What IS a wonderwall?

* So besides the rat in our kitchen, I think it's been a fairly uneventful week, as far as socialising goes. I get home, most days, by about eight and I'm in bed by like eleven. *sigh* It's so a sign of old age when you stop going out. Oh wait, dude, what am I saying? I have been going out, quite a bit actually. It's so a sign of old age when you forget what you were doing three days ago. Went for this new vodka launch at Capitol, which used to be a nice club in its heyday but now has detriorated sadly. Anyway, this vodka is called (and this is a true story) Magic Moments. Who on earth calls a vodka brand magic moments? I can understand Get Buzzed Moments, or even, Throwing Up Into The Pot Moments, but magic moments? But I guess throwing up into the pot is not something any alcohol manufacturer wants to bring to light. Though the dude, the head marketing guy, said this vodka was guaranteed not to give me a hangover. Really, I said, because by this time I had had three test tube shots and three Blue Lagoon type drinks, but he said as long I stuck to my limits I should be hangover free in the morning. Hmph. I could've told him that. Also went to (yay!) TC last night, after the longest time, where I also proceeded to get most drunk and spill my soul all over the table, along with my rum and coke. I do enjoy spilling my soul, I do.

* The weather has been so awesome in this city over the past couple of weeks. It's been raining like mad, my feet and head are usually soaked by the time I get into work, but it's lovely. I don't even mind when the electricity goes, because it's so cool, and I get to watch the sound-and-lightening show from my balcony. The other day, it was storming, early in the morning and there was this TREMENDOUS crash and Lily came running out of her room and I opened bleary eyes and we thought something had broken off of the terrace, right above our house, but when we looked down, we couldn't spot anything. It was quite scary though. I'm so in love with our balcony these days, I was watching the sunrise, one rainy morning, leaning over the parapet and looking out at the dewy wet city below me, with the first sounds of morning--birds chirping etc--and morning people waking up, and I felt this incredible sense of well-being, that is sort of hard to describe, but was a little like the Nescafe ad, you know where that chick is all drinking her coffee and stretching her hands out into the rain? Incidentally, the girl in that ad went to college with me, so it was odd seeing her on TV. I think the monsoon brings out my Inner Romantic and despite the mud I have to keep stepping around, I feel like singing all the time, and dancing around trees and so on. Weird.

* Though the terrrible thing about this general good mood, which seems to have descended on everyone I know, is that no one feels like working. Impromptu trip plans are in the air, everyone's either pulling out all stops during the weekends and partying themselves silly, or planning driving vacations to Neemrana or something. The summer is over, which is sad, because this year has just sped past but now my favourite season will be here in a month or two. I love wintertime. I BOND with wintertime. But, grah, that means only four more months of being in my early twenties, this year I officially reach mid-twenty-age and become a grown up.

And I'd give up forever to touch you

(yes i know it's a new template. yes, i know you probably hate it. humour me anyway. it's so PURTY! and pink! if someone could tell me how to yank up the sidebar so it's not all the way down there, i'd be most grateful.)

Yesterday was a sort of special day for me. Four years ago, on the twentieth of July, I became an *ahem* woman. "Happy unvirginity anniversary!" I told the mirror happily. Is this not something other people remember? Because everyone I told yesterday was all like, "Duuuuude, you keep TRACK of these things?" And I looked back at them, equally amazed and said, "You don't?"

Anyway, back to me. So as I dressed with a little extra care--hey, these things happen only once a year--I started also counting on my fingers how long it had been since I last got lucky and I have to tell you, because that's what I do, it was a VERY long time ago. Please don't make me tell you HOW long though, because it hurts to talk about it. Soooooo, take one unrvirginity anniversary and divide by how long it's been since said interactions were last practised and that would make me, well, revirginised. Hymens grow back right?

But I was focussing on the positives as one must do in these situations when you realise that you're going to die a nun and all your internal organs are shrivelling up at the tender age of 24 and you have, in fact, forgotten how to kiss, let alone the other more jazzy stuff, so I went out. My lovely friends from out of town are back--Pieces from Mumbai and Seema from UK--and we had a long catch-up session in the evening. In fact, this evening Pieces is throwing a dinner party which should be nice.

By the time the evening rolled to its close, I was so tired that I could feel the individual muscles in my body going HOME. SLEEP. NOW. But Small and Lily called and said they were picking me up and we were going to Lodhi Gardens for a Dada music concert and they would harbour no excuses and since I was too lazy to drive and I am, essentially, a party slut, I said, "Okay!" almost involuntarily. They were all dressed up, but luckily I have a job where I can look semi-decent, I only looked about medium-horrible and not as bedraggled as I normally would after a long day. I even caught a few boys doing a once over as I fluttered through the crowd, but they could've been looking at Lily, who was wearing this little black dress. Actually, damn, they probably WERE looking at Lily.

Dada music is this mixture of house and psy, but it was only incidental, because the main purpose of this party was the fact that it was outdoors, with this humongigantic fans spraying wet mist everywhere with this psssssssffffffffftttttt sound. (go on, say it out loud. You know you want to.) It was at Lodi restaurant, which is lovely and I should totally go there again with a lover, if that ever happens in this lifetime. (Sorry do I sound bitter to you? You would sound bitter if you ran out of fingers to count the number of months since you last HAD a lover.) There were shiny, happy people laughing everywhere and even the loos had these artistic marigold petals sprinkled in the corners--they sort of contrasted with the wet toilet paper hanging out of the pot, but I'm sure at one point they were beautiful.

I had two vodkas and cokes and found many people from my past lurking in corners, one of whom was my cousin, looking very svelte and delectable and to whom I said, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do" most wisely. Only she said, tossing over her shoulder with a giggle, "That leaves me with a VERY wide open playing field." Hmph. Children these days. I guess it doesn't help that this was one of the few times I saw her when I was completely sober, normally I am so piss drunk at our reunions, U have no words to give cool, big-sister type advice, a role I realise I enjoy muchly.

I also met Golfer Ex, chilling at a table with Lily and I went to sit with them. His friend asked how we knew each other and I laughed and said we used to date. Then I glanced at him and said, "I was a good girlfriend, right?" half-seriously, but he was completely serious when he said, "You were a fantastic girlfriend. The best. You have a talent. I was the one who screwed up." I loved him then, I could've married him. "Then why does no one want to date me?" I asked. "Because you pick the wrong guys, perhaps?"

His friend leaned over then and whispered into my ear, "I think he's still sweet on you." Hmmm.

Small had vanished in a flurry of school friends somewhere or the other, but by the time the party started clearing out, around two or three in the morning, Lily and I were ready to collapse, so we went looking for her. She was sitting on a swing with a couple of people and asked us to hang on till she said goodbye.

Oh and a girl came up to me and said, "You kissed me at TC and we were never introduced!" "I'm sorry," I said, "Did we hook up and did I not call you?" Small and Lily exploded somewhere to my left, but the girl said, in complete seriousness, "No, no, on the cheek! And I don't know your name! I was with another friend of yours!" (It was fun though, mindfucking. And I did introduce myself prettily after that.)

Then we stumbled into Small's car and homeward and this morning I woke up and found a rat in our kitchen.

Ah, will this excitement never end!

Am I right side up or upside down, and is this real, or am I dreaming?

* Okay WHAT THE FUCK is going on? I know, I know I read stories that Shivam was kind enough to send me, and I read some stuff on Desi Pundit and I figured out that coz of some Princess Whatsherface chick, nothing with the url .blogspot.com is showing up on my computer. What I want to know is, who is this Princess and why is she disturbing my routine? A member of the LeT perhaps? Or an unpatriotic person? Or someone who writes about sex? So I went to Princess Kimberly's website (you can access it through this handy tool) but there was nothing I could find that might lead to it being blocked. So, I'm a bit of an airhead when it comes to technical terms like an ISP or other garbled mumbo-jumbo that seems to make sense to everyone else, so I'd really appreciate if someone gave me a "Blogs Blocked In India" explanation for dummies, please, please?

* Must point out Bridal Beer's new website Share-a-Plan. Great idea, a little bit like Meetup and eVite, but of course, a desi version. I've been invited to coffee and conversation on Thursday, you should come too! The invite here.

* Amidst all this socialising, I haven't in fact been going for the Cinefan film festival that's on, but I did go for the Osian's opening night party. Not exactly red carpet, but close enough what with Neville Tuli (is he gay? is he straight? is he oddly asexual? who can tell?) doing a little "Who are you and why are you here" thing at the entry of Olive. Luckily, he knows me, coz I met him for a story once, so I raised my eyebrows and nodded grandly, and he smiled, equally grandly. Then, with a squeal, I danced up to my friend Damien, who was already there and already drunk and the two of us spent the entire evening hand-holding, cheek-kissing and generally acting like two people who wanted nothing more than to get into bed with each other. Of course, he's, blah, gay, so no action for eM there. This man teetered up to us at some one in the morning and put his arms around both of us, telling us that he had been watching us all evening and our love was so pure and so clear and so on. At this point, I'm concentrating as hard as I can on crossing my arms so one of his hands doesn't accidently on purpose touch my boobs, but Damien's all like, "Oh you don't understand, we're good friends, but we're not like that." And I'm all like, "Heh-heh-heh-shut-up-Damien-so-this-man-will-go-away." Finally, Damien tells him that I'm straight and he's gay and the man goes, "But you're in denial! Your love is so pure and so, so asexual." At this point I am rescued by old friend from school, who had joined me at the party and I left the two of them, unregretfully, at it. So, ya, Saturday night was fun.

* I leave you with a song that has been playing over and over in my head. I think it's the new "my song". There's something about it that draws me, compels me to vanish inside the world that is evoked through the lyrics. It is my world. It's been a while since I've reacted so strongly to music.

Here goes: Crush by Dave Matthews Band.

Crazy, how it, feels tonight.
Crazy, how you, make it all alright love.
You crush me, with the, things you do,
I do, for you, anything too oh.
Sitting, smoking, feeling high.
And in this, moment, ah, it feels so right.
Lovely lady, I am at your feet, oh, God I want you so badly.

And I wonder this could tomorrow be so wondrous as you there sleeping.
Lets go, drive til, the morning comes.
And watch the, sunrise, and fill our souls up.
Well drink some, wine till, we get drunk, yes...
It's crazy, I'm thinking, just knowing that the world is round.
I'm here I'm dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down, and is this real, or am I dreaming?

Lovely lady, let me drink you, please, I wont spill a, drop no, I promise you.
Lying under this spell you cast on me.
Each moment the more, I, love, you.
Crush me, come on.
Oh, yes.
It's crazy, I'm thinking, just knowing that the world is round.
I'm here I'm dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down? Is this real, oh lord, or am I dreaming?

Lovely lady, I will treat you sweetly, adore you, I mean, you crush me.
Oh its times like these when my faith I feel.
I know, how, I, love, you. come on, come on, baby.
It's crazy, I'm thinking just as long as you're around.
I'm here I'll be dancing on the ground.
Am I right side up or upside down? To each other, we'll be facing.
My love, my love, we'll beat back the pain we've found.
You know, I mean to tell you all the things I've been thinking, deep inside my friend.

With each moment the more I love you. Crush me, come on, baby.
So much you have, given love, that I would give you back again and again.
Oh, the love, many now hold you but please, please, just let me, always

(isn't it beautiful? Download now!)

Everything but the girl

I might be getting too old for this, I thought on Friday night, gazing around at all the people milling in the garden going, "Hiiiiii-how-war-you?" Amulya--a friend from college (who also complains I don't blog enough about her, so here ya go)--was having a party at her house, her parents were out of town and she always has parties in a BIG way, with a bartender and pretty blue and pink test tube shots which always, in comparision, make my own BYOB and don't forget the paper glasses and chips parties look very tacky. Amulya's parties are therefore always a success, and mine, meh, it's usually touch-and-go.

Everyone was dressed up, including me, though I had just come from a long stretch of work and no dinner, but I borrowed an apricot summer dress from Small, with what I thought was a halter neck, but it turned out was a cross-back. It's a gorgeous dress, with white batik flowers on it and I thought I looked pretty nice, especially when Taz, brother of another friend from college, wound a string of jasmine flowers around my head. (It didn't look as goofy as it sounds, actually, coz lots of people asked me where I got the flowers, and by the end of it, two friends stole it off my head. But it's a short hair look, really). Amulya looked fabulous as well, in this very opening-credits-from-Sex-And-The City dress, white with a poufy skirt and little white heels and a white bag.

But this was like going back to college, first year or something, I remember Amulya's parties from then--they were pretty much the same huge affairs--usually with someone either crying or throwing up or making out, or all three. (Not the same person, you understand, that would be hard even for my multi-tasking generation). Well, since we're all more grown up now, I don't think there was any of the crying and the throwing up, but it was bizarre seeing the same people in the same place doing pretty much the same thing almost, woah, six years later.

I went with Small and Lily, who I don't think were having as good a time as I was, because despite the whole deja vu thing, there were still some fun people who I hadn't seen in a while, and who share a part of my history---however briefly. So the two of them left around one thirty, but Iggy, who had just arrived said her and her friends would drop me home (I heart living in South Delhi, by the way), so I stayed.

Total headcount by the end of the evening, two men, one woman.

*I've got the power! Dum-dum-dum...dum-dum-dum, I've got the POWER!*

Or maybe it was the flowers. Who knows?

Strangely though, I think it was about three in the morning, Iggy nowhere to be found, boys who were giving me a ride not looking like they were anywhere near leaving, chatting with another boy who it turns out I've known since I was five (!) (Delhi is so small, I'm getting sick of saying what a small world), I realised how this party was different from a similar one six years ago. (Wait for it, revelation moment coming up)

It wasn't them, it was me.

So meeting the same people many years later, looking up through the same dropped eyelash look you perfected when you were seventeen at an old flame now, throwing the same blue shots down your throat and nearly gagging, it wasn't the same because the shot-throwing, eyelash-dropping girl was well, not the same. Does this make sense? It doesn't look like I'm making sense even when I'm writing this, but it's really hard to convey what I felt, how I felt, like I was on a swing, pointing upwards, looking backwards to where I came from. Like looking at something from the wrong end of a telescope. Smaller and within context. Life's greatest moments are when you realise things in context.

In context then, I got home as the sun was rising, too tired to change into nightclothes, stripped out of the dress and passed out in my underwear. I had to open the door for the maid in my towel and had a ferocious hangover for three days, but still. In context, it's all good.


ps: This post was written BEFORE the Mumbai blasts, or possibly, just before I knew about them. We all have friends and relatives in Mumbai, yesterday the network was jammed trying to get through to them. Desi Pundit here has a better round up of the links than I can offer, just know that Bombay is a city I admire deeply, despite all my digs at it (in a versus Delhi battle), so my fingers and toes are crossed for you guys. Terrible times.

Once upon a time...

This post by my cousin suddenly triggered off little nostalgia waves within me. You have to understand first though, the nostalgia, stemmed from the fact that our mothers (and the rest of my cousin's mothers) have this obsessively close relationship. Nothing remains a secret in my family, unless you specify, and even then you have to take your chances. Also being an only child, I was quite close to my cousins growing up, Horsey for one, was babysitted by my mother in his formative years, and I think they still bond to a certain extent. Me, I'm the black sheep of the family, quite literally, my lifestyle's not exactly the most conventional, I'm not married, I don't make half as much money as the others do and even though being the only girl has some perks, it doesn't make up for the fact that all the boys are definitely closer to each other than to me. It used to make me feel a little left out, but I'm not a very family-oriented person at the best of times, so I'm dealing with it.

All this however only started happening once I grew up. As a kid, we were all really thick--well, me and the two boys closest to my age. One of them still calls every time he's in Delhi, the other hasn't opened his mouth in front of me since he hit puberty. And Horsey and his brother were like our gods. (Were, I emphasise again, WERE). First of all, they were so much older, well, only about seven years, but when that's your entire lifetime, it feels like quite a bit. Second, and this was really nice, they spent a lot of time with us. I don't know whether that was just because their mother made them (Like I said, obsessively close!) or because they enjoyed hanging out with us, but they still never made us feel like they were doing it out of compulsion. Also, and this I only appreciate now that I'm grown-up, they always treated us like people, with opinions and everything, like adults and not like little kids. Oh sure, sometimes their teasing would go overboard and I'd burst into tears and go running to my mother, but she never interfered and usually I learnt just to go somewhere quiet with toys or a book till they were done. (If their mom caught them teasing me, though, they'd get it. Which was nice).

What did we do as kids, I'm trying to remember. The three of us closest in age would spend hours play-acting stories (I was the story-teller/beautiful lady, my pilot cousin was the truck driver, which was his ambition in life, and my younger, now super-model-in-Dubai cousin would be the panther or the bear or whatever other bit part he wanted). When the older ones returned from school, we'd either play with Lego or with Horsey's robots. I remember he drafted out this entire story around the robots, one was the leader, the other one was his best friend and so on, and one day, in a moment of glory, I was given the best friend robot to play with. I promptly dropped it, it cracked a little, and Horsey looks at me, picks up the leader and goes, "His heart is broken. We can never play with them again." I felt like a criminal, especially since no one spoke to me for a couple of hours.

My grandfather has this farm, in a district off Hyderabad called Shamshabad. It's real name is Venkatram Farms, named after an uncle who died in childhood, but we always called it Shamshabad. And it was synonymous with paradise. We'd swim in one of the huge water tanks, which always had algae floating around in it, that we'd pick up and chuck at each other. Those who couldn't swim stayed afloat in huge black inner tubes which we so fun to poke your bottom through and gaze up at the sky, we'd sometimes hijack them. There would always be a feast for lunch--mounds and mounds of food, and while the grown-ups napped, we'd sit on the indoor swing and pretend it was a ship sailing rockily over shark infested waters, which we'd then try to push each other off into. At nights, we were told ghost stories, by Horsey and his brother, Horsey's were always the more realistic and therefore the scarier ones, how the woman in the portrait, with her hand behind her back was a murderess, who had just killed her husband and was only waiting for us to go to sleep before she pulled out the knife from behind her back and stabbed us with it. That picture still scares me sometimes.

And then we grew up.

Strange what desire will make foolish people do

I think I've figured out the way out of my dating/commitmentphobe issues. Part-time lovers.

No, really, it seems perfect. Allow me to present my manifesto.

In today's day and age, no one is really a complete package--you have your baggage, your insecurities, your betrayal problems, your problem with people who chew with their mouths open and so on. Now, if you were to date three individual men, on a need-to-know basis, which means none of them would need to know about the others, you would have (ta-dah) the perfect man.

Or at least, I would. Then I wouldn't need to think about all the things one guy should have to be Mr. Right, they'd all be accessible, with each of my part-time guys (PTGs). Your average PTG should be unattached, but not a slut, with enough issues to make him quirky and interesting, but not so few that he runs the risk of being a full-time guy (FTG). He should be, most importantly, someone who seems capable of a lot of sex, because, really, that's why he's a part-time guy. PTGs are essentially useful when you're so busy or so involved with other things--work, family, friends etc---that you have no time to spend in sustaining a relationship. He should provide excitement, the torrid afternoon shag, say, or the tender kiss on the forehead at a party. He should be reasonably attractive, so that when the whole hiding-from-your-friends thing gets old, you can show him off.

Each PTG should be chosen with care, depending on the others. As in, humous is all very well--but you don't want three funny guys constantly in your face. So you have one, whose charm lies in his ability to make you laugh, another one who isn't that funny, but who cna make your toes curl just by sliding his arm around your waist, and the third fills a sort of provider/pamperer role, if you need to feel like a girl girl every now and then, because he'll be the one who wines and dines you, and picks you up and opens the door for you and all that jazz. (Don't look at me like that! You can be empowered with the other two!)

Now, here's the tricky part. Juggling all three seems like it would be a problem. The less people involved the better. And since you're only interested in you, make sure there isn't anyone else for him. No one. Not even his own part-time lover. The easiest way to do this is by pretending there's no one else for you. Be charming and loving when you meet him--the fact that you have two more guys will only add to your sense of mystery. (I sound like those chicks who wrote The Rules. Kinda fun, actually). If you're the bare-all type, choose two of your most discreet and close friends--preferably ones you have plenty of dope on as well, so you can blackmail--and tell them. That way, you have someone to obsess to and the truth won't come blurting out on a drunken evening.

There's always going to be one PTG you like more than the others, and you can see him as a FTG. Beware of that. A guy may seem completely into you, but unless he shows it with like gestures and stuff, he doesn't really mean it. He's a PTG for a reason, because he lacks one or more essential components that would have qualified him for a FTG.

Go forth and multiply (the one guy into three, I mean. Not babies) And please let me know how you got away with it!