eM’s House O’ Dreams

Oh, dream house, I love you so. I swear it. I only moved on Tuesday of this week, but never has a place felt so quickly like home. I thought my Bandra flat was the Flat Of My Life, so to speak, I didn’t think I’d form another attachment to a place as strong as my one was there, but oh my god, this place has my Bandra flat pinned to the floor and begging for mercy.

 

Not least because of the vast amounts of space. Dudes, I live all over the house and I still can change it up a bit. In the mornings I spend my time with a cup of coffee and the morning papers in my large drawing room. Then I switch over to my study, where I usually spend most of the day. I put music on, around the late afternoon, early evening, some jazz, when I’m feeling fancy, some Ke$ha on a weekend, like today, some 90s, when I’m just feeling silly. The guest room, sadly, hasn’t been used properly yet (as you can see from the picture below, it also took me the longest time to set up), but I’m calling it the Room Of Requirement and letting its uses evolve organically. One such use will probably be a yoga room, I’m looking for a reasonably priced yoga instructor to come home on weekday evenings (so that I don’t have an excuse to bunk the class) and I will use that room just for my exercise.

 

The first day I moved in, one of the first things I did was call the electrician and get him to hang up all my pictures. So, in the midst of unpacking, I kinda felt homey already, with all the art work that I love already on the wall. If you remember, what it takes for me to feel “settled” in a sense is making my bed, and over the years, hanging up my pictures. (Yes, I know I spelt “independent” wrong. Also, my god, looking at my gushing ness over… toilet brushes? makes me feel very old and wise.)

This as you can see, is my designated TC potty area. It’s actually not so bad, because it forces me to clean out his litter every morning, instead of ignoring it and letting it get all gross and manky (which is easy to do if you can’t see it or smell it). TC, by the way, is such a pro at the moving now. First he sulked under a cupboard for a bit, but now he’s his usual self, meowing randomly to himself, stalking around the house. I think like me, he’s also a bit “WHEEEEEEEEEEEE THE SPACE!” and so every evening, he goes a bit mad and leaps around and hides behind curtains. Psycho.

 

The only drawback to this house is that the loo is actually outside the front door on the landing, which is okay, but when you really have to pee in the middle of the night and you’re a lazy person anyway, it takes a lot of effort to get out, walk across the WHOLE house and open the door and then pee and then come back in and lock the door again. Well, okay, it doesn’t sound so bad, but I’d have liked it if there was an en suite bathroom. Which would have also meant that the price would’ve doubled, so I guess I’m lucky for old school planning. There’s another tenant I believe, on the second floor, but she’s out of town at the moment. When she’s back, I’m going to have to carry a bathrobe when I have a shower, but now I’m just throwing on a towel and walking around.

 

My study (photo below) is perhaps my favourite room in the whole house. The windows alone make it any writers dream. Unfortunately, for the first time in my life, I have more bookshelves than books. (But, oh, I have SO MUCH CUPBOARD SPACE! I now have a cupboard just for dresses, one just for casual everyday clothes, a SHOE CABINET, a linen closet, winterwear storage and I STILL HAVE EMPTY SPACE. Worry not, fair reader, I will soon work on filling them all up.)

 

 

I also managed to get a good maid and cook, but as luck would have it, she turned out to be vegetarian. So, she cooks pretty good veggie food, but I’m thinking of getting another cook just for Sundays (which is her day off) to do my meat and things. Or, you know, just cooking meat myself. The picture is taken through one of my absolute favourite features in the house (a couple of friends came over last night and had great fun with it too), a cubbyhole thing, between the dining room and the kitchen, to pass out plates and things. I’m going to be getting a dining table soon (this is a house that deserves a dining table) and start my cooking parties anew, and this should be the fun bit: pass out plates through the hole. Which is so much more fun than just carrying them out the regular way.

It’s one of those old, old Delhi houses, built in the 50s or the 60s, and probably has more personality than I do, to be honest. Even though my little bits and pieces of furniture look nice and comfy, in the end it is the house, not my things that is the main attraction.

 

 

 

So, yes. That’s my thing now, my house. Also, my substitute for a boyfriend. Delhi’s not doing so badly on that front though, loads of interesting people, so who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky in love soon, seeing as I have luck everywhere else. *touch wood* *spit to ward off the evil eye* etc etc.

You’re like a brother to me

Last night, I was at a close friend’s engagement party, sitting on a “his side” table. It was a mixed crew, but this friend tends to have more female friends than male, so the sex ratio was slightly skewed.

We started talking about how you could never be sure how many siblings anyone had, because people tend to say “brother” or “sister” about their cousins too. There are some who toss “rakhi brothers/sisters” into the mix, so basically, you think their parents are super prolific. “I always ask “Is this your real brother”?” said a young man at the table. I pointed out that ‘real’ or presumably ‘biological’ is really just a state of mind. What if your sibling was adopted? Not such a common problem in India, but by the time the next generation is ready to sit at engagement parties of their own, I think it might be, considering how many people I know who want to adopt or have already adopted.

Then we started talking about the future groom. “He’s like a brother to me,” said the same young man, and I, delighted, said, “Oh, me too!” STUNNED SILENCE ON THE TABLE. “What? What did I say?” I asked, perplexed. Apparently, it’s not quite a compliment if a girl says it about a male friend. I don’t know why, I’d be hugely flattered if one of my guy friends said I was like a sister. Wouldn’t you?

They then urged me to blog about this subject, saying that they were sure people would be able to point out to me that it’s just Not Cool for a woman to say it about a man. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t think of you as a man’ or something. “You’re better off just saying, “You’re my best friend,” was the advice offered to me. I get what they’re trying to say, saying “brother” immediately takes any offer of sex off the table, but hello, I’ve been friends with this particular brother/friend for SO long, sex was off the table aaaaaaaaaages ago. I mean, I don’t want to sleep with any of my close guy friends, do you? It’s  as anathema for me as would be the idea of sleeping with a “real” brother. The only difference is that unlike an actual biological sibling, the attraction to a friend could happen. (We’re disregarding incest here, obvs.)

I read an article somewhere, I forget where, but this was a long time ago, that said men only befriended women they found attractive. Which, okay, I'm not so convinced about. I'd prefer to think there was more to men than that, more than just a simple, "I think you're vaguely pretty so I want to be your friend." The article went on to say it was only once they thought a girl was pretty, that they explored the idea of a friendship, even if they weren't necessarily attracted to them. Women on the other hand, operate slightly differently. Okay, so I know in the first two minutes whether or not I find someone attractive, BUT that's not to say someone I don't find attractive now may not be attractive to me in the future. My list of things that contribute to being attracted to someone is long and includes, but is not limited to: banter, a good text message and a sense of adventure.

But either way, in my mind, I was so convinced I was giving him a compliment. Being an only child, one of the nice things is, I get to pick who I want in my extended family. Not all friends are so-called siblings, in fact, I’m rather picky about who gets the tag. If I’ve known you for a long time, if I know my relationship with you is steady and loving, if you’ve been there for me during hard times, and will try your hardest to be there when I celebrate, then, well, you’re like a brother/sister. I got shouted down when I tried to explain myself, but hey, no one’s talking on this blog but me.

I know friends, we all have friends, but what happens when you have a bond with a friend that goes deeper than just a plain ol’ friendship? I have several sisters of the heart, who I love dearly and deeply, and okay, I don’t have quite so many “brothers” because a male-female friendship is essentially different from a female-female friendship, but the few that I do consider to be closer to me than just a regular friend, the few that the idea of sex wouldn’t even come up with, not even in your deepest darkest thoughts, because the relationship between the two of you is so pure and good, almost asexual, but not in a bad way, you know? I feel they should be allowed to be my brothers, even if I’m never allowed to say that to them.

Domesticity

I write this from a friend's flat in Bandra. She's in a high rise on a street full of old style Bandra buildings, so to my left, if I peer out the balcony, I can see tiled roofs and beyond the tiled roofs, even more high rises. In the flat immediately below this one, a group of girls has been practicing a dance performance for what seems like years,  the same music on a loop and I do wish they'd get on with it, instead of stopping at 5..6..7..8 and bursting into giggles. Oh goodie, they seem to have gotten it down perfectly.

I know I haven't written in a bit, but real life is both happening and not happening. Life slowed down and while normal, regular things happened, there was nothing I felt particularly like writing about. Stuff like "oh, I went to a party" and "oh, this is what I bought when I went shopping", nothing very interesting, nothing life changing in any sense. And even though nothing life changing has happened to me on this trip, my "summer vacation" as I'm calling it, the fact of being in Bombay is reason enough to blog.

Okay, so interesting things:

Interesting Thing One is the fact that I am slowly teaching myself to cook. I felt like having a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, a real, where I feed people things other than take out and booze dinner party. I've never been a kitchen whiz, never been a foodie, even, but this overwhelming need to nourish suddenly came upon me. Is this what happens when you're almost thirty? So I went to this food blog and picked out this recipe, served it with L'Opera crusty bread and good butter and it all finished up! Not a leftover in sight, and it was such fun hearing people say I was a good cook, because it's not a skill I thought I had at all. Since I was now hooked to the praise and the feeding, I decided to try something a bit more complicated for my second round of dinner guests and made this. It was a bit more complicated and required lots of prep time, and I froze my fingers trying to mould the semi frozen mince, and the sight and smell of the raw meat and the blood made me gag, but I did it! I was so proud of my burgers, even as they "set" in the fridge, I made everyone admire them before I cooked them and not a leftover again. We even had one left over, which someone ate. And they weren't small burgers either.

So, now, I have a reputation of being a good cook. Isn't that weird? In the past, quite proudly, I declared that all I could do was instant food, cheese maggi and so on. But I think Indian food is a lot harder to do well than Western, also, while cooking simple Indian food is great, I like to experiment. I like to plate my meals, to offer bread instead of roti, to basically only cook the stuff that you wouldn't normally eat at home. Individual portions, measured out per guest. Then, at some point in the future, I will sit down with my mother and get her Andhra recipes, and my father and get his Malayali recipes, but in the meanwhile, I'm enjoying my "fancy food" phase. Up next: risotto with mushrooms, leeks and bacon!

Interesting Thing Two is actually a direct reaction to thing one. I'm moving. I need a larger, less slummy space (and my little hole in the wall is getting quite slummy this summer). In the past, it was winter and pretty with the sunshine shining in, now, with only one tank of water for the whole building and two new families downstairs and a counter top for a kitchen, well, I got to thinking, I should have a space I'm proud of, no? Especially since I entertain so much. I think I might have found the place of my dreams, but since all is up in the air at the moment, I'm not going to blog about it till I actually move and have pictures I can show you.

So, that's my list of interesting things. I'm loving being in Bombay right now, the monsoons sort of started yesterday, my fifth time watching it explode over the city. Might've been a false alarm, because it hasn't rained since. Oh well. Delhi's been nice and coolish too, over the past two weeks, so it's nice. Life is nice.