alcohol + eM = not coherent

Okay so I'm drunk right now. Drunk enough to make small letters into capital letters and vice versa. I think bullet points are in order.

I am a drunkyyyyyyyyyyy monkeyyyyyyyyyyy. I have had FIVE vodka cokes and a PINT of wine. This is terrible.

I miss JC who has been gone for two whole days. I am pathetic enough to a) check London time on my new phone (more about that later) and b) make my friends call him at "appropriate" London times.

I'm still drunk. Water is my friend.

The last time I was this drunk was when I lost my brand new Nokia 6600 slide. It was SO pretty. I feel sad still talking about it. Now I have a Fly phone. It has a touchscreen. Night pictures aren't great but the whole touchscreen experience is fabulous.

I had two people who recognised me at Toto's today. Wheee! I LOVE being recognised.

Andddddddd Goa tomorrow where drunkenness shall be the norm.

(Ick, I feel a little bit sick now)

Aravind Adiga is one of the "people I may know" on Facebook.

I'm so posh.

All I need now is Jhumpa and Arundhati and I'm set.

And Zadie Smith.

Who I want to have a lesbian relationship with.

Or a three way half hetero half lesbian thingie.

I've been watching Gilmore Girls so much I'm beginning to talk like them,

Coz I have all six seasons.

How jealous are YOU?

STILL DRUNK DAMMIT

The Morning After

Right. So I guess that dream I had about logging into Blogger and posting while I was shit faced wasn't really a dream after all. Heh.

I survey the damage and it's not so bad really. Well, I did have rather a tame evening despite the copious amounts of alcohol. We began at Toto's and then everyone got boring and went home at eleven, so I called a friend and went to chill with her. I carried along my pint bottle and by two am it was all over and JC called to keep me company as I went home.

AND, we realised that my phone might have a shitty night mode, but it has a great webcam attachment thingie, so I could plug it into my computer and we voice and video chatted which made me feel very high tech and cool. I might have even flashed the camera--but we can blame that on the wine.

Tonight, Ira and I are off to Goa on our ownsome. I am thrilled, not only about the beaches and the food and the parties lalalalala, but ALSO because the water pressure at my house has been shit the last two days and I am looking forward to having a REAL shower. Sigh. The things I fantasise about. It's really quite pathetic.

So, my regular year end post where I sum up the happenings of the last year can be done quite briefly this year.

I discovered promiscuity--AND, here's some information I didn't tell you then, this year is the year when my "number" entered double digits. Ladies and gentlemen, preeeeeesenting, the slut! (as a disclaimer, I don't like the word 'slut', I hate its connotations and I'm using it in an ironic kinda way here, not because I actually believe that any woman who likes sex is a whore or a slut or whatever.)

The job (and journalism) was put aside forever. Freelancing became my thing in April, and now I wonder why I'd ever want a full time job again? (Although, I miss the stability and security of a regular paycheck, and sometimes, on slow evenings, I miss the clatter of a newsroom.)

I got new flatmates this year--Lali and Yamini, and so far, even though the time when all three of us are actually in the house at the same time is rare, I think I got lucky.

My run of promiscuity ended when I met JC at a party, and he, we, us is definitely one of my biggest achievements of 2008. Knock on wood, now!

And finally, ta-dah, ta-dah, the book! With all that it brought. With the book tours and the signings and the *gasp* actual fans for me. Graduating from being a writer to being an Author. Letting other people enter my very private universe and judge it, and judge my characters who I created with such love. Learning to live with bad reviews, learning not to get complacent with the good ones.

And now, oddly, despite all that has changed I find myself in the exact same place I was last year. About to go to Goa with a friend. Maybe I'll look at the same fireworks on the same beach, but the anticipation I feel about 2009 is very different from what I had for 2008. More of the same please!

Love you darlings, be good, and if you can't be good---well, you know the rest of that sentence.

Another year, another number

Twe-henty seven, dahlinks, is really not very different from being twenty six.

Except I feel the urge to make resolutions.

Like be kinder to people, for instance. Make up old grudges. (Not forgive and forget, entirely, I'm not quite Mother Teresa yet.) Maybe, less with the judgements.

It's been three days since I turned 27, the late twenties now (26 SHOULD count as mid twenties, otherwise it would be just mid-twenty.) That much closer to thirty. Full blown adulthood (I've been fighting it for a while.) No one to say, "You're too young to.." anymore. I'm not "too young" for anything. Even plastic surgery. Perhaps Alzheimers. I might still be too young for that. Funnily enough, that thought doesn't depress me so much anymore. I'm quite happy being a grown up.

Last night at Zenzi, we were talking about how old you had to be before someone could start calling you Aunty or Uncle. I declared that if ten years ago, you were old enough to have a kid, then you shouldn't really be resisting the label. At seventeen (I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was made for beauty queens, sorry, couldn't resist a little song intervention) I guess I was old enough to have babies. But, technically, I only became active in the baby making process when I was twenty, so I still have another three years, right?

I had a lovely birthday though. It was calm and drunken, even though my brilliant hire-a-projector-and-have-karaoke-on-the-roof was shut down by the cops around midnight. But still, after that, the karaoke might have been over but the party moved down to my flat and went on till the wee hours. Not much of an overlap with last years list though, which is something I found quite odd. Maybe, say five (?) of the same people. Wow. And here I thought I had barely made any new friends at all this year.

Although, ONE thing I haven't yet grown out of. I still had my little pre-party meltdown, right on schedule this year, where I got all weepy and felt unloved and unappreciated. It's nice to know that some things aren't probably ever going to change.

December has got to be my absolutely favourite month. I know I've said this before, but really, I'm in such a good mood through all 31 days, that I amaze myself. Even though I'm losing JC to the charms of a family Christmas for him back in England (HMPH), I know I have plenty of things to look forward to. Although Bombay--Bandra anyway--will start to look a lot emptier soon, with everyone going off on their holidays. Not to forget, me and Ira are taking off for the sunny shores of Goa in TWO! SHORT! WEEKS! Yay! And when I get back, there'll be all the excitement of Chrisann's wedding, and THEN, I guess I can get around to missing my boyfriend. (Only joking, darling, you'll be in my thoughts constantly! Kisses!)

Things on the work front have been a little slow recently. I got laid-off, downsized, whatever fancy lingo they're using these days from one of my columns, and though there are other interested parties, things are moving v e r y s l o w l y. Sigh. Luckily, I have some back up cash, but soon I will be seriously broke if it continues at this pace. Being a freelance writer isn't easy. I'm tempted to stand in the middle of the road with a sign saying: WILL WRITE FOR FOOD. And if I want to meet my next-book-in-2010 goal, I need to get cracking on that as well. So far I have 2000 words each of two possible books, and I'm stuck. Maybe I should start selling advertising space on this blog, because the Google Adsense thing I installed has earned me a grand total of thirty dollars in oh, eight months. I know I should be placing it in more visible areas, but it's just sooooooo UGLY, you know? And my beautiful snazzy template will be completely ruined. But, if it's a choice between that and a) winding up homeless or b) having to move back into my parents house in Delhi or c) getting a *gasp* full time job again, I seem to be pretty screwed. No, no, don't panic, things aren't quite so bad yet, but you know, the older you get (heh) the more these things matter.

To end on a less depressing note, I recommend you all go out and get Curtis Sittenfeld's latest, American Wife, the fictitious life of an American First Lady, loosely based on Laura Bush. I read it for two days straight and now I'm feeling the weird disorientation that comes when you emerge from a good book you've been so wrapped up in, unable to make coherent sentences.

Must run now, Wonder Years is on, and I'm in a nostalgiac mood. Expect high frequency blogging this month.

Capital, old chap

So, we're home. Suitcases across the floor and not much inclination to unpack. Birthday parties to plan. Things to catch up on. The flatmate's story of where she was "that night." Bombay, unchanged, business as usual, but perhaps, maybe it's my imagination, a little bit quieter.

And so, I move on to my recollections about Delhi. JC was quite a success, and I think he had fun too. We didn't do much, no sightseeing or anything (except a day spent at Daryagunj and Kareem's), but we did manage to meet quite a few people. And he did get to see what Delhi's like if you live there, and not as a tourist.

Things I got:

I got my first set of birthday presents from the 'rents. A Nine West tangerine bag and beige and tangerine shoes to match. (SO lovely, I feel hot and power woman-like each time I wear them) and new RayBan shades--just the kind I wanted, big ones with plastic frames so they don't burn my face each time I put them on in the sun and darker than my old ones, which is also what I wanted, seeing as we're hitting our late twenties and crow's feet have begun to make their presence felt.

I also went to Janpath, with Fariha and JC, where I bought a red floral pattern dress which makes me look like Jennifer Lopez with the boobage. JC got Christmas presents, and I also got my first lesson in how men shop for presents. There was no deliberating, just chop-chop-chop, this is what I want, okay, I'll take five. Phew! It seems more effecient, but less fun.

From Daryagunj, I got a bunch of books including The Wonder Spot, written by Melissa Banks (author of one of my favourites--The Girl's Guide To Hunting And Fishing). It's one of those books that is so good that you have to stop every now and then to inhale and make sure you're reading slowly, so it doesn't finish too fast.

And, I also got myself a dustbin for my room, something that I've wanted for the last two years. It seems rather odd to be going on about a dustbin, but I've been looking for just the right one. Not those Magnet industrial kitchen ones, not the plastic ones, I wanted the steel look but slightly more classy. I think my new bin does that. I've very proudly discarded two ciagrette packets in it right now. My resolution for Year 27 is to be slightly more handy around the house, so I'm going to begin with keeping my space a little more organised. It's tough to break bad habits formed for YEARS, but hey, it's worth a shot, eh? Household hints for the harried will be welcome.

Partying like it's 1999:

Stone happened some ONE GAZILLION times. They let you SMOKE, which nowadays is all I seem to need from a bar. That's the nice thing about a lot of places in Delhi, they have the space to put out a smoker's balcony. (Psst: in Bandra, there's Zenzi and Banana Bar, if you're desperate for a cigarette with your drink.)

We also did the oldnew TCOpus with Crowley. I guess I'm just going to have to accept that TC as it was is dead and gone. KVA and I were actually having a discussion about it. "The old TC was a legend," he said, "And even if they reopen in the same place, it will never be the same." Sad, but true. Still, it is heartwarming to see that the DJ hasn't changed his playlist in two years.

Very nice Saturday night Blingbees do at a new restaurant called The Yum Yum Tree in New Friend's. It was a 90s night, which meant not only 90s music (yay!) but also 90s prices (re-yay!), which meant a hundred bucks plus taxes on drinks. So we---Fariha, Rehaan (old friend, has just returned from phoren), JC and I--got completely, out of our minds, shimmying on the floor, talking to everyone around us, shit faced.

One night we met Leela and Ishan at Aqua, where the bouncers recognised me, making me feel all posh. It was someone's pre-wedding party, but they said to bring friends, so Leela did, joyfully. Sadly I was driving and couldn't take advantage of the AWESOME open bar, but I think JC had both our shares.

What we ate:

Big Chill (no brainer, but duuuuuuuuuude, prices have gone up by like a HUNDRED rupees)

Sancho's (a new (?) Mexican place in South Ex. Lovely food, I'd recommend it highly)

Kareem's (Mmmmmmmmmm)

Stone (where they do a really good medium rare steak. Seriously.)

Moet's Sizzler (Meh.)

Ubiquitous weather reference:

Cold weather is fun!

I'm fine, we're fine, hope you are too

As always, I'm a little sheepish when I return to blogging after being absent for so long. But, basically MTNL's a bitch, and I hate blogging from cyber cafes, so I had to sit on my ass and wait around for them to finally send a repair guy and do all sorts of things and then reconfigure some settings--where JC got involved--and then, basically, it's been a long and arduous wait.



And then, of course, the horrible, horrible week that it has been. I had the internet but no inclination to write. What was I going to say, watching the city burn, watching bloodstained people shaped bundles being loaded onto ambulances, watching my phone go crazy with text messages and phone calls, really, what is there to say? I am PISSED OFF. And I think I can speak for most of my generation too. This teeming population of mostly 25 year olds is watching the old paunchy grown ups, supposedly in charge of everything, and then growing increasingly disbelieving. How else can you explain Vilasrao Deshmukh taking his son and fucking Ram Gopal Varma for a tour of the bullet ridden hotels?



When I, in perfectly good faith, give you, old men and old women of India, my vote, you better be willing to live up to it. Don't just sit around on your ass and expect that anything goes and then pat yourselves on the back for the fact that the economy is booming and people around the world take us more seriously. A) That has very little, if anything at all, to do with you. B) Pay your fucking cops more, man. These impoverished and underequipped men and women have no choice but to take money from whereever they can and they defend themselves against grenade throwing, AK47 carrying terrorists with--wait for it--lathis. No, I'm serious. (I read it somewhere, but can't find the source) C) Have emergency evacuation available. I heard stories of people being stuck in town not being able to go home, and SCARED. I'd have been scared if I was there. If you don't have the funds for an evacuation with security, at least build some shelters with bullet proof walls that people can make a break for when something like this happens.



When I was a little girl, I imagined the Government as a man. He had a big bald head and in my imagination, worked in a tiny little office filled with brown paper packages. I felt quite bad for Government, people seemed to be blaming him all the time. How much work could one man do, I wondered. I told this to my mother yesterday, and she said, laughing, "Now the government is a woman."



Okay, Ms Government, time to pull up your socks. I am quite confident that the present administration is going to be changed soon. (My friends have mostly changed their votes, as for us, thanks to some botch in computer systems, our names were nowhere on the voting register. I spent that voting morning walking from one polling booth to another.) The only recent decision I am happy with is that Chidambaran is taking over as the Home Minister. I think he is eminently sensible and wants the best for the country

Man, I am pissed off. I wanted to talk about Delhi and what a good time we're having and how JC is getting on with everyone and where we've been and the awesome weather and second hand bookshopping yesterday, instead I feel almost compelled to put down this tirade. I'm not letting the terrorists win, though, tomorrow, shall see my frivolity shine through, come what may.