Viewer discretion advised: REALLY POINTLESS POST AHEAD*

(*Seriously? You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you? I'll try and make it better by putting some really bad puns between each paragraph, but really, you're better off going no further)

It's one thirty three in the morning and despite a late night yesterday and a fairly early start to today, I'm still not sleepy. I am alone in my house, actually mostly alone in the city, thanks to several people leaving town and this makes me a combination of blue and peaceful.

PUN ONE: Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

I haven't been very pleasant company recently, just a general bout of snappishness and ill humour and so most things are getting under my skin. I feel all meh, and a desire to withdraw from anyone who annoys me--which, I admit, since it's almost witching hour and the time when I tell the truth--is most people these days. I just feel, I don't know, moody, I guess. Off, somehow. Like a dog, curling my lip and growling at anyone who comes too close. And of course, I'm one of those unfortunate individuals who cannot lose their temper without bursting into tears, so most moments are spent feeling the prick of tears behind my deviated nasal septrum (my nose looks like someone broke it so I never take pictures in profile). So, in a way, it's kind of nice to be left alone so that I can get this phase behind me and go back to being fun.

PUN TWO: Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

Although, you know when you've been in a crap mood for a while and you feel like that's never going to go away? That's a little bit like how I feel now. I'd blame it on PMS, but sadly, I don't even have that excuse. Why am I so touchy lately? Has my skin suddenly gone several layers thinner? Am I just bored and fretful? It can't be everyone around me, so it must be me.

PUN THREE: The Buddhist refused pain-killers during the root canal because he wanted to transcend dental medication.

On the other hand, suddenly all the cheques I deposited have been credited, so maybe a little retail therapy is in order. I've been really, really broke recently, which has not helped my mood. If I was a Little Miss t-shirt, I'd be Little Miss Sorry-For-Herself. Hill Road in Bandra has a row of export surplus stalls where I have actually spotted some knock-off Little Miss wear and tomorrow I shall buy myself some clothes and some books and some DVDs and feel happier.

PUN FOUR: A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal brujo who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the brujo looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, who needs enemas?"

We--BB, Ira and I--have been planning a Goa New Year's again this year. Hopefully, JC will be able to make it too, it's the first time in forever I've had a boyfriend for the major December stuff (well, okay, my birthday and New Year's Eve, but my birthday is a major event in the life of me. And my poor friends who have to listen to me countdown. A month to go! Although, turning 27 rather depresses me. 27 is OLD. I can't even put the digits together without shuddering.) Planning, as always, has been rather haphazard, we're thinking of taking the train down, but don't know yet how many people are in our party, or where we'd prefer to stay. Party beach versus quiet beach is our recent debate, and the pros and cons of each have been discussed. I love Goa though, no matter what time of the year, so I can't wait for it to be almost next year!

PUN FIVE: What do you call a arrogant fugitive falling from a building? Condescending.

Plans for Hallowali are in full swing. Well, again, kinda. I have lots of alcohol left over from the launch after party, so I don't need to fix that. Just a general spring cleaning is required and someone to help me get into my costume, but the few people who are coming are fun so I'm not stressing too much about it.

PUN SIX: I keep reading 'The Lord of the Rings' over and over. I guess it's just force of hobbit.

You know the great thing about blogging? You can start out feeling all crappy and wide awake and by the end of it, you feel lulled and soothed. So even though I've just written perhaps the most pointless post ever (hey, but I DID warn you in the post title!), I feel much better. Thank you, internet and please bless everyone I love and grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to not punch people even if I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Puns courtesy this site and this one.

I demonstrate my lack of will power

I went shopping today to Phoenix Mills, with JC and the Generous Benefactoress (who, true to her name, bought me a very nice cloth Body Shop bag.) They, and another friend, are all going to Goa together. Lali is off to Delhi soon, and Diwali will be just me, some fairy lights and a bottle of vodka. Hmmm.. that doesn't sound so bad, actually.

I am throwing a party though, this Diwali. Half Diwali, half Halloween, which becomes (Wait for it!) the Hallowali party. The theme is gods and goddesses, so I'm going to be Lakshmi, in a red sari, carrying around wads of fake cash and wearing a paper lotus pinned to my pleats. Sadly, because it is on the day of Diwali, I don't know how many people will come and so far my FB event page shows only seven confirmed guests. I think my parties in Delhi might have been better, at least, I was ensured of a crowd and a good time. All the parties I've thrown in this city have been somewhat lacking.

I'm also feeling a little sorry for myself, as you can tell. The weather sucks, my boyfriend and his friends are going to Goa without me (a) someone has to cat sit; b) I figure he's owed a holiday without me since I did my B3 Goa weekend earlier this year.) and I can't stop thinking about home. Delhi home. Where the weather must be changing now and TC has reopened. I've been thinking a lot about my old life there as well--Small and me, in our huge house which was as much to rent as my tiny little room here. I like my life in Bombay very much, but every now and then I am assailed with homesickness, especially now, with winter almost upon us, where the smell in Delhi must be fresh and slightly frosty, and shawls and sweaters are pulled out of mothballs. Meh. I'm not helping myself, am I?

Yesterday was the horrible horrible riots very close to where I live, and I basically stayed at home and refused to get out. I'm so pissed off with the entire situation. I'm so pissed off with a lot of things about the governance of this country to tell the truth. Examples of what you can't do in two of the biggest metros in the world in a country that is one of the largest democracies:

1) Arrest a blatantly biased politician for doing blatantly bad things without four, count 'em, F.O.U.R people dying in the fallout riots.

2) Keep said politician in jail for fear of what the "law and order" situation might be.

3) Drive a car back home from work.

4) Smoke a fucking cigarette in a fucking bar.

5) Yell at someone on the road who cuts you off with his bad driving without the fear of being shot in the face.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head but I'm sure more will come to me. I'm really not liking this non-comment thing, but I'm hoping the haters will get bored of not being able to post anything in another few posts and then you, Reader With Constructive Thing To Say and I can have our happy dialogues once more. It is kinda stupid to be scared off by some random nasty anons, right? Yeah, it is. And I LOVE my comments section. It gives me joy. What the fuck, I'm going to reopen them and just delete mercilessly if I'm bothered.

I lasted all of one post. Wow. You can imagine what it was like when I quit smoking! (But, if you DO want to keep emailing, please continue. I heart emails and I reply there even if I don't in the comments page.)

Love and other indoor sports

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that I'm shutting down comments. This is for several reasons. First, the ones of you who are nice enough to leave lovely encouraging comments are being bypassed because of the number of nasty anon ones. Second, I find myself with limited time to blog these days, let alone reply to comments and third, aforementioned nasty anon comments. My email address still works though and if you have anything burning to tell me, it doesn't take that much longer to shoot off an email. Will this be permanent? I don't know, but for right now, it seems like the right thing to do.

I was going to make this post all about my travels, but then much has happened on the relationship front and I figure that would probably be of more interest to readers of this blog. So, I'm going to tell you the story of JC and me, someone I keep mentioning, but someone you barely know at all.


We met at BB's housewarming party, a good night for many people. I didn't know that many people at the party, to be honest, so I wandered about, making random conversation and planning on where to go next. If you cast your mind back, you'll remember a bungalow in Worli that I went off to, before I left for Lonavala, it was right before that, that I met JC. I was sort of standing in a corner, looking around for my friends and I looked up and caught his eye. "Hello," he said. "Hi," I said. I remember loving the British accent and thinking he was cute and that he did look a lot like Jesus. We had a conversation about what I did, and when I said he was a writer, he didn't immediately bypass this to talk about himself like all the other men at the party, but smiled and told me his favourite writers were Terry Pratchett and Oscar Wilde. Score! "Really?" I said, not believing it completely, so I did a little "what's your favourite Wilde book?" thing and he passed with flying colours. (I've been line-maaroed by all sorts of people, including one boy who sat down next to me and said, "Hi, I'm a misogynist!" Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.)

Then my friends indicated from across the room that it was time for us to leave. "So.. um, bye then," I said. "Could I have your number?" he asked, right on cue. We exchanged numbers quite happily and I went off, only to text him much later that night saying: Hey, it was good to meet you. We should do coffee or something when I get back. (He later said that was such a desperate move on my part to which I say, "Hmph, you weren't going to make the first move, knowing you.") THREE days later (something about a three-day-rule, make-them-want-it thing he has) I get a text from him: "Hiya, good meeting you too. Yes, we should hang out when you get back." For a minute I was all, "Who?" but then it came back to me. "I'll be back Saturday," I said, the next day and this time my reply was a lot more prompt: "Let's do drinks tonight."

When I got back, we decided on Zenzi as a meeting spot, which, by the way? Is a TERRIBLE place for a first date, especially if you live in Bandra. Within moments, everyone was there and our cozy little date turned into a party with three thousand people. We hopped from Zenzi to Vie and then to Rock Bottom where it was oddly, me, him and some cousin of a friend of a friend. (Who bought dinner, but still, it was a little strange.) As we left, I said, awkwardly, "Well, that was a weird first date." "Was it a date?" he asked, and my stomach plummeted. I must have looked as abashed as I felt because he quickly compensated, "I mean, you know, I'm really flattered that you'd think it was a date, but I just thought it was two people having drinks." "Which is a daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!" I wailed, but, "Not necessarily," said JC.

It picked up though, when he asked me back to his flat for a bit and since I wasn't sleepy yet, I said okay and he played his guitar for me and as we both sat on the floor and I watched him, I knew in that moment that I wanted him to be my boyfriend. That we were going to be together. Don't ask me how I knew, perhaps it was just the vodka and the music and the cute boy playing it, perhaps it was just one of those times when fate hits you on the head, but when we kissed, it felt right. Connected. Okay with the world.

I don't know whether he felt the same things, but he must have felt pretty strongly about it, because right after our second date, he told me we should be dating-dating. Boyfriend-girlfriend, to be precise. And I waited for my panic system to set in, which it normally does, I go screaming for the hills at the mention of commitment, but this time, nothing happened except a strange sort of excitement. Oh, it wasn't as easy as that. I tried to set off the panic alarms, I was indecisive and threatened to run, but at the end of it all, I was good with this whole relationship thing.

But even if something feels like it's meant to be, it's still bloody hard work. We've been rocky several times, we've broken up twice, we don't seem to see eye-t0-eye on many things. On the other hand, we know how to be silly, we know how to laugh, we're getting to where we can compromise on stuff and even though we've broken up twice, we've gotten back together in less than a week. I love him and he loves me.

We took off to Manori yesterday, planning to get some quiet us-time in, but wouldn't you know it, the resort we went to was overrun with Mahindra and Mahindra employees playing LOUD team building games at ten in the bloody morning. And there were kids running around screaming. And we were kicked out of our room and sent to a TINY non-airconditioned thing at 9.30 in the morning. So, we checked out of our broom closet, tried our luck at other places but everything was fully booked. Cross and irritable and hot we headed back to Bandra, quarrelling, but then we stopped and spent the rest of our "dirty" weekend at home. Nice.

So, yes, I'm in a relationship once more. Yo-yo-ing. Happy. We're good when we're good.

And *touch wood* six months next month. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

On being single once more

I picture the heart like a switchboard--the heart in my head is a big, red valentine with sharply cut corners--and this switchboard has all these landlines hanging off it, all warm and pulsating, marked with names or relationships. 'Friend From College' or 'Travel Companion'.

And the one marked 'Love' is white-hot and angry, as words whisper themselves out of the receiver and into your veins. This, then, is what they call 'bad blood'. And horrible things said to you gently, begin to become a part of your heartbeat, you start to believe with every lub-dub-I-am-a-bad-girlfriend-lub-dub and before you can stop yourself, you start assimilating all those things that took you so many years to detox from.

So, is it so wrong to pick up that hot line with its cold voice and hang up? *Click* goes your heart and your mind. The connection was bad ages ago, anyway.

(And that's all for now I'll say about me and JC. I am Cleopatra, I keep telling my friends who (bless them all) have been calling at regular intervals to check in, Queen of Denial. Instead I shall update you about the rest of my tour in nice capital letters so you can't say you have no information.

BANGALORE! FRIDAY THE 10TH! At 6.30 pm, at the Reliance Time Out Cafe on Cunningham Road. I'll read (like Speedy Gonzales), chat a little bit and will be super happy if there are lots of people and lots of questions (come on, I need some validation here!)

HYDERABAD! SATURDAY THE 11TH! 6 pm at the Odyssey Bookstore, Jubilee Hills. Similar itinary (itenary?) so come!

Kovalam was lovely, and I'm in Bangalore now, about to be taken out by a most kind friend of a friend. Expect more on the travel post front when I return.

And don't worry about me, gentle reader, I'll be fine. Anon commentors, lay off, or I'll bite you, I swear. And not in a good way either.

Cue tightrope walker music

I have some reasonably exciting news for anyone who's interested in the book (and me!) down South. From the 6th to the 9th of this month, I will be on Kovalam beach, at the Taj actually, as part of a literary festival. If you live in Trivandrum and are interested in book type things, come! After that, I will be heading to Bangalore, where the launch will be on the 10th. I'll let you know where and what time and all that, but still! Isn't this exciting? I've only been to Bangalore once, when I was about fourteen, and I have no friends there, so please meet me and show me the town. I'm dying to go to that steak place I've heard so much about--The Only Place?--and go second hand bookshopping, which I believe is good in Bangalore, and check out the nightlife and so on. And I'm not a stalker type person, I swear. Just ask my mum. (It would help if you weren't a stalker type person also, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, eh?) I'm also super excited about going to Kovalam because I used to go all the time when we lived there, back when I was about seven or eight, and I still remember the beach pretty distinctly. Also, hello, THE TAJ. This author thing rocks more than I thought it would.

We (Lali, Akshay, I) crashed the GQ party at the Four Seasons last Saturday. Oh, it was such a good party. First we stood around outside, all nervous, because there were cameras and pretty people everywhere and it would be rather humiliating to be turned away. But then we discovered the route through the lobby and ambled in, all gleeful and turning to each other with big smiles. Akshay and I have gatecrashed before (it is an art--one of these days I'll do a Quick Guide To Gatecrashing Parties), but this was Lali's first time, and wow, you wouldn't have known it to look at her. I was all morose and single (JC and I broke up briefly, our problems seeming insurmountable, but then on Sunday we had a looooooooooooooooooooong discussion--tearless, I'm proud to say--and yes, another go is happening. We've even set our Facebook statuses to "In a relationship with..." HUGE deal.) and so I drank my vodka Red Bulls, sometimes a glass of wine and watched people. It was also a great party for someone who likes funky clothes, because the stuff people were wearing was totally excellent.

On the 33rd floor was a blues band from L.A, and they did this lovely version of Stand By Me. The three of us were on the little balcony offshooting the lounge and we watched the lights of Bombay sparkle below us, for a minute, I was almost standing outside my body watching me, going, "Wow. Look at me all fancy!" Then we went down to the lobby for dinner--sushi and ostrich barbeque for me--and then to the nightclub to watch a DJ from Ibiza, who was also excellent. Normally, I'm not into electronic music, but this guy was really, really good, he even played a trumpet while he was spinning.

Two high points of the evening: one, going up to Shobhaa De and being all like, "Oh we're going to be in Kovalam together" and her going, "I love your column and I'm really looking forward to your book." And two, standing by the bar, and a random girl coming up to me and going, "Did you write You Are Here?" I nodded and she said, "It was terrific!" Yay for validation. I think that did a lot for my crumbling ego--the entire night, I mean--so I was confident and willing to work things out with JC the next day, but not needy.

How are things now? Oh, a lot better than they were, you'll be happy to know. There's still some fighting--but it feels more like healthy discussions than anything else. It's good. I don't know whether we're going to last forever, but at least we're giving it our best shot. And I am happy when I'm with him, sort of fuzzy around the corners and humming inside and all that.

Okay, I'm out. Happy Eid! And, for all of the rest of us smokers, ONE LAST DAY to enjoy it in public places. Sniff.

EDITED TO ADD: Wow, lot of haters in the comments this time. To delete or not to delete. Ah, what the hell, I'll let them stay. Only please, don't come to my launches. Did I say launches? Yes, I did! Bangalore on the 10th, at a place called Reliance, where they have a bookstore and a cafe, and then (dun dun DA DA) Hyderabad! I'll be at Odyssey on the 11th. And at the lit fest, while I will be at the Taj all three days (6th to 9th) so you're welcome to come on by and say hello at any point, my particular event is on the 8th, at 10 am. I'll be reading from my book followed by a panel discussion with Shobhaa De, Tishani Doshi and Jaishree Mishra.

Sorry, Chennai, no one in your city seems to want me. :( This is how book launches work, some book store or whatever calls the publishers and says, "Hey, we like this author, how do we get him/her down?" and then they work out sponsorship stuff (at a bookstore for instance, the banners would read: Full Circle and Penguin Books India present You Are Here.) They take care of some of the costs, and in return, their bookstore or cafe or nightclub gets publicity. All this I have only recently figured out. So, to do any other cities, I would have to be invited. See?