cheated on me wasn't that bad, I fell ill briefly, but soon recovered. I was in college by then and somewhat independant and when he appeared at my doorstep with roses, I found it in my heart to refuse him. But I never blamed him. I blamed his ex instead and when she came to my college a year junior to me, I'm sorry to say we ragged her quite a bit, making her buy us stuff and generally being snotty. I was friends with a popular, influential lot you see, so by the virtue of my connections, I was able to make her a little unhappy for some time. But soon we relented and when she and I interned at the same newspaper a couple of years later, we became good friends. David and I are almost out of touch though. He's now seeing an acquaintance of mine, and I hear that he's doing well, still in college (muahahaha) and still in and out of drugs.

I don't know why I've always chosen men who are unavailable. Tariq, this other guy I had a brief fling with, seemed okay and he knew his Iliad and that was a very big deal for me then. But then one day, just after we finished making out and I lay happy and content in the dreamy stage that always happens when you've been kissing someone for a really long time, I asked him sleepily, "So now what?" And he looked all sheepish and said, "Well, see the thing is I'm kinda in love with my best friend." And what did I do, ladies and gentlemen? Did I dress rapidly and storm out of there? Did I slap him and tell him he was a bastard? Noooooooooooooo, coz see that would've been a sensible thing to do. Instead, I sat there and gave him advice about his love life.

And K with his two-year relationship that I speeded up the ending for, and Golfer Ex who "just wasn't looking for anything" and Yudi, the boyfriend of a classmate who I attempted to seduce, only I chickened out once I thought he was interested. Why am I choosing guys like this? Maybe it's something in my mechanism, maybe I'm setting myself up to be hurt. What else would explain the Boston Boys, the Whippersnappers and all of this world that just seem to fling themselves into my orbit.

Oh well, the good news is that once I'm done hurting about the end of yet another relationship, they make for good stories to tell my friends. And to blog about, of course.

A Series Of Unrelated (and some rather unfortunate) Events

Recently, one of my colleagues changed where she sat because there was this huge lizard stalking her. "I hate lizards," she told us, when we asked her why and begged and pleaded so hard, that we didn't have the heart to make her sit on the terminal facing the Lizard Wall.
The lizard has become quite a regular fixture now. He comes out around three, scurries up the wall and sits there for a while looking at us. Then he retires behind the old newspapers taped up against the window to keep the sun out. He usually comes out later in the evening too, but then there are so many people there and someone will invariably squeal, "Oooh, yuck! It's a lizard!" and then he will leave; a hurt expression on his face.
"We should name him," I said the other day.
"Yeah," said another not-squeamish colleague, "He looks like a Shrikanto."
So Shrikanto he is, despite Colleague One going, "Not Bengali! He is so not Bengali! Why have you given him a Bong name?" She's Bengali herself, by the way, in case you hadn't guessed and her lizard trauma dates back to when she and her family unwittingly consumed a lizard that had fallen into a hot rice cooker and then had to get their stomachs pumped. Oh dear. It's not a pretty story and I think Shrikanto overheard it because he avoids her dutifully, this Lizard Cannibal.
We also had a grasshopper the other day, which made me squeal, not liking flying insects. But she was named Tun-tun and I fervently hope Shrikanto has consumed her somewhere.

I was at Hookah tonight, for some new band they had just gotten--Arabic sarangi type. Actually I was there to interview the disciple of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and very excited I was too, because I've had Afreen Afreen on repeat in my car for ages now. I've reviewed Hookah before, way back when it first opened and I had taken New Boy with me and he spent the entire evening flirting with Hot PR Chick. Tonight I figured since New Boy wasn't around anymore, it was a good oppurtunity for me to flirt with the Hookah owner who is very cute. So I did, we even giggled about star signs and all that and then I noticed that Hot PR Chick and Hookah Guy were giving each other long looks over my head (which was pretty easy, considering they were both GIANTS).
So then I asked Hot PR Chick, very sweetly whether she and Hookah Guy were an item. And she blushed and nodded. And I wanted to impale myself on the stirrer that came with my LIT. But I drank it instead.
Then I interviewed the band and the band leader was pretty damn cute. I mean, a) he's a musician and b) he had long hair and that pretty much finished me. So I batted my eyelashes and grinned very widely and he got chattier and chattier, telling me all about the belly dancer instructor who told him she didn't drink and then downed two martinis and did unmentionable things. (Well, he refused to mention them. If I knew, I would've told you, I promise). And then he turned to the young shy sarangi player and said how at some concert a girl climbed onto stage and kissed him. And the young shy sarangi player blushed and I gave him a "oh-how-nice-for-you" nod and turned back to the band leader and saw *sigh* his fingers entwined with the sarangi players, rubbing across the knuckles. Firmly, without a doubt entwined.
(Here's a question: Where do you look when someone's holding hands in front of you? Is it rude to let your eyes drop or do you have to stare, like I did, for fear of appearing homophobic, zombie-like at the wall between their heads? Honestly, I had a crick in my neck from not bending it for so long)
(ps: that Nusrat Disciple never showed. Fever or something.)


This must be said. Even though I normally don't make public announcements on this blog, I assume some of the people who read it must be women in Delhi. The other day I was driving to a friend's house and it wasn't even that late, only about 9.30 and my turn was right after the bus stop. So I waited behind the bus for it to move so I could move and I was aware of this creepy looking middle aged man staring at me. And just as the bus started to move and I put my car in first gear, so I could move too, he tried to open the back door and get in.
Luckily, my doors were locked and my windows up, but imagine if they hadn't been? I wouldn't be writing this for one. And so please, please, please invest in a weapon. Pepper spray is your best bet, you get it in Defence Colony Market for about 395 and from what friends tell me, it really works. You totally should. I'm going to, tomorrow.

I'm a bitch, I'm a tease, I'm a goddess on my knees

> Some people, said Bridget Jones, are like jellyfish. They look perfectly harmless and all, and you're all unprepared and going, "Oh, how cute, a little translucent ball of gelatin-like substance!" and wham! they get you with a little sting. And only little stings, which is what annoys about the jellyfish. Man-o'-wars can at least get you passed out for a while, but the jellyfish's subtle "BUZZ" hurts a lot more. And just when you're least prepared for it too. You're swimming, happily minding your own beeswax and suddenly, "Have you put on weight?" Or "I love the way you get away with wearing stuff that would look so slutty on other people." Things like that. I forget real life examples, but you get the general drift.

>Aargh, aargh. WHEN did the transparent shirt for guys make a comeback? I counted three whole grown-up people, people who should really know better, in transparent shirts. One tonight at TC was wearing (wait for it) a transparent WHITE shirt, with embossed FLOWERS and a set of black strings around his neck. And sitting at the Cafe Coffee Day (CCD to its admirers) in Saket, I saw a girl in a shiny metallic silver top with little sequin thingies around the bottom. God. Is it like being colour blind, having a bad dress sense?

> Here's another thing that I wonder about. Why do people who come from abroad to India briefly for a holiday get so chatty? I've heard loads of bullshit about "Oh you Indians are so warm and friendly!" Warm and friendly, my ass. Most of the time, if you're a firang and you're going on and on and on about the beautiful culture and the lovely people, we're thinking "Chutiyas"*. Or maybe that's just me being uncharitable. Maybe I should be warmer and friendlier.
* If you didn't understand that, trust me, you don't want to know.

> Since for the past few days I've been having an Abhijeet Sawant overdose, I've begun seeing him everywhere. No seriously. I'm driving, and I see him in the next car. I'm window shopping and bam! there he is loitering with his friends. I'm at TC and I see at least five of him, scattered all over the place. And each time I hold my breath, waiting to see if he acts like someone famous, so I can be scornful.

> Ex-New Boy propositioned me today. So blatantly also. "My friend's going out of town and he's given me the keys to his place." I was on the phone with him and narrowly missed having an accident because I was rolling my eyes so much. "Um.. p'raps not, " I told him. "Why?" he asked. Why? WHY? Because your mother's a psycho freak, that's why. Because I'm just not interested, that's why. But I didn't say that. I said merely, "I'm not looking for random sex, thanks all the same." I'm such a chicken.

> And then there are the boys who hit on you, only they're not hitting on you, they're hitting on your profession. They're chatting you up, everything's hunky-dory and you're all flutter-eyed and coy and then, "Hey, you know, I have a restaurant and it's really nice and you should really cover it in your newspaper." Yeah, buddy, get in line. And get a new line while you're at it.

> Yeah, I just needed to get all that bitchiness out of my system. This weather has me all out-of-sorts. Today Iggy and I met many exes and as soon as we smiled and said hello, we turned to each other and made huge "L" signs. Hypocrites, totally, but it felt so good. I've been so angelic for so long, I feel it's time for some bad behaviour. It's like indulgence, like chocolate or tequila, this badness, this bitching inside my head and it amuses me. And I enjoy being amused.

Of potatoes, Catholicism and being eight

When I was in class four or five, my father was posted in Trivandrum. And unusually, (because usually my mother stayed in Delhi where her work was and I stayed with her) we went with him. We had a gorgeous house there--three layers of gardens, two floors with a separate guest suite, a rock garden in the middle of the house and wildlife everywhere. In fact, it became common for us to see snakes in our dining room, pressed up against the glass door, sunning themselves. And once as I sat on the back stairs near the garden I saw a beautifully striped rope which moved when I bent to pick it up. A rat snake.

And we had a dog--a floppy eared Alsation who was my walk companion and a parrot and an aquarium full of fish where all the fish floated belly-up in the first two weeks except for one black guppy called Shy who lorded it over the empty space. And I brought caterpillars into the rock garden and made them walk on moss and pretended they were prehistoric creatures. And once in a sentimental fit we bought a baby squirrel which died rapidly too.

And crawling through the laundry room, the roof was low enough for us to sit on and marvel at how high up we were and admire the sunsets. Home was my kingdom and I ruled there.

I was briefly in a convent school while I lived there--this terrible place called Holy Angels and I still remember the classrooms with their strong smell of jam sandwiches caught in hot tiffin boxes. I'm sure Holy Angels was a nice school and all that, it's just that for the brief time I was there, there was this one other girl in my class who bullied me terribly. Little girls can be so cruel. And I was at my most unattractive then (Till of course, I hit puberty and new levels of ugliness) too-skinny legs, too-big teeth and a funny accent, half-Mallu and half-Delhi. I don't remember what she did to me, this girl, but I remember crying almost every day, my head buried in my arms, face down on the desk.

This was also my Catholic phase. I was most impressed by the catechism classes that some girls attended thereby escaping the deathly boring moral science. And this one girl asked me brusquely, "What religion are you?" I was a little nonplussed, religion not being something we discussed at home and stammered, "Um.. Hindu, I guess." "Don't say that here," she hissed, "Here you should only be Catholic." I began writing poetry with a vengeance all about "Sleep Baby Jesus" and wondered many times why we didn't go to church.

Thankfully, or not, depending on your viewpoint, this saving of my soul was stopped. My parents, perhaps alarmed by my religious conversion or by the fact that I hated school for the first time in my life, put me in the more secular Kendriya Vidyalaya. KVs then weren't as run down as they are now--and for most government officer's kids were the best place to go because they understood about sudden transfers and leaving mid-term.

I truly enjoyed my time there. The poetry came back, but this time it was Hindi poetry that I wrote, much to the amazement of my classmates and I showed off about the fact that I was from Delhi where everyone spoke Hindi. And I joined the Girl Guides, except being too young to be a full-fledged Guide, I was a Bulbul and very proud of the special uniform I had to wear--blue with a little scarf thing.

At this point, I wore a fringe, and my eyes were very, very slanted (it runs in my family--I'm inclined to believe a Mongol invader moved really, really far south and married an Andhra maiden). And people asked as people do, "Are you Japanese?" and of course, I played along, going, "Yes yes, of course I am Japanese" and letting off a string of garbled words which my audience lapped up. Or not. But we had a good time.

My best friend was a girl called Asha Latha. Well, I say best friend because I felt everyone needed a best friend and she agreed with me then but I think later quite regretted her descision. Because I read so much, I was constantly saying, "Oh we should have a secret spot with a password and all." and she didn't read very much and I think didn't follow much of my vocabulary, being very happy with speaking in Malayalam. Still she was my best friend and I was most upset when she got two other girls to sit in "our spot". When I questioned her about it, one of the two girls let off a stream of Malayalam, of which I understood nothing. "What?" I asked miserably and "Pawam (loosely transalated 'poor thing')" said Asha Latha, scornfully. Oh, the betrayal.

Ooh and there were boys then too! One boy called Kannan who, when another boy pushed me, pushed him back and said, "Stop that!" I was mortified and snapped at Kannan, "Hey, it's not his fault, okay?" Another very sweet fat boy called Bala who, when he heard I collected stamps gave me one for this place called--Okay, don't remember, but it started with a K and was very unusual. And another boy called Shekhar who came to Trivandrum because of the war in Kuwait and who always spoke to me with dignity and respect.

And there was this one girl called Preeti Malpuri--a little girl with a huge face and even bigger pigtails which her mother fastened to her head with big blue ribbons. She brought the best potatoes ever--fried and golden and fantastic. Every day I went home and asked my mother for Preeti-Malpuri-potatoes and they never turned out the same.

And in the auto I shared with three other girls to go home, there was this one girl who lent me a textbook-abridged version of Jane Eyre. Which I borrowed thrice till my mother got me the real thing.

And then we returned to Delhi.

Oh no, it's happened

It's got me.

Dooom, dooooooooooooooooooooooom.

Goodbye, cruel world.

Blogger burnout. I can't, can't, can't think up new posts.

This is it, isn't it? The end of the road for me?

Or maybe my life's just not exciting anymore. *deep sigh*

Hibernating if you need me.

I see you baby, shaking that ass, all right don't touch me

We went to Aura last night, for Meg's birthday party. Well, actually, not so much a birthday party as a gathering of her friends who bought their own drinks and did their own thing. Prior to that, Iggy, Seema and I bought a half of Blue Moon vodka and finished it happily, happily in the parking lot of The Claridges. Oh yeah, also with us was Mehak, who by the way, makes blatant passes at K every time she sees him.

Mehak and I were once in TC together, Iggy and her Wonder Boy cooed to each other in a corner and since we hadn't met "properly" before, we started talking about what we do and why we do it etc. Random polite conversation. Then she takes off about K-- Why we broke up, do I still like him, does he still like me, how his brother is so hot and I'm looking at her thinking "Un-fucking-believable, this woman is trying to get me to give her the low down on my exboyfriend!" Since when did K become such an object of hotness amongst everybody, huh? When I look at him, he still looks the same, plus I was so the better looking person in our relationship.

But Mehak actually turned out to be quite nice. Apart from when my car cd player started I Will Survive, and she has this really, really loud, really grating singing voice. Imagine someone shrieking "At first I was afraid, I was petrifieddddddddddddd...." in your ear while you're peacefully cruising down empty roads. Luckily, two bottles of coke with vodka in it were being passed around and so Iggy, who was sitting in the front seat, and I, just exchanged looks and started cracking up.

Aura is really very nice. I had reviewed it before and they had these three foreign bartenders--one Brit and two French guys. The Brit guy, called either Mike or Andy, I forget which, was really hot. Dee had come with me for that review and the two of us spent most of our time talking to him, giggling a bit because of all the vodka cocktails they kept giving us. (Aura specialises in vodka cocktails, by the way, and the drinks are excellent and I know I don't normally recommend anything other than TC, but I feel this place deserves a plug. So go drink there--very nice music, very chilled out, slightly pricey but better than most hotel pubs. It's at the Claridges. There now my advertisement for the day is over) Anyway, so midway chatting to Mike/Andy, I noticed Dee was beginning to talk like a British Colonel. I nudged her, giggling a little more, but she totally ignored me and went on this British accent trip. I asked her why she did that when we left and she claimed she hadn't noticed. "I was debating trying my French on him," she told me. "It's a good thing you didn't, because of those French bartenders there," I said, grinning. "Yeah." Pause. "But he was so hot." "Totally." Then we took a moment to contemplate the hotness of M-Andy.

Anyway, last night I looked around hopefully for Mandy, but he was nowhere to be seen. Damn. I did meet K's brother Rahul though, who Seema leched at from her corner on the sofa. Rahul is very, very hot--tall and lean and chiselled face--the works. I was sorta attracted to him for a bit while I was dating his brother and I hated myself for it. But even though Rahul is hot and all, and only two months older than me (K is 13 months younger) him and I would probably wind up shooting each other if we had ever had a scene. For one thing he's very stiff about stuff like smoking (He once told K, "Y'know, I love eM, but she smokes like a fucking chimney!") for another, he's very into having his "women" well-groomed and always sexy and always waxed and never end-of-the-day tired, which I don't think I have the energy to handle. I like to dress up sure, but I'm happiest in a t-shirt and jeans. But Seema leched and Mehak leched and then I told them he was leaving for the US tomorrow (ie today) but they leched all the same.

Oh and I met two new boys (no, not worth dating, not hot and "working in daddy's business"). But one of them used to ride and he said, "Oh we should go for a ride some morning." I seriously felt like I had fallen through some time warp and was in the 19th century suddenly. Do people actually say, "We should go for a ride"? But after I was done giggling (because Seema bought me a Red Devil--chilli infused vodka with watermelon juice--incredible) I said, "Sure, that sounds like fun." Because even if he was fat, he seemed sweet. And I should have some sweet people in my life, right?

And there's an ex-office party tomorrow, which should also be fun and drunken. So much for being anti-social. Still, inner zen is coming along nicely.

Don't you know, things will change, things will go your way, if you hold on, for one more day

I have this nagging ache in my jaw.
It's been there for some time--not a cavity kind of ache, just like I've been clenching and unclenching my jaw for a while. Which surprises me, because I don't normally clench my teeth. I'm probably doing it when I'm asleep then--my orthodontist told me I ground my teeth and my mum says when I was a baby, I'd gnash my gums.

It always amazes me that my orthodontist would know that. I mean, do they have signs or something, that tell them when a person is grinding their teeth? Are my molars worn down? It was equally surprising when my optician told me I slept with my eyes slightly open. Kinda creepy too. I don't want to be one of those people, who look really really scary when they're passed out. I know I talk in my sleep sometimes. (And I know this because d-uh, I went to boarding school and slept in a dormitory. Not because I've had any specific complaints). My friend, who used to sleep in the bed next to mine, said once I half-sat up and said, "Guys he's so cute!" She was worried, because the object of my affection then was a secret and I wasn't telling anyone about it. But luckily, before I could be more indiscreet, I went back to sleep. My mother also tells me once I sat up and asked her, "Do you like to eat ants?" "Not particularly," she replied and satisfied I slept undisturbed. She also told me I used to mumble to myself. I wonder if I still do that. I think the sleep talking has been outgrown. And I haven't had any complaints about snoring.

The object of my affection. There have been so many objects of my affection. And each time I thought to myself, ohmygodthisisit. And now I've even forgotten some of their names. At one time, they caused heart palpitations and sweaty palms and the brilliance of my day depended on them. Depended on whether they'd look over at me
after basketball practice and smile, depend on whether they'd pay special attention to me at the water cooler, or whether they'd send me an sms during my philosophy subsidiary, on whether their hand rested a moment longer on my back at a nightclub--silly little things for my day to hinge itself upon, don't you think? But as I grow older, out of school, out of college, it gets harder for the little things to be so very little. Now it would depnd on what he said, on how he said it, on meeting his friends, on his meeting mine, on the sex, so many, many, many expectations that is it any wonder my day is seldom brilliant?

But y'know? Funnily enough, even though I post and post and post about how I want a "relationship" etc, I realised over the past week, that I'm okay. My emotional switch is on 'off', I feel more confident than I have in weeks, and I've been catching up on my reading (even finished four new books over the last two weeks), catching up on television (thank you O Gods Of Star World for bringing back Boston Public). So yay me, right? I've become so balanced, I'm even giving advice to other people!

So that's it. Not a very long post this time. I just thought I'd let you all know I'm getting in touch with my inner zen. Blessings be upon you.

I sink three-pointers, you wax poetically

I've just finished watching I Am Sam on HBO. And I'm not ashamed to add that I discreetly brushed away the wetness in my eyes more than once. Normally, movies don't make me cry. There are movies which will have everyone else crying by the bucketfull and I'm all like, "Yeah, so?" Which probably means I'm going to get my period, because this one PMSy time I started crying at advertisements, for gods sake. Seriously.

Or maybe it's just because I've been feeling unusually sentimental these days. Some days I'm all about the peace and the love and the flowers and go around my day with luminous eyes, others I'm all about the gloom and doom and how perfect the rain is, just like one of those old angst-filled movies, where the lonely sound of rain acted like a backdrop. I swear, the other day when I was in this mood and it started to rain, began to look around for a solitary black raven. Couldn't find one though, but wouldn't that have been fitting?

Ooh, last night was brilliant. At least, if drunken memory serves, it was. First we had to stop by at Priya's college friends do, which was interesting, I suppose, just not the kind of people I would normally choose for company. Then Golfer Ex (Aha! Ahahahaha! You see how he's trying to get in on my weekends? But I'm on to him now!) invited us for a pool party at his friend's penthouse on the ninth floor. Unbelievable.

The weather was just right last night. Actually, because it had been raining, it was a little chilly, but the lacuzzi was on in the pool and so were the lights and it glimmered bluely and wetly and so Priya and I borrowed shorts from the host and jumped right in. I was just sorta dabbling one toe into the water because it was really fucking cold, but then someone pushed me in and then, well, you know how pool parties are.

We played volleyball for a bit, drank much tequila, but since I hadn't really eaten anything since breakfast time, it was porcelain heaven for me. Which was startling, because I haven't been throwing-up-drunk since, oh, four years now? The last time I was that drunk, was right before K and I started dating and I called him, pissed to high heavens and yelled, "Stop playing fucking games with me! Either you stay with your goddamn girlfriend or you break up with her and start dating me, I refuse to be in the middle of this!" Sometimes I think my entire break up was some sort of bad karma thing, because I asked him to break up with her. But then, shouldn't he be getting his share of the bad karma too? Technically, he cheated on her, right? I was single, so I'm not totally to blame.

There have been many questions about why I choose to put lyrics as post titles. As long as I can remember, basically, as long as I have been musically aware, I use a soundtrack for my life. When I was younger, I used to act out videos to songs on the cassette player, now that I am all adult and not supposed to do stuff like that anymore, I use certain songs as backdrops. To make a moment even better. And there are lines in some songs that make you turn the volume up and sing with all your heart and all your lungs and those are the lines that define you at that moment. Like, for instance, in Losing My Religion my friends and I have very different favourite parts. Priya likes "I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing, I think I thought I saw you try", Iggy likes, "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" and my favourite part is where he goes, "Consider this, consider this, the hint of the century". See?


Speaking of music, I've become very into cheap Bollywood songs these days. The Oh Sharabi, Kya Sharabi and Bheeghe Hont Tere types. Beeghe Hont Tere is incidentally the song you hear when you call the dhabha near my office. They make the most excellent chilly garlic chow mein ever! Along with cheap Bollywood songs, I'm also very into cheap Chai-nees food these days. Want to turn me on? Order a chilly chicken dry boneless.

Anyway, so it's six pm and for the first time in forever I don't feel like socialising. So I'm going to go, turn on the air conditioner, crawl under the comforter and channel surf for a bit, while pulling out all my old childhood books and re-reading them. I really should make a trip to the pavement stalls at Daryagunj soon.

Supposed former infatuation junkie, I sink three-pointers, you wax poetically

I've just finished watching I Am Sam on HBO. And I'm not ashamed to add that I discreetly brushed away the wetness in my eyes more than once. Normally, movies don't make me cry. There are movies which will have everyone else crying by the bucketfull and I'm all like, "Yeah, so?" Which probably means I'm going to get my period, because this one PMSy time I started crying at advertisements, for gods sake. Seriously.

Or maybe it's just because I've been feeling unusually sentimental these days. Some days I'm all about the peace and the love and the flowers and go around my day with luminous eyes, others I'm all about the gloom and doom and how perfect the rain is, just like one of those old angst-filled movies, where the lonely sound of rain acted like a backdrop. I swear, the other day when I was in this mood and it started to rain, began to look around for a solitary black raven. Couldn't find one though, but wouldn't that have been fitting?

Ooh, last night was brilliant. At least, if drunken memory serves, it was. First we had to stop by at Priya's college friends do, which was interesting, I suppose, just not the kind of people I would normally choose for company. Then Golfer Ex (Aha! Ahahahaha! You see how he's trying to get in on my weekends? But I'm on to him now!) invited us for a pool party at his friend's penthouse on the ninth floor. Unbelievable.

The weather was just right last night. Actually, because it had been raining, it was a little chilly, but the lacuzzi was on in the pool and so were the lights and it glimmered bluely and wetly and so Priya and I borrowed shorts from the host and jumped right in. I was just sorta dabbling one toe into the water because it was really fucking cold, but then someone pushed me in and then, well, you know how pool parties are.

We played volleyball for a bit, drank much tequila, but since I hadn't really eaten anything since breakfast time, it was porcelain heaven for me. Which was startling, because I haven't been throwing-up-drunk since, oh, four years now? The last time I was that drunk, was right before K and I started dating and I called him, pissed to high heavens and yelled, "Stop playing fucking games with me! Either you stay with your goddamn girlfriend or you break up with her and start dating me, I refuse to be in the middle of this!" Sometimes I think my entire break up was some sort of bad karma thing, because I asked him to break up with her. But then, shouldn't he be getting his share of the bad karma too? Technically, he cheated on her, right? I was single, so I'm not totally to blame.

There have been many questions about why I choose to put lyrics as post titles. As long as I can remember, basically, as long as I have been musically aware, I use a soundtrack for my life. When I was younger, I used to act out videos to songs on the cassette player, now that I am all adult and not supposed to do stuff like that anymore, I use certain songs as backdrops. To make a moment even better. And there are lines in some songs that make you turn the volume up and sing with all your heart and all your lungs and those are the lines that define you at that moment. Like, for instance, in Losing My Religion my friends and I have very different favourite parts. Priya likes "I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing, I think I thought I saw you try", Iggy likes, "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" and my favourite part is where he goes, "Consider this, consider this, the hint of the century". See?


Speaking of music, I've become very into cheap Bollywood songs these days. The Oh Sharabi, Kya Sharabi and Bheeghe Hont Tere types. Beeghe Hont Tere is incidentally the song you hear when you call the dhabha near my office. They make the most excellent chilly garlic chow mein ever! Along with cheap Bollywood songs, I'm also very into cheap Chai-nees food these days. Want to turn me on? Order a chilly chicken dry boneless.

Anyway, so it's six pm and for the first time in forever I don't feel like socialising. So I'm going to go, turn on the air conditioner, crawl under the comforter and channel surf for a bit, while pulling out all my old childhood books and re-reading them. I really should make a trip to the pavement stalls at Daryagunj soon.

Aruba, Jamaica, Ooh I'm Gonna Take Ya, To Bahama, C'mon Pretty Mama

The four tequila shots in my empty stomach are now sending gentle tendrils of warmth up and down my system. And I'm sooooooooooooooo buzzed. I'm so buzzed in fact, that I'm having to backspace all of this and rewrite just so it looks legible.

Where was I, gentle reader? I was at the launch of a new tequila brand ("So smooth, you don't need salt madam"). It looks like my beats now include books, embassies and alcohol! And I'm not complaining either. Nothing says contentment more than man with a tray full of tequila shots pausing discreetely at your table and proferring it to you. It would be rude to say no, even. So I didn't.

I love my job, some days.

Met Rana Dasgupta and his girlfriend at the launch too. No doubt I babbled at him. I've been doing that quite frequently lately. At the Namita Gokhale launch I went to yesterday, I met her daughter and asked her vigourously, whether Jay Panda was divorced. "No, him and Jagi are very much together," she said, raising an eyebrow, because this is really not the kind of conversation you expect to be having in the polite environs of the ladies room. (Yes, we socialise in there. Yes, that's what takes us so long). So I went on at length, noticing that my foot was being inserted further and further into my mouth till finally she said, "This has been an interesting conversation. here's my card."

I spent the rest of the book launch skulking behind pillars. Once I caught her eye and she winked at me, but besides that there were no further incidents.

I've been quite the social butterfly this week. Met up with some ex-colleagues on Tuesday, two of whom are moving to Mumbai and the other, Urvashi, I met today too, with Jabberwock at the Defence Colony Subway. Both of us tried to convince her to blog, but even though I came up with my FAVOURITE BLOG URL OF ALL TIME (no secrets from you dot blogspot dot com) (which actually turned out to be a real-life blog with this woman bitching about her husband and men who were like "wet noodles" during sex. Sorry, Urvashi, now you can't have it) she didn't seem very interested.

And that combined with drinks with some people and dinner with others, makes this quite a busy week. Blogging has been much discussed, by the way, and I realise really, there's no point keeping my identity a secret any more. At least in Delhi. where everyone knows who I am. I still nourish hopes of anonymity amongst my foreign visitors though.

Oh and ooh, bought this brilliant book the other day at Full Circle. Go read.

If I could fall, into the sky, do you think time would pass me by?

I want someone to sing to me.
I want them to sing with love-infused voices, melodies full of cliches. Like Yellow. Or More Than Words. Or Deep Inside Of You. Or Iris. Or even *blush* Your Body Is A Wonderland.
And they can't just end with singing to me either. They have to really mean what they're saying. They have to think that this song, by this artist, was written just about me, about us and they are the only people to think that way. I want someone to serenade me, and if he has a bad voice, he can settle for just playing the song and turning to me and saying, "I always think of you when I hear this."

I want a Cosmo ad relationship.
I want to be part of the kind of couple who wear fisherman's sweaters and cup each other's faces. The kind that laugh really loudly on a fancy red leather sofa. Or have perfect hands entwined, with diamonds. Or wash each other's hair, our golden retriever looking bemused in the background.

I want someone to go to a party with.
I want to go to the party together, even if we don't spend the entire evening joined at the hip. I want to be able to look across a crowded room and see him and feel happy. I want someone to feel the same way. And at the end of the party, or when I get tired or very drunk, I want someone to put their arm around my waist and say, "Let's go home." And I want it to be one home--mine and his.

I want someone to travel with.
I want to be able to look like intrepid backpackers---tired, but sharing a cigarette, stopping off at small tea stalls on our way up to the hills to drink steaming hot cups of tea. I want to walk with them in the mountains, or dabble toes with them in the sea. I want exotic evenings with candlelight and fancy food and I want a plush hotel room, or a cheap one, with a big bed and I want to be able to cuddle with someone and go to sleep.

I want someone to do the crossword with.
I want to sit across him in a coffee shop and do the crossword. I want for him to always have a pen. I want to get excited about getting the word right. I want to be able to debate fiercely about the clues. And when we do solve the whole thing, I want someone to be happy with, someone to hug or say, "All right!" and I want for us to exit, arm in arm, like shiny happy people.

I want a cliche.

Oh, the randomness of me!

Bye Baby Bunting

Just spent the entire day on a baby fest. We were lunching at a colleague's house and her small son and another colleague's small son were generally being passed around for much admiration. I like babies. Admittedly, not as much as I like puppies, because babies don't lick, don't roll over to have their tummies scratched and don't wag their tails so hard their entire bottoms wiggle. Actually, babies don't even have tails. But writing that, I'm reminded of reading Rosemary's Baby, which I read one night when I used to live alone, when both my flatmates were working late. It got really thrilling and exciting, and I jumped at every night, only just as I got to the last page, I realised three pages were missing. I confronted Flatmate One angrily when she came home, because it was her book and she just said airily, "Oh didn't I tell you? Ya, it's missing a few pages." Hmph.

Anyway, so where was I? Ya, so these babies were adorable all Cerelac-ad-type and all, smiling and laughing on everyone's laps and when it was my turn I took them eagerly, because they looked so cute with the smiles and the bouncing, and I talked to them, one by one and I revelled in the perfect fit their heads made in my palm and their little fingernails and what did they do? They took one look at me and their lower lip started quivering and they bawled. Okay, so it wasn't that dramatic. But they definitely got fussy when I held them, despite the fact that I sat through one of them trying to detach my nose and the other trying to undo the strings that held my top up. I'm going to be a HORRIBLE mother, aren't I? :(


Asides

"There's a story on blogging in today's Hindu," my mother told me, handing me the literary supplement.
And as I started to disappear into my room, paper in hand, she said sadly, "But you're not in it." Clearly the recent newspaper mentions are addictive even for my family!

Home, home on the range
Went for a wine launch/tasting thing the other day and bumped into AB there. We got into a long discussion about Calcutta, and why she likes it so much, only she didn't really give me any reason why she should, aside from, "Ummm.. it's slower there" or "Ummm... it's very Bengali y'know?" and my personal favourite, "The girls dress very.. um... garishly, in like pinks and greens and yellows." All of which made me want to stay firmly in Delhi. I'm sure Cal. is a fantastic city and all, but Delhi just sounds more exciting in a general description, y'know? :)

Na, na, na, na.. Macarena!
Went to TC last night with Priya and all and stayed till the last order. By this time I was practically passing out and then they go, "Ya, so there's this farmhouse party in Mehrauli and we should totally go there."
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo," I protested weakly, but I was overruled, bundled into my car and told to drive to CR Park, where one of the guys we were going with wanted to pick up some grass. (Not us. We don't do drugs. Stupid thing to do, if you ask me).
Anyway, so they made me park my car there and rumbled off into Chattarpur, where all the big, swish farmhouses are. We stopped at one called "Rajpal Ranch", because that was where we were told the party was and honked furiously at the gate. The guard opened it, we whizzed through a huge driveway (and even I could tell it was big, despite the fact that by this time I was asleep against the window) and we couldn't see any other cars. "Where are the other cars?" asked Priya and "Where are the other cars?" we echoed and it turned out we were in the wrong farmhouse.
Luckily, I don't think anyone was home, so we went back to the gate, honked grandly again and were let out. I guess the guards were overwhelmed by the authority with which we honked because they didn't say a word. Rajpal should know about this though.
When we got to the right house and everyone was scanned as a thirtysomething blur, I whispered to the host that I'd like to take a nap, so he kindly ushered me into a large bedroom, with an even larger bed in which I curled up and went to sleep. Yes, alone!

And, zat, ladies and gentlemen, was my weekend. Fun, no?