Nostalgia

One of my favourite stories is Eric Segal's "The Class". Somehow the story of an entire batch of Harvard, their journey through life, their tribulations and finally taking stock of each others life at a college reunion gripped my fantasy... Does every batch of every college go through that? Would I go through that? What would it be like at my class's reunion? How would each others life look compared to the promises we made to the world and ourselves about how we would lead our lives?

I think there is one crucial thing that each one of us realises when we move on in life from college... that the plans we made will sometimes remain just that - plans... it is mostly unplanned things that happen that becomes our life.... I have seen very few people - perhaps a handful- whose lives have gone exactly according to plan.... Well good for them... and at the same time good for others whose lives did not go according to their plan- sometimes at 20 you are ready to marry even Charles Shobharaj....

I dont know why but I am just curious to find out how we all will be doing at the end of 30 years of life outside college... will we be more cynical? Will we have the business tycoon regalling us with stories of corporate acquisitions? Will we have the prime minister sitting in our midst? Will we have the best corporate lawyers trying desperately for one night not to be a shark? Will we have happy people or just highly wound up people? desperate to put up a facade of good life and of dreams achieved?

As for what I would like to end up looking like at the class reunion- one word sums it up- Cheerful... I hope no matter what life brings along in the next two decades I still maintain my cheerfulness... so even if I am leading a life as a corporate lawyer or as a housewife, or as a working mother (!!!!), or as a wife who lives off her husband's well earned income or as a waganond who does not have any base or as a solid anchored person living my life in the same city for the past 30 years-I just wish I am still as cheerful as ever... and still as curious about the world as I am today.... and have the ability to say "Que Sera Sera".......

Okk enough of Ms. Goody Two Shoes..... I also want to look HOTTTTTTTTT at my class reunion!!!

Things I hate

About myself...

1) I hate the fact that I trust so easily

2) I hate the fact that sometimes I dont read the writing on the wall

3) I hate the fact that sometimes even after reading the writing on the wall I just continue with status quo cos I am so scared of disrupting routine

4) I hate the fact that I still not have my favourite movie (other than ofcourse home videos of baby george)

5) I hate the fact that I am reluctant to explore my other interests with equal enthusiasm

6) I hate the fact that I still lust after choclate pastry

7) I hate the fact that I hate maths

8) I hate the fact that I loose patience with arrogant people... I just let them think they deserve their arrogance

9) I hate the fact that I appear frivolous to some people... with some long term disastrous consequences- for the other person that is...

10) I hate the fact that I sometimes bottle up my feelings.... I do need a mind reader as a partner otherwise its going to be tough figuring out what I am feeling...

11) I hate the fact that I missed my first nephew grow up...

12) I hate the fact that I dont fit into Kerala

13) I hate the fact that I am not totally proud of my malayalee roots

14) I hate the fact that I am just an armchair activist

15) I hate that my cousins can eat a truckload and still remain as thin as a wafer

okk... enough.....

White Shirt

I am always reluctant to buy a white shirt cos:

a) It is firstly white. So it is difficult to maintain. It is like a beautiful woman who is high maintenance.
b) I cannot give it to my maid to clean and have to have it dry cleaned.
c) when I wear it I have to make sure that I dont touch anything that will potentially stain... which inlcudes even watching carefully while getting into a taxi...

and despite such efforts somehow or the other that stubborn stain manages to find my crisp white shirt!!! and the lonegvity of a white shirt is only about 3 months for me... ofcourse it is more if I dont wear it at all ....

so imagine my surprise when a friend came wearing a crisp, clean, perfect white shirt and declared that it was 10 years old!!!! yes people 10 yearsssssss old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.... My eyes ofcourse popped and then I started asking incredulous questions-

Me: "you mean you are wearing it after 10 years?"

Friend: "no, I have been wearing it regularly"

Me: "Oh, you probably bleached it for it to appear so white"

Friend: "No never"

Me: "You probably wash it only with whites.. you see I have coloured clothes and hence...." (trying hard to justify my non white wardrobe)

Friend: "No. I just machine wash it"

Okkk by now I am ready to be swallowed by mother earth... I make one more last ditch effort..

Me (almost screaching): "You mean this white shirt has not got damaged at alll in these 10 years??"

Friend: "Actually there is one small damage..."....

Aha!!! I knew it!! I did a little twirl in my mind... Nobody can maintain a white shirt!!!!

Friend (totally unaware of the twril in my mind): "One button has got sightly chipped.."

Ok... Please swallow me earth...

Then I did the best that I could do ... I just accepted ... accepted the fact that I would not have a white shirt for more than 3 months (unless ofcourse I dont wear it at all)... accepted the fact that white is probably not meant for my colourful personality.... accepted the fact that Baby George is probably better at keeping his whites WHITE!!!!

Tom and Jerry...

Okk I have a new housemate.... a dirty, round little rat... and I am so repulsed by it that I dont even feel like naming it ... like I did with Bubli- the friendly pigeon outside my bathroom... now it is not like no other house has rats in them... the problem is when it comes to a Mumbai house it becomes crowded... for instance, in my house where I feel like I run into myself everynow and then, having a rat is a serious affront to my prvacy ....

so off I went this Sunday to buy all the rat eliminating paraphernalia.... so there was the fancy bubble trap and the rat poison.... all of which was positioned all over my house with the strong belief that it will work..... and as with most over confident actions, nothing worked!!!! the rat had dodged all the traps and gone straight for the crevices to hide...and mockingly started making noises almost saying "Ha ha. Catch me if you can". And at one juncture I drove the rat out of its hiding place and parallely ran for my life.... and both the rat and me went around in circles trying to dodge each other... at one point it was unclear as to who was chasing whom.......finally the rat broke the monotony of the chase by running behind the fridge and I ran away into the safety of the bedroom....

Now I am just irritated... Irritated cos the rat is infringing on my private space, cos I am scared of the rat and the rat is not scared of me, cos the rat just makes my lovely house appear dirty....

today I tried out a new system of catching the rat... hopefully when I reach back I will find the rat trapped...

Bargaining...Christy Style

This saturday when I went to visit my sister, Christy opened the door and greeted me "Hello Madam. What can I do for you?" I was totally perplexed and then realised that he was role playing. He was a shopkeeper and I was a customer who had just walked into the shop. So I played along.

Me: Hello... What do you have?

Christy: I have gold, silver, diamonds.

Me: Wow! Show me your silver.

Christy (handing me an aluminium plate): Here, take this silver plate.

Me: How much?

Christy: 10,000 rupees!

Me (pretending to be aghast): Nooooooooooo... I will you 100 rupees for it.

Christy: Ok. Take it.

well.... obviously my family is really not good at bargaining...

The woman who made me speechless....

Well since my last blog was on the film Guru, I thought I might as well continue with the same theme.... a day after watching Guru, Aishwarya and Abhishek announced their engagement.... it made it to the front pages of all newspapers... we had the royalty of bollywood marrying.... I was ofcourse excited about it....

and I thought back to how Ash was the one woman I was compared to since I was 23... no people I am not even close to Ash in the looks department ........ 23 is the age when arranged marriage proposals started pouring into my life...... so anytime I would express my opinion about the looks of a boy, my mom would turn around and ask "Do you think you look like Aishwarya Rai that you can be so choosy about looks?" and I would be rendered speechless by such a comparison... no I am not Aiswarya Rai and Aishwarya Rai is not me ...but where did I ever say that I am Aish Rai and hence I find the man not goodlooking? ........ well..... those are days of yore... my mother shut up finally when she saw Aishwarya Rai herself not doing too well in the love department ...until now that is......even if it is after marrying a tree....

and such constant comparisons always make me think- what would Ash Rai's mother tell Ash Rai herself if she was ever in a position like my mom? Who would she compare Ash to? She obviously cannot ask Aishwarya Rai herself "Do you think you look like Aishwarya Rai that you can be so choosy about looks?" "....perplexing question....

Anyways it is not a new thing that Ash Rai rendered people speechless with her beauty... in my case however it was for a totally totally different reason....

Review of GURU

Okkk.... it had to happen sometime.... since I love movies so much I had to start reviewing movies sometime or the other... so why not start with the latest movie in the market.... Guru.... and before you start reading this review please do not expect any deep insight and colourful language which are normally exhibited by the newspaper critics... This is just my perspective on the movie.... highlighting some of the things that I like, for the reasons I consider best... its all about ME, ME, ME!... okkk it is also about the movie...

Ok... So about GURU...

Named after the main character Gurukant Desai played brilliantly by Abhishek Bachan the film Guru interested me primarily because it was about the Ambani patriarch (despite strong claims to the contrary by the film makers and actors)....I wanted to know more about the man who built such a huge industrial empire in India with just 15000 in his pocket... who didnt have any business school degree and yet set up the monster industry that many of us are in some or the other associated with in our lives... how did he do it? was he scared? Did he think he would fail?? Did he feel lost and hopeless at times?

To a certain extent the film did satisfy my curiousity...

Unlike a typical hindi movie hero, the film shows the protagonist as one who is all wrong...he is ambitious, ruthless, user friendly, corrupt and wont stop at adopting any means to get to his end... yet he also has qualities that one loves in a person... for instance he is fearless- he doesnt fear retribution, doesnt fear humiliation, doesnt fear societal strictures nothing.... and he is totally confident about himself.... in a particular scene where his father tells him that business is not everybody's game and he wont succeed in it... the frame doesnot show any dejection or negativism in the young Gurubhai but shows a silent strength- one can almost read him saying "I am going to do it despite all this".... and I am sure many of us have at one point or the other told that to ourselves.. I have... and that is where the film reaches out to you... you see a common man like you on the screen and you want him to succeed....and like the hero in the film you want to see success and are not really concerned about the nitty gritty details about how the success comes .....

and helping him in his extraordinary climb are the ordinary people in his life ... his doubting father, helpful father in law, trusting brother in law, loyal munshi and friend etc who all play such a crucial role in his life yet do not dominate the screen beyond the need..... each of their characters are essayed with such smoothness that one doesnt particularly miss them when they are gone and neither does one want to see less of them in any scene... they are just perfect.....

The movie is also about the love between the husband and wife... the role of the wife is ofcourse played by Aishwarya Rai who is surprisingly restrained.... she plays a dutiful wife- a traditional woman whose world revolves around her Guru.... and while it had all ingredients of showing women as being the weaker sex, the movie does add some sort of romance to the concept of a dutiful wife... she is all about the calm in his life.... the one thing that stays constant.......

Certain scenes stand out particularly in my mind... the scene where Gurubhai asks the chairman of the enquiry commission to speak in hindi after the chairman waved them shut and continued with his spiel in english.... the wife explains on behalf of her husband "we are from the village. We can understand only hindi"...simple fact- powerful message..... and the scene where Gurubhai stands on the vacant plot of land with the blue print of his proposed factory and the rain comes down...you see a man on the cusp of victory.... and the scene where Guru cries for his friend who attempted suicide and says in the midst of his tears "You face is so ugly that I cry whenever I look at it"... a very reluctant human side to the otherwise ruthless Guru....

What the movie also attempts to do is in some way justify the ruthless means of this man.... the end justifies the means they say... and this is what probably will rankle with most watchers.... was he all that great if he did it all through underhand methods?? Should he not have had the decency to not do such things to get where he is? It is a debate that can go on and on.... the question in my mind really is -Would you rather have a Reliance in India or have none at all... I dont know whether the answer to that is easy.... did we pay a price for allowing Ambani to come up the way he did? We probably did in terms of raising the bar on corruption... but did the country benefit by getting employment for so many people? We probably did .... dont know what to choose...

Ofcourse the film is perfectly punctuated with good songs... my favourite one is the song introducing Aishwarya Rai.... and the one with Malaika is a catchy number as well.......

In the end the film achieves what it is supposed to .... it tells you a good story.... one that you want to hear over and over again..... afterall who can resist a rags to riches story??

More Updates about Baby George

As usual today morning I went to pay my respects to Baby George.... and as I entered the house I could hear Baby George yelping his heart out... and the maid was doing all she could to distract him... stroking him, holding him and shaking the toy that makes a noise ( I dont know what it is called).....and then Enter Baby George's Aunt.... I leapt up and called out "Baby George"... Baby George immediately stopped crying, looked up, fixed his gaze on me and then gave me the most amazing smile in the world..... and I swear he seemed to be telling me "hello...I am so glad you came Vava Aunty, but first I want to change out of my wet nappy".... and that is exactly what I did.... I changed his nappy and his small shirt and made him wear fresh clothes...and he was at peace again...

The thing about Baby George is he is happy when his tummy is full, when his stomach is not paining, when his nappy is dry and when he is given attention by his aunt (hehe).... and guess what? there are people at his beck and call doing exactly what he wants..... including me...

Follow Me...

Looks like the BMC (Mumbai Municipal Corporation) is indeed following me and deciding to undertake repairs on all the roads that I frequent....

It started off with the flyover next to my office which was shut for about 3 months .....effectively increasing my commute time by another 20 minutes.... then it was the very road that I live on - Hill Road!!.... always a busy road or as my friend calls it the "Hell Road", the BMC decided to take action on the road once a huge crater appeared due to a underground pipe burst.... so one side of the road was cordoned off completely for all commuters and it has been shut for more than 2 months now.... so instead of hawkers blocking the road, now we have yellow and black asbestos sheets blocking us.... at least with the hawkers one could shove them to one side or zig zag your way through the maze....while at the same time looking at the amazing collection of designer wear called "Prado", "Guchi" "Armany"..... ofcourse the hawkers made a come back during Christmas and put stalls on the newly dug up roads...probably the only time they realised they wont be disturbed by the police or the BMC officials since once a road is dug up it will be months before any officials come to check on it..... and now it is the road leading to my sister's place..... called Currey Road...most often the only thing that is currying there is traffic jams but it is a shorter route from my sister's place to my office.... and now that the road has been dug up it forces me to go through the busier option of Elphinston Station road..... ofcourse this is in addition to the occassional shut downs at Mahim junction which are sometimes due to repairs, sometimes due to festivals and sometimes due to the number of people just deciding to leave home at the same time.....

So this what I have to say to BMC...STOP FOLLOWING ME!!!

The story of an aunt flying the kite

Next time anybody abuses me asking me to go fly a kite I will have a very honest reply... I am really not that good at it..... so the story goes like this....

I was all enthused about buying christy a kite after reading the story of kiterunner...ofcourse in that book some amount of sadness is associated with kites...but I was instantly transported to my childhood....where all the kids would come out and each would run with the kite in their hands...and I dont know whether it was the country of Oman that made a difference or whether it was my mom but my kite would actually fly really high...I remember once it flew so high that after a point we could not see it.... so as you can understand I have only happy memories as far as kite flying is concerned...

now fast forward about 20 years and I am at my wits end trying to fly a kite...it was the first time for Christy as well so I was really determined not to disappoint him... so I ran with the kite...except that the kite would rise about 3 metres and go around in circles and come crashing down.... and it happened so many times that poor christy went off to play in the park crest fallen feeling pretty sure that his aunt was just no good at it.... it was then that I decided to do the next best thing... ask for help.... so I enlisted the help of 3 guards in the building .... who did some heavy duty measuring and tying the kite....after which the kite flew the way it was always meant to fly.... up, up and away... and Christy came running from the park seeing his kite flying so high.... and soon insisted on taking the strings himself.... The sheer joy on his face was a sight worth seeing..... ofcourse as quick as it went up it also came down...but what the heck! I looked good in front of christy....

Baby George was ofcourse sleeping through this..... he had only slept till 9 in the morning and hence was too sleepy .... he however did come down with his mom to watch the desperate attempts of his aunt to fly a kite.... and after all the kite flying I was tired myself.... and I went and slept right next to him.... and then Baby George woke me up...with his gurgling and soft cries.... that kid can actually make enough noise to wake up people..... and soon it was about his feed and burping....

A Saturday well spent.... Christy flew a kite for the first time....I cut my finger and in the process relived a part of my childhood through christy.... and hopefully in another 6 years I will be flying a kite for Baby George.... and once again the sheer joy on his face would make my day....

Baby George Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai? (Translation: Why does Baby George get angry?)

Updates about Baby George:

Baby George can now see things... so now he turn 180 degree following Christy or my sister.... and also smiles (a lot!!!) whenever he sees me...for instance he raised his hands nudging me to pick him up when I went near him.... ofcourse I teased by saying "ok, Bye" and would duck... and Baby George would let out a muted cry in disappointment...

Baby George also wants to do things... fast .... for instance he wants to sit up and see the world... so he nudges my sister to "seat him up" when she picks him up..and smiles broadly when she does... and he also wants to roll over to the other side ... and yelps when he is unable to do so.... ofcourse the good samaritan that I am, I help him a bit and push him over to the other side sometimes...

Baby George also gets angry.... especially when the fan is switched on.... he hates the fan being siwtched on and even stops drinking milk till my sister runs along and switches it off .... the kid is one obstinate kid.... and he also hates the bottle.... he refuses to drink milk from the bottle... my sister is hoping against hope that he will get over that soon..

Baby George is already attached to Christy... he sleeps when Christy strokes him to sleep... also loves listening to stories by Christy..... ofcourse Christy being Christy he also scares the poor Baby George.... so his admiration is intermixed with getting scared I think.....

Baby George does a lot of things that I cant describe... for instance I think he cycles and drives a car when lying down on his back.... his hands are always moving about in the "10 'o' clock and 2 'o' clock " position...and his legs are always cylcing....

Well he is one helluva of a busy kid!!!

Pray why not?

The one thing that I get really irritated about (and sometimes even find amusing) is when people who live abroad come to India and look at it as if it is like SOOOOOO Backward.... and this includes even those Indians who have lived in India all their childhood, gone abroad and now visit India for short breaks.... "Is the water safe to drink?" "Can we eat the fruits we buy from the market?" and the most ridiculous one ever was "Can we take a bath in Indian water?"

I have often vacillated between being kind to these people to sometimes getting into arguments with some people on these issues.... India has its problems but how is it that Indians have been voted one of the happiest set of people in the world? And in any case these are problems handed down to us by the whites... so its ok that we take more than 50 years to mitigate the effects of 300 years of bad white rule.... I would argue and argue and argue....

But of late I have decided to review my arguments.. no I still dont believe it is ok for people to visit our country and talk bad about it.... but can I honestly look at my country and say that people have a good life here.... Can I honestly blame those people who live in India all their childhood and then go abroad lured by the prospects of a better life??

To be honest to some extent I think they have made a wise decision..... should I love my country more or should I love myself more?? What is wrong with wanting a better life?? True I will be a second class citizen in a foreign country but am I any better here?? Wont I get better rights abroad as a second class citizen than in my own country where I am a first class citizen? My friend Devika and I had a discussion recently where we both agreed that in many ways life in India is restrictive .... especially for a person who really wants to many things with his/her life and not necessarily conform and go through the motions of marriage, child bearing and finally retirement.... and the truth is that in many ways the life of an average Indian is tempered with worries- worries about money, about jobs, marriage, raising kids etc etc.... and you spent your life sorting out all these issues and then you are actually too old to enjoy life anyways....

and when I read about how 30 children went missing over two years with the police doing nothing about it and about how it took the entire country and the media to convict one murderer in the Jessica Lall case, and about how there is no way an average unconnected, non influential person can get justice in India ... I wonder What am I fighting for? Can I deny the fact that life in India is actually not a bed of roses?

I do believe things will get better in India but it will come slowly.... till then what arguments do I have against the obvious problems India has?

Okk the New Year can be better...

Okk... so my new year has not really got off to a rocking start.... and it has only been 5 days!!!... and worse I have forgotten the art of cracking a good joke.... so this is what happened...

I heard this really interesting incident where a friend went to meet the project manager and the manager of a company on work in Ahmedabad.... so the introductions went something like this:

Project Manager: Hi, I am Mr. Pani

Manager: Hi, I am Mr. Puri.

Got it? PaniPuri? ha hahah.... anyways I laughed my head out at this .... and promptly made devious plans to crack the joke to someone in office...and soon scouted around for a bakhra.... and found it in my colleague P... who very reluctantly agreed to listen to my joke....... so I rattled off the particular incident.... the only thing is- I introduced Mr. Puri first !! so my colleague just didnt get the joke.... I scrambled out of the situation clutching my head for failing to tell a joke properly...........

Arghhhhhh!!! Could it be any worse???...

Anyways made it up by telling the joke properly to Baby Tomato.... who found extremely engrossing (as he kept staring at my face) and finally smiled (after a lot of tickling and antics).... guess I have found my actual bakhra ....until he grows up and realises that his aunt is really a bad story teller.......

Second Chances

Ever since the begining of this year (ofcourse it has been only a day) I have been thinking about the concept of second chances.... second chance at anything- at life, at friendships, at relationships, at marriages, at jobs.... Should there always be a second chance?

There are many instances in ones life when you are either asking for a second chance or being asked for a second chance.... personally I have often faced situations where people have behaved in quite the wrong way with me and then come back asking for a second chance .... to rebuild friendships and start over again.... and I have been pretty strict about it all the time... no second chances with my trust.... once gone, it is stays there- GONE.... and I have moved on without a second thought....

I am baffled by the questoin of whether this is the right approach.... What if the second time round there is better understanding? There is more respect? in short there is a better relationship? Am I forgoing all just cos I believe in no second chances? After all it is not like one comes into this world with a manual on what not to do... and quite often we are all given a second chance sometime or in some form in life....our parents are always giving us second chances... and God does not say "I already gave you a relationship and you failed at it.. so no second chances for you"...

After all this rumination, would I give a second chance? I am not sure I am that forgiving yet... at the same time I am not sure whether I am that cruel yet.... I guess my decision will be based on the genuiness of the person... and perhaps on my feelings for that person...All I can hope is when people ask for a second chance they understand the value of that chance....

Gosh this is a serious blog on the second day of the year.... what happened to the "funny" in me???

Some more resolutions

- Be more environmentally concious

- Be sensible with money

- Be aware

- Reinvent things as much as possible

- Discover more yoga

- Take a holiday by the beach

New Year

You know I am bored with the barrage of "Happy New Year" messages I got.... without any disrespect to them or their well meaning wishes, I feel we need to find a new way to wish people new year... something like "Have a Plentiful Year!" or "Let there be world peace this year"... okkk I am just not capturing the essence of it but you guys get the drift right??.... The bland "Happy New year" is soooo out....

I never make new year resolutions .... rather if I do make them I never stick to them... but this year my first resolution is to make new year resolutions and stick to them!!!! So a few of them are:

a) Just eat right and exercise well... increase my fitness and also in the process get a better looking figure

b) Read More

c) Love more

d) Get involved in some good causes.... in any small way...

e) Teach Christy to read books.....and rather than appearing as the aunt who whisks him away to fun places appear strict and stern....

f) Travel sensibly

g) Cultivate friendships...

h) Write More

i) Be more meticulous and spot the mistakes in the ampersands and commas

etc etc...

And after all this I hope this year is an interesting, bearable, stable one.....

End of the year

How do I categorise 2006? Can I call it the year of cathartic change?? or the year of absolute abnormality? or a mixed year- with equal share of ups and downs?

Whatever it is this year has been an interesting year... I have had some of my worst moments in this year...but also had some of the best moments which will be enshrined in my memory as being extremely special.... my life changed in many ways- some changes I never expected would happen, some changes that I had hoped would happen and did, some changes that I didnt want but did happen....In my final opinion- this year is a mixed year...

This is the year I met Baby Tomato a.k.a. Baby George on a perfect Sunday... Baby George spoiled mine and my sister's well laid plans to watch Lage Raho Munnabhai by coming before the scheduled arrival time .... I was the first person to hold Baby George since his arrival in the world and I was also the first person who burped him after his first feed..... the advantage? Baby George smiles at me more than he does at other people.... Truly special .... the disadvantage? since I hold him more he also pukes out his milk on me ....so I end up going to office smelling like baby milk....

This was also the year of defining certain relationships in my life....of redifining certain friendships.... some went out and some probably are on their way out of my life... but ever grateful for their presence in my life till now... I also made new friends this year.... showing me that life is full of pleasant surprises.... and ofcourse some good people continued to give me support and love through the year.... Thankyou for that....

Professionally I changed course last year and the same continued this year at a new place after ELP.....it has been a challenging experience ...Due to ELP this was one of the most stressful years professionally.... a bad boss is never easy to adjust to much less come out unaffected.... I hope I never have to go through that experience ever again in my life... I also hope I never become that kind of a boss any day........

One never knows what to expect but one always hopes for the best.... so likewise I end this year's blog by saying "May you live in interesting times".....

Execution

There comes a day in every lawyer's lfe called the "execution day".... the day when the documents are finally signed by all the parties......

that day frinally arrives after days (or sometimes years) of haggling by both the sides, of lawyers calling each other names, of clients yelling at the lawyers saying "give it to me in the next one minute otherwise my company will fold up!", of 15,000 versions of documents going out and an equal number of meetings and negotiations between the parties..... most often murphy's law kicks in also at the last minutes and everything goes wrong... from the printer that stops working to the office peon who just disappeared into thin air... everything goes wrong!!! and while one is typing out the words, another one prints out the documents...

and finally after all the blood of the lawyers have been expended on getting the documents into perfection (including checking the ampersand and the comas), the documents are signed by all the VIPs who actually dont have a clue as to what and why they are signing those documents..... There is a large ceremony where all the parties shake hands and behave as if the days of acrimonious verbal exchange never took place .... and which finally concludes in a party in a five star hotel....

and finally when it is all over the actual execution begins... of the lawyer that is.... "there is a comma missing in page 34", "there is grammatical error on page 23' or even "there is a formatting error and (a) is now coming after (b)"... and most often while you want to just scream asking them to see the big picture your professionalism demands that you take note of all this politely and tell them " Yes Sir, That will be done immediately" while all the time thinking "Go Fly a Kite and while doing so please fall off a cliff"


So at the end of the "execution day" you end up feeling "executed"- comma by comma, word by word, ampersand by ampersand....

I want curd rice!!!!!

Now anybody who knows me also knows that I love food..... ok it shows that I love food....

but if there is any such thing as comfort food, it would have to be curd rice for me.... Yes just plain simple curd rice....I can eat that and feel like I am back on familiar territory.....feeling of reaching home.... and this feeling is absolutely unfounded cos nobody in Kerala would even consider making curd rice unless someone is sick or if it was a war like situation... but I just love curd rice.... it would easily be my first choice in any restaurant... mix it with some nice yummy mallu chicken cury or even some nice spicy panner dish and its pure heavennnn!!!!!

so coming to the point of this blog....can somebody give me some curd rice??? Pleaseeeee....

We didnt start the fire...

There are days when I just get pissed off with the world... for everything that is wrong with it.... for everything that needs to be righted and is not ..... for everybody (including me) who doesnt or chooses not to do anything.... and today is one of those days.... so a few of the things I hate are:


- I hate seeing children beg on the streets, especially girl children. ... one of the most distressing sights in mumbai for me was the sight of a naked girl child walking from car to car begging and shivering..... While I laud the passing of the Child Labour prohibition act, I still dont know which evil I prefer ... since I have no option but to choose between the two... one gives a kid and probably his family some source of income but is exploitative.... but without at least that and with no option for a decent enough education you are forced to beg on the streets. what do I support???

- I hate the fact that rape is considered as retributive tool in our society. "oh he pissed you off? Lets go rape his sister and teach him a lesson"... in one popular malayalam movie the hero looks at the sleeping heroine and asks himself - "shall I just do a rape ?".. as if it is just an option that is waiting to be exercise by men..........It was supposed to be funny and romantic (ofcourse they fall in love later. duh!) ..... sorry but I dont see any humour in making women look so weak and vulnerable...

- I hate the fact that we dont do enough to protect our environment.... and this where I think I fail miserably.... I am so clueless about what to do to contribute my two bits to this cause... other than ofcourse occassionally puting in recycled paper into the office printer..... worse I dont even know how I am impacting the environment with my behaviour....

- I hate the fact that justice in India is sooooooo difficult..... I dread the day when I have to fight a legal battle... yes, me a lawyer is saying that.... I hate the fact that nothing is reliable anymore.... I hate the fact that most Indians go through life not having hope in such situations......

- I hate the fact that good takes so much longer to get adequately recognised... that sometimes the good gets sidelined and is most often exploited....

- I hate the fact that I have to watch my back nowadays with even "friends".... that it has become so difficult to have a normal conversation without being judged....

- I hate the fact that Bush got reelected.... I hate it more that it impacts an Indian girl sitting in Mumbai... unfortunately, Americans rule ..... At least for now, that is..... I hate it even more that a western approval is more important to us than our own....

- I hate the fact that women dont know their value yet..... independent of a man that is... sorry this is not a feminist rant- just call it a humanist rant..... I just want women to realise their value for themselves.... so that they can demand more respect from society...

- I hate the fact that female foeticide is still prevalent in our country

- I hate the fact that I dont say "I love you" enough to the people I love....

Something's gotta give....

My kind of Superhero

Apparently I am meant to be a superhero called Green Lantern!! Btw, does anybody know this guy??


You are Green Lantern


Green Lantern
70%
Superman
65%
Hulk
65%
Wonder Woman
62%
The Flash
60%
Robin
57%
Supergirl
52%
Spider-Man
45%
Iron Man
35%
Batman
15%
Catwoman
10%
Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

My parents left this morning for Kerala... after one month and a week in mumbai... during which time I am sure they would have wondered about a hundred times why I like this city... I dont blame them also... this city is too chaotic, too crazy, too busy, too dirty, too awake for new comers... but this city has a soul.... a soul which is not defined by religion or region- despite the best efforts of some political organisations .... I love that..

I feel kinda of sad that my parents have left..... it was nice to have mom and dad in the house .... nice to have warm food waiting for me when I reached home... ofcourse they were alarmed at how late I travel in mumbai ..... and even more alarmed that I dont double lock my house (yes that I must do)....

it was especially nice to take them around mumbai... .and ofcourse taking them to the new eating joints... so in a nut shell they:

- hated Kobe's ("too much of food!"),
- loved McDonalds ("reminds us of the time we first ate McDonalds way back in 1987"),
- loved Gelato icecream ("dont think this will come to Kerala for a while, dont you think?"),
- loved Atria Mall ("no wonder people are so happy in Mumbai"),
- tased momos ("you mean it is just steamed chicken? "),
- disapproved of Italian food ("its good once in a while but is very boring"),
- wondered why it was so difficult to get normal coffee ("what is this coffee called "chino'?) (a shortform for cappuchino).....
- wondered whether "world space" would have a 24/7 radio station belting out religious christian songs ("you must listen to them")
- loved my new office ("it looks like a cheerful place")

It was also a time for their grandchildren to play with them... christy loves guests in the house and cried everyday when they used to leave my sister's house.... Baby tomato ofcourse was too buy sleeping and crying for milk.... and the highlight of their trip was when all of us, my sister, a highly energetic Christy, a bundled up Baby tomato, my parents and me went to our favourite place Atria Mall.... Just few hours of family bliss.... after which the alarm bell rang i.e. Baby Tomato woke up and demanded milk....

Well... I am trying to fill the silence in my house by listening to world space... no no it does not have a station for devotional christian songs... I checked before buying ... heheh

Lovingly yours

Christy wants cotton candy by afternoon... I lovingly agreed...


I want to go to the island of Tonga... Anybody wants to lovingly agree?? hehe....

Scholarships and the works

"Dont have such high hopes" is all my dad said to me when I broached the subject of me applying for scholarships to study abroad... well to be honest I didnt anyways have any high hopes other than the constant encouragement of friends ... but yet I was determined to try my best for it before I gave up.... which basically angered my parents as in their opinion I was working on something unachievable when I could use that time constructively on choosing a nice christian, mallu boy ........

Never one to listen to my parents I slugged on at the applications.... and to this day I consider it to be one of the most heart wrenching experiences of my life.....I applied for two years..... it is never easy to take rejection in any form... worse when they tell you that "you are a fine candidate but we really dont think you are as great as you think you are"...... one scholarship interview I remember particularly when I was told "you sit in an AC office and you want to change the world?".... gosh those days I think I lived on only hope, watching "friends" and hanging on each words of encouragement from my ever hopeful friends.... at times I did feel like giving up all hope but as always there would be something in me that would make hope float....

and finally when I did get that final decision from the British Council about having been awarded the scholarship I think in some ways it was a celebration of me and my friends... me for not having given up and my friends who actually never let me believe otherwise... and today while giving everyone advice on scholarships and interview I maintain one thing- never believe anything the world tells you about yourself.... ofcourse there will be people who are not encouraging.... one of my friends (yes one of those toxic kinds) actually said "I am not sure you fit the profile of a scholar"... well... did Gandhi look like a freedom fighter??

Finally it is important to also state that I dont approach each task the way I approached the scholarship process... I choose the battles I want to fight for.... so if today some people see me as being a bit of a wanderer it is cos I am pciking the right battles for me to put my heart, soul, mind, analysis, strategy, time into.... I am just made that way....

Monkeying around

Today as i was standing on the very busy hill road waiting to cross over to the other side I noticed someone else waiting to cross the road with me... a monkey!!! Yes you read it right...

the monkey actually came out from the lane of my building walking right upto the end and was waiting for an opening on the road to cross ..... and he looked at both sides of the road and made a dash for the other side when the bus delayed just a little bit in picking up speed.... just like humans.... even I merrily ran after the monkey relieved that someone else had spotted the opportunity right on time...

But isnt it strange that you get to cross the road with a monkey?? It almost makes Mumbai look a little more nature friendly than the concrete jungle that it is .....

btw... I might have to cross the road once again with the monkey... what should I name him?? Coco Banana?? hehe..

Television friendly

When did the television become my best friend?? I have no idea... as kids we would watch TV whenever we were forced to stay inside... and my parents would let us also since that meant we were out of their hair for a while...

When I came back to India from the Gulf, since there was not much the Doordarshan had to offer, my TV viewing was ofcourse limited.. other than ofcourse Ramayan, Mahabharata and yes, Fauji... Law School.. well lets just say that I was extremely busy to watch tv..

The TV actually made a come back into my life only after I started working... that was also the time the Star TV network burst into India... soon there were shows, movies, songs at your finger tips... and to relax i would just switch on the tv.... and now switching on the tv is what I do first when I enter home.... and to be honest I find it relaxing... it takes me to parts of the world I cant travel to.. meet people I cant possibly meet in a life time.... live a life that I cant afford ..... to put it simply it helps me live my fantasies out a little...

why am I saying all this??

Cos most recently I was asked not to buy any more books cos i dont let up on watching tv.... and while I tried protesting, after considerable thot I knew the acccusation was absolutely right..... and it suddenly made me feel bad.....no no.. I am soooooo glad I was told this... but I started thinking about how much I have changed and how i need to change some comfortable yet unappealing habits of mine... I need to change fast people.... otherwise baby tomato would be more well read than me soon....

Well the other thing is....when I am not living inside the TV, I also blog ....

Dad and his Professional Integrity

My dad is a person I have admired since I was a child... although he is not aware of it and mostly thinks I fight with him cos I dont respect him... but truth be told I am in awe of my dad...

there are many reasons why I admire my dad ... first one being that my dad struggled his way in life... he was born to a priest (not a very well paying profession but still one of the noble ones at that time) in a small little village in Kerala.... in true Ab Lincoln style my dad sat (not exactly under a street lamp cos his village didnt have streets forget street lamps), near a lantern to study and walked 6 kms to his school everyday.... and no people, there were no school bueses those days...... His father passed away when he was 13... since then my dad's family struggled to run the household while at the same time making sure the kids in the family got a good education ... despite such odds my dad topped every exam he sat for including his medical examinations....

The second reason I admire him so much is cos of the great sacrifice he made for my grandfather.... apparently before passing away my grandfather requested his children to each take up one profession... he wanted one to become a teacher, the other to become a civil servant and my dad to become a doctor.... and I have heard from my grandmother that my dad was meant to be a civil servant... he apparently nursed an ambition to work with Jawaharlal Nehru including even joining politics..... and when his father passed away he just blindly decided to follow his father's wishes and become a doctor.... and he is the best doctor i have seen!!! truly....

Given the default profession he chose, my dad is so committed to learning the latest techniques of his field... he will know the latest developments in his field .... he subscribes to each medical magazines and reads them religiously.... and on his visit to Mumbai, all my dad wanted to shop for was medical books!!!! I was surprised at how graciously he had accepted his fate and just went about mastering his profession....

The third reason I admire him so much is cos he really loves his kids.... and while this may not be true, I think he really loves me the most... he he.... that speaks volumes for him I guess... cos my sister does not think she is loved any less.... and he ofcourse had expectations from us as kids... and most often I would start studying only when my dad would show his total disappointment in me.... and after topping the class for a year I would go back to my wayward ways.... he wanted me to become a civil servant but ended up accepting and being proud of me being a lawyer..... and today whenever he writes me a letter he always makes sure that he writes, "Alice George-B.A. LL.B from National Law School of India University and Masters from London School of Economics"... I find that every cute as do some of my friends...

In many ways I am like my dad.... I wanted to join politics at some point, even nursing an ambition to work with the Prime Minister (still hold on to that ambition)... I have learned many aspects of life from him including how to always be fair in my dealings with people... and while sometimes I question him as to why he taught me such principles when others unfailingly flout it, I still know that what he told me was the right thing....

Anyways, he is off to do some medical book shopping now ....

If wishes were horses

No... I dont want a horse... but dont you sometimes have crazy wishes??

For instance dont you wish;

a) you were thinner? Or fatter (for some people)?

b) you were so rich that you went to work only to satisfy your intellectual needs?

d) you won a lottery

e) your hair was naturally shiny and always stayed in place when you were out

f) that you could write a book and also win the booker for that?

g) that you could be superwoman or superman for a day?

h) your window overlooked the sea?

i) you were always upgraded to business class while flying?

j) that ice cream was actually non fattening?


Well..if wishes were horses.... but no harm in dreaming right? ....

Fever and a cold

I have been waylaid today due to a bad cold and a on again off again fever.... I opted not to go into office as the AC would definitely not be helpful... and whil e sitting at home what is one to do other than think about the mundane inane things of life..

The first one for instane was whether I should blog anonymously... now I never even considered it an option as I was never sure whether there would be any readers to my blog... so I quite confident that I would not get caught by any of the people I know personally .... ofcourse that changed esp since I started directing everyone to my blog to get the latest on my life... I found it extremely convenient to do that instead of actually relating stories to people... well I guess now it is too late for me to even consider that as an option... everyone knows me.. I am out there now ... and everyone is welcome to criticise me...

The second inane thot that entered my brain was ofcourse guilt.... guilt at not having gone to office for a day... I always feel like I am being irresponsible by not dragging myself to the office even if I have a bad cold and fever... I dont know when and where I became like this but I recognise it as a problem now... I just love the feel of working all the time... well not all the time but yes I do feel bad when I have pending work in office and dont finish... what is wrong with me??? ....

and today cos of my cold I could not go and kiss baby tomato... apparently he was crying all day cos I didnt come and meet him... how sweet...

The 5 a.m paratha

"Mumbai was under seige... Tension had permeated the entire city as news of the riots spread like wild fire.... Office goers wondered whether their families were safe and made frantic calls asking them not to step outside..... I was caught in the midst of this chaos with two of my office colleagues.... I was not so worried about my family as my parents were safe in my sisters house... however a chaos is never easy and slowly my colleagues and I made our way through the streets ... treading carefully and cautiously, not knowing when and where the next danger would come from.... all of a sudden the lights went off.... The streets were plunged into darkness...darkness brought with it its favourite bedfellow- pandemonium ... kids crying, women shrieking, men screaming..... I grabbed onto my colleagues hand in fright - afraid to loose the one familiar face in the sea of people....afraid that I might not see the next day... when all of a sudden I caught sight of my parents making their way through the crowded chaotic streets in search of me... A rush of relief came over- i suddenly felt protected .... I ran to my equally relieved parents.... I was finally home..."

And soon after that I woke up with a start...It was 4:30 in the morning and the world was quiet... the dream was still vivid in my brain ..... I went and hugged my mom who was sleeping peacefully probably dreaming about a lazy Sunday.... I lay down next to her like I used to when I was a child, before the weirdness and issues of youth crept into our relationship... I felt safe, secure, peaceful... I was home....

Ofcourse the real life chaos started soon therafter... my mom kicked me out of bed saying I was disturbing her... And I went off into the kitchen to make paratha .... at 5 a.m. in the morning.... Hearing the chaos in the kitchen my mom woke up .... and that is how a mom and daughter sat together peacefully relishing the 5 a.m. paratha..... Ahh.. Sunday is here...

P.S. Btw, Jubs, the colleague I saw in my dream was you... funny huh?

What a Bargain!!

Today for the first time since I moved into my building I invited the fisherman to my house to show me his wares...... Usually I ignore the guy and pretend like I have better things to do than chase after fish... but I knew the fondness my parents have for fish and I decided to ask them to see whether they would like to buy anything.... and this is how the bargaining went...

Mom : How much?

Fisherman: Two for Rs. 100

Mom (completely aghast): No, No!

Fisherman: How much will you give?

Mom: Four for Rs. 10.

Needless to say the fisherman was a little taken aback by my mom's offer .... and to be honest, so was I.... I wonder whether my mom realised that in Mumbai you dont get anything for Rs. 100, forget Rs. 10....

Well you cant blame her for trying her best to get the lowest prices....

Being Alone vs. Being Lonely

At the end of a long stressful day in office I usually dream about a nice dinner at Noodle Bar (a popular chain of restaurant) where I can toss up my own style of low fat healthy yummy noodles, sip a glass of their iced lemon tea and read some interesting book or just think through the things of the day... ALL ALONE!.... Just me and my thots .... with the rest of the world caught up in its crazy motions and little schemes... tranqulity, calmness, oneness...one hour of complete connection with self....

Many people have reacted adversely to this cosy little plan of mine.... "No way!!! You cant go alone!!" shout some... Others ponder "But people will think you are all alone.." Others just bluntly ask me "Are you crazy?"

I dont know whether wanting to be alone for a few hours is crazy... Does a person need to be accompanied all the time?? Its a debate that has been ongoing for a while and will probably be ongoing for as long as mankind is able to debate... Does being alone mean that you are lonely??

Frankly I cherish the time I spent alone with myself... no its not arrogance or me shunning company... I cannot be alone all the time, I dont want to be alone all the time and I am not alone all the time... I just love stealing away moments for myself from the world- from family, from work, from worries and the general humdrum of life... and no matter what age or what stage in my life I am, I am sure that this is a luxury I would want ... the people closest to me would vouch for the fact that me taking time off once in a while just makes me come back lighter and fresher....

Its a basic lesson that every person forgets when life begins... to appreciate and understand the one thing you will have for life - YOURSELF!!!

Toxic People

They are everywhere.... in many different forms...friends, relatives, teachers, work colleagues...somewhere or the other you are likely to encounter one of these toxic kinds....

What are these toxic kinds??

they are the ones who will always dampen your spirit, the ones who will highlight the "flaws" in your life leaving you to ponder over issues that you didnt even know were issues in the first place, the ones who will downplay your achievements giving some reason or the other- "oh, you got the scholarship only cos that year was a pretty lean year for applications" or "who wants to become a lawyer these days?"... every query to them is turned into a rendition of how much better their life plan in... and god forbid you fail at something...they come to you with the "smiling sad faces".... I remember a specific instance when a friend didnt get a prestigious scholarship and the way I got to know about it was an equally good friend of that person telling me through a "smiling sad face" that she feels bad for that person ... TOXIC!!!


Call it growing up or call it just wiser I have realised that some people in my life are indeed toxic... dont mistake me ... I have had very very good times with these people.... they have stood by me through some pretty tough times ... and I have stood by them in their hard times... but what was a relationship based on unadultered affection soon changed for the worse... jobs began, competition began, pressures started... in short life began... and it was no longer about taking that junk of a scooter and taking off to the distant hills for some unexpected sights ... it all became about "success"...who gets the bigger salary, who has the better house, who has the better spouse/GF/BF, who has got it all sorted out in their lives... soon it was unannounced competition with no one having any idea about what the prize was..... was it mirage of a perfect life? it just became complicated and unpleasant....

I dont know whether I will ever get rid of these toxic people...whether I will ever have back that period when it was uncomplicated.... I also dont know whether I am toxic to some people..perhaps I am... in a vain attempt to drag down a person to feel good about myself...all of us are victims of such temporary feelings of inadequacy.... but I do pity the people who are seized of this problem all their lives... who seek to achieve a life that others decide is perfect.... who fail to realise their true potential cos they were just too sacred to try.... or worse...who just doesnt have a moment's feel of contentment as they are constantly measuring their life against others....

whenever I see people like this, I almost telepathically tell them that in life, there will always be someone better than you, someone worse than you, someone richer than you, someone poorer than you, some more beautiful than you, some one uglier than you, someone more lucky than you, some more unlucky than you....

where and when are you going to draw the line???

Kidzz and all that jazz

For the longest time in my life I could not figure out kids....they would come to my house, cry, drop things and always, without fail, complain to their mommies about me at the end of the day... for no fault of mine I must add... (nobody told me that jumping on a child from behind the door was a no no... hah...it was good while it lasted)...so I would assiduosly avoid crossing paths with kids who came home..

Things got a little better after my first nephew was born... yes my 10 year old nephew who lives in Kerala...he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen and still is as goodlooking....and he was also the most generous one... you just had to put your hand out and he would give you his toys..apparently he still does that (except with me)...and the cutest thing was when he would just start crying along with you if you were crying... he is still as sensitive... things ofcourse got better with christy....ofcourse Christy and me also got off on a rocky start...especially on a particular Sunday when I poked him out of bed wearing all black...the poor kid got so scared that he refused to come out from the blanket!!! haha....

The net effect of watching my nephews grow is that I find kids more interesting now... I find them extremely energetic, excited and always enthusiastic about even the simple things that we take for granted... like an escalator or an elevator which soon becomes their play ground.... sometimes forgetting my age I join along with them in their enthusiastic adventures.... ofcourse that has its downside also - especially when your sister thinks you are not responsible enough!!!

Well all I can hope is that as they grow up they continue to remain as energetic, enthusiastic and excited.... and ofcourse keep on saying "East or West, vavaaunty is the best!"

Oh to be a Gandhi..

Some of the pitfalls of being born on the same day as a famous person is that you are always always and always compared to that great person...right from childhood when your parents are congratulated for having a baby on the same day as the famous person...almost meaning to say "since that person worked so hard already your progeny can now live off his glory".... or the occassions when your b'day is celebrated and you are constantly told that you are in the shadow of a great man who did so many great things...you have a name to live up to.... and all you want to do at that time is to move out of the shadow ....

Well to be honest all that didnt actually happen with me....either my parents didnt expect too much out of a syrian christian mallu girl born on the same day as Gandhi... or it might have been the fact that I was away in the Gulf all my childhood which gave Gandhi Jayanti a distant if not alien feel to it.... All I can say is that for me b'days were all about wearing that coloured dress and standing in the front of the assembly and having the rest of the kids sing you happy b'day.... and precisely for the reason that I was born on Gandhi Jayanti I never got to do that!!!! cos it was always a holiday (yes I was studying in an Indian School in Oman).... so either i would indirectly nudge a teacher and tell her to make them announce my b'day on the 1st or the 3rd or I would just live with the fact that I was never going to ever get a b'day song for me ON my b'day...

ofcourse now I am just grateful that I can be assured a holiday on my b'day and if not anything else I can just sleep .... so this b'day also started off something like that ...until I had a brain wave...why not try to find out a little more about the man I share a b'day with...why not honour him in my own way by going to the place where he lived and touching the same things that he did....after all Gandhi was one of the most influential people of his century and still continues to be one...and in a way find out for myself whether I can ever emulate in a little way the great feat that the man managed to achieve....

So there began my quest for Gandhi in Mumbai..The only shrine to Gandhi in Mumbai is Mani Bhavan...an ordinary looking place where the Mahatma lived from 1917 till 1934...infact he was even arrested from this place ...ofcourse when I first asked my friend Devika for her thots on visiting Mani Bhavan she commented about the excellent food there....obviously Mani's lunch home in Matunga is more popular than the Mani Bhavan where Gandhi lived...hahah ..... the place was as obscure as they come...I had to ask 50 people before they told me the directions to the place...and the place was nothing spectacular..instead i saw dusty books, broken tiles, unflattering paintings and carvings of the man including a very very amateur clay model of his life story..... all in all I felt like I was visiting an ordinary house....not a place which had such a historic significance.... anywhere else in the world they would have had a conducted tour, a video room with pictures and movies, a room with all his famous books ...basically a place where you would feel closer to Gandhi....

I came away feeling sad that we just didnt know how to appreciate our history.... To me Gandhi is the person that made India important...and made people stand up and take note...this is the person that people all over the world like Martin Luther and Nelson Mandela emulated and still remember after years of his assasination....while we have a crystal pathway to mark where Indira Gandhi was assasinated we dont even have a proper marking on the road saying this is where Gandhi lived... all I could feel was a bit of sadness...I dont know whether I will ever be able to do even 1/8 of what Gandhi did....but I do wish I could get to know the man better in my own country rather than through a film made by Richard Attenborough with Ben Kingsley in the lead...

Ofcourse after that soul stirring visit I washed it all down by watching a movie called "Khosla ka Ghosla" which was as funny and bizarre as it sounds...and followed it up with a truly unindian, anti-ahimsa(read non-veg)dinner thereafter....

and no b'day of mine is complete without Christy wishing me...he wished me and then asked in complete innocence what present I am getting for him!!! so when I told him that he had to get me something and not the other way round he offered me his gun...and immediately told "but it is broken"....well he was cute...but I am sure the non violent Gandhi wouldnt approve of a 6 year old boy gifting guns to people I am sure.....

As for the snaps...these are pictures I took of Mumbai while waiting for Khosla ka Ghosla to start.... please let me have your comments on them....

Learnings about Yoga and Me

Apart from software professionals, indian curry and ofcourse bollywood the biggest export India has had is Yoga... my interest in yoga was not kindled till I went to London...until then I had always heard of friends doing yoga and always imagined them in some yogic pose somewhere in the crowded streets of Mumbai....It was however in london that I actually saw yoga classes being conducted... and it all looked so calm....there were strong controlled motions, people balancing on one leg as if it was always the way God intended it..... and then ofcourse the meditation pose which always made me feel like I was missing something....

So it was not such a tough decision for me to join yoga classes.... finally I was going to get back to my roots and get a feel of yoga in India itself rather see some foreign lady doing it in front of me.... so with images of myself in calm yogic poses including ofcourse the balancing act on one foot I joined the highly acclaimed Bharat Thakur artistic yoga classes....

Only to discover a few facts about yoga and me ... firstly I cannot cheat as much in yoga as I could while I was gyming…. and the strong controlled motions are neither strong nor controlled when I DO IT.... and balancing on one foot is a lot more difficult than the yogis or the ladies from London make it look…. They are either experts or they really have big feet!!!!

But it also makes me really proud of the fact that our ancestors knew their stuff...long before any scientific discoveries were made..our ancestors knew which vein goes where, how the mind functions, what effect an image can have on the brain and most importantly how important it is to ensure that you treat your body well….

Ofcourse after a class pride in myself is a thot far far away from my mind… especially when I walk out of the class looking like I have just been in a bad street fight…. Or when I fall ignominiously on the floor while trying to do the one legged act… or when the instructor asks me what I do for a living and on hearing it asks “all the faces and noises that you make while doing yoga – do you use them in your profession as well?”….. hmmm… she might actually have a point there….

Anyways, I hope to redeem myself sometime soon….. today for the first time I did 25 “Suryanamaskarams” without supervision…. I hope to be doing 40 of them tomorrow….. and No People ...these are not the easier exercises … you can ask any yogi... a good one that is...

When Christy got scared....

Well finally there is one thing that stops Christy on his tracks.....a dark cinema theatre!!!

It all happened this Saturday when I decided to take my sister and christy to the new Atria Mall...unknown to me there was an entertainment centre on the 6th floor for kids...it had the usual stuff such as the bikes, video games, cars etc and the best part of it all- a 3D cinema theatre!!! I got all excited about it since I had been to one in Singapore and it was soooo much of fun....and I remember thinking Christy would have soooo much of fun in such a theatre....and so when I saw one in Mumbai I thought it was the best thing I could do for Christy.....

so off I jumped with excitement and got us three tickets....as we entered we were given the special glasses which excited Christy no end.... so there he was wearing his oversized glasses and sitting like a mini king in his throne ready for what I thought would be his first foray into the 3 D world....that was until the lights dimmed ...and the next thing I knew Christy had jumped on me, shut his eyes and totally refused to watch the movie....once in a while he would take a peek at the screen and minus his special glasses it would have scared him even more......

Ofcourse once he got of the theatre he behaved like the little king he was....no signs of the little boy who held his eyes shut and hugged his aunt throughout ....and off he went to wreck havoc on the play ground once again.... at the end of which he was pushed down by a boy half his size and got a ball thrown at his face...well no sweat .. I could sense that he clearly enjoyed this more than his aunt's attempts to introduce him to some alternate style cinema..hahah...

As for me nothing is better than when at the end of the day Christy says "East or West, Vavaaunty is the best!".... well people he said it - Not me :)....

Is Mumbai really the rudest city???

My first reaction to this news headline was - I want to meet the super stud that met all the 19 million mumbaities to pass such an opinion on all of us....

and then my reaction turned to asking - is it really true???

Speaking from personal experience I think this is the only city that has not been rude to me..YET....every other city that I have been to has had some issue or the other with me.... be it Delhi where it is unsafe to travel at night alone... or be it Chennai where it is unpleasant for a woman anytime anywhere...or be it my little town of kottayam where your sneeze becomes the topic of discussion with neighbours...

so it was in mumbai that I was able to blossom into an independent person...where I could just be myself and not have to care about the issues that normally accompany a person's life elsewhere...or to just put it simply- they just let you live....

On closer examination perhaps Christy might have added to the rudeness quotient of the city....I recently got a DVD with 4 animated movies in it with the hope that Christy and I could watch it together and enjoy some quality time.... Well.. that is still a dream....Christy insisted on playing one movie called "Cars" over and over again!!! As the name suggests it was about a talking, dancing red car ...and when asked whether I could borrow the DVD so that I could watch the remaining movies he totally refused!! Well all I can say is - HOW RUDE!!

Sing-a-pore

More to come....

Kerala as I saw it....

Deluge, Riots and terror....

Well... looks like I managed to dodge the deluge, riots and the terror in Mumbai by stepping out of this city for a week...ironically carrying with me a book titled "City of Gold"- a biography of Bombay....

Anyways let me start at the beginning....as most might know already I have resigned from ELP ... and I am taking a one month break before joining the grind machine once again with the top law firm in Mumbai....so off I went to UK for a holiday....now most might wonder why I spent money to go to a place that I had already been to before.......it was partly to connect with a city that I had lived in for a year...and partly to see places that I did not have a chance to see while I was in the UK (mainly due to student budget constrains)..... I still remember my flight to London as a student on an Air India flight... I felt so at home on the flight- in fact I thought we had reached Ahmedabad instead of London cos of the many Gujus on the flight (no offence to my Gujju friends..but guys you are everywhere)...

so there I was touring UK after a period of two years....rekindling all my memories... the special (and mostly importantly cheap) place called "Lolita" where I used to eat delicious "Shawarma" in.... the No 15, 23 and 7 buses that I used to take to LSE everyday....the grocery store I used to shop in....LSE.... etc etc... also managed to make a trip to Lake District and Scotland...

the one thing that always surprises me about UK is their ability to market every simple event as a geat event... there are plaques everywhere commemorating an event or honouring a resident ... for instance "Alexander Graham Bell lived here" or the "queen stood here and delivered a speech in 1993" or "the king fell down from a horse here and lost two teeth (both of which are kept in the museum nearby)" etc etc... in India it is a different story altogether- most often we dont know where anything happened ....I discovered Tilak lived somewhere in Crawford market after living in the city for about 4 years.......

another characterstic that amazed me was their ability to preserve their natural beauty...the natural beauty of Scotland is preserved by a trust which runs on the charity and contributions made by the citizens..... an amazing way to get the locals involved in....

ofcourse there are things that baffled me as well.... for instance in Lake District we trekked up about 4 kms to see what was called the "mysterious stone circle"...which to me appeared to be nothing more that simple, unimpressive, ordinary stones arranged in a circle....leading my friend to comment "maybe the tourism department got the stones and arranged it here to make it a tourist attraction"... well you cant rule that out also...but that didnt prevent the chinese, japanese and european tourists from taking pictures of it....well to confess even I did (see above)...and one of the main tourist attractions in Lake District was the satellite image of baby Ospreys (a kind of a bird-yeah even I heard that for the first time) which had apparently started breeding after a loooooooong break of 5 years....so the place was crowded with kids and families who had driven up to see the live satellite images of the ospreys babies...not to mention the osprey Souvenirs that were being sold....hmmmmm I wonder whether I could make some money off Bunty like that(my erstwhile housemate - a pigeon who just loved shacking up outside my bathroom) ....


All in all a very enjoyable trip.... I really feel lucky to have been able to do this....Now I am off to Kerala for two weeks where I will be languishing against the backwaters.... Ofcourse it being the top 10 holiday destinations of the world is
an added incentive....

P.S.- All this was ofcourse marred by the bomb blasts in Mumbai... I knew most of my friends dont take the train at that time so I was ok...but it still shocked me for a while....in London they were observing the 1 year anniversary of attacks on the london tube and here I was sitting and watching my city getting struck by terrorist attacks.... comparing both, my friend in london pointed out that its amazing how little we saw of the police at the scene of the blasts in Mumbai..... Well Mumbai and its residents- heres to you once again....

World Cup...

Its finally here....my first memory of the world cup was way back in my 8th or 9th standard....and I remember supporting Maradona and Argentina to the hilt..only to see them turning into rouges on the field...I remember one player even tugged at a players throat to prevent him from kicking the ball...and Argentina finally lost.....my heart was crest fallen...and to add to the bad news my grandfather died the same day .... so basically it was a really sad time...

and then years later I remember getting all excited about the world cup again....and I somehow felt that you would enjoy the game better only when you are sitting with a crowd in a big house with a big TV..my TV in those days was a small little 14 inch TV so I immediately discounted it.....so I orchestrated the whole programme at my friend Sam's place...he was given specific instructions on where the TV (a large 32 inch one) should be, what drinks to get and ofcourse how much "fun" we should be having....

and as murphy's law would have it things just went crazy from the time I landed at my friend's place.....for starters my friend's tv didnt not have the normal sports channel and had only an obscure channel where the commentary was in Albanian or Arabic or some other language which we could not understand for the life of us....so there we were watching the match and trying to decipher the commentary........and then the match reached a crucial point...you know the point where either of the teams could lose and it just hangs on one goal....and all of us were all at our seats edge putting full concentration and thot to decipher the foreign language commentary...and then..the POWER WENT OFF!!!!!...yes in a city where the electricity never shuts it went off only in my friend's place on that particular day at that crucial moment.....and by the time we ran to my house to watch the match on my small 14 inch TV, we had missed the crucial match altering goal....

anyways this year I hope it is different...and I am writing this even as I wait for my friends to get ready to go to Sports Bar to watch the match on a 5o inch TV with loads of screaming drunk people...well people this is one time where I dont mind being in a pub...

The keyboard and life

Am sure everyone must have been told this before but....You know the saying "sometimes the answer is right in front of you"....well I just had that epiphany on a sunday afternoon sitting in front of my lap top....the answers to most of life's events are right in the keyboard of your computer....I mean one could just look at each key and find some use for it in our daily life....

for instance:

- after a bad boss day you just press the delete key to remove all memory of that person

- you could erase regrets from your life by pressing the undo sign

- for routine stuff you could just press the "copy" and "paste" sign, thus saving you a lot of time

- if your lose your keys or anything else that small and crucial,you could just press the "Find" key and get it in an instant

- for words you regret saying you could just press "backspace" with all your vigour before the person registers the meaning of the words

- and for ofcourse the last but most important one- when you are really pissed you could just go into standby mode without actually logging off your entire system

Now who wouldnt agree that God is actually speaking to us through the computer?

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Lets Go Out....

I was introduced to the concept of pubs when I was 17 when I had just started out at law school...Now at 17 it is easy to get seduced into believing that going to a pub is like the coolest thing to do .... so I did what every 17 year old would do with her friends..go to the pub/disco .... hang out with friends.... and after about 4 hours of drinking multicoloured liquids, dancing like you are michael jackson, having your ear drums blasted by the loud music, you come out and gush about how "cool" the "joint" is....and then repeat the routine all over again in another 7 days....while I never objected to most of these outings I have to honestly say that sometimes (actually most times) I really felt like a tiny little fish in a tiny little fish bowl kept at the end corner of the pub... just watching people do their stuff...

and the amazing thing is ...At 30, I STILL feel like a fish in a fish bowl at the end corner of a pub whenever I visit one of these "cool" joints with friends....

I just cannot comprehend why one would go to a place to meet up with people only to have your voice drowned by all the louuuuud music...where one has to resort to sign language to say a simple Hi! to your long lost friends..and god forbid you have to say something more complicated like "what do you want to drink?"...you have to make use of your hands, legs, the chair, the table as props to communicate the question across... and where half of the crowd pretends to be aerosmith and strumms away at invisible guitar.... and the rest of the crowd is anyways too busy doing the latest dance moves of some rock star I have not even heard about...and ofcourse after several hours the whole place takes on a eerie look with clouds of smoke....or is that how a drunk crowd looks ?

my 25 year old friends call me "boring" and "old" whenever I say this........ but come on...I used to feel this way when I was 17 as well... perhaps I am just a small town girl who has still not forgotten her roots ..... okkk that was stretching it a bit too far but I am just not a pub person .... I am happiest when I can hear what the person is speaking without having to do a crash course in sign language.....and where my eyes are not watering due to the smoke....and where some stranger does not stub out his cigarette on my pants cos he just mistook my leg for an astray in his drunken stupor!

anybody supporting me on this one???? I can already sense the 25 year olds coming after me for trashing their favourite past time..... I love you guys in any case...

Do you know who you are?

This question was asked of me by a friend.... I was like "yeah ofcourse. I am Alice. I am a lawyer. I work in a law firm".. blah blah blah..my friend didnt seem impressed..and insisted that I try and answer this question after some thot....Now that insistence really caught me by surprise...why do I need to ponder over such an inane question....

but the truth is not many people can honestly say who they are....many find a spouse and take recourse to that life as being an identity...it is after all the most common and perhaps the least challenged one.....many find an identity from their work and over play the same to ensure that nobody challenges it....while others go through genuine attempts to find out who they are by dabbling in many myriad exercises - changing jobs, hobbies, travelling etc...

I really dont know whether I have made any genuine attempts to find out the inner core of my personality...many times some things happen that throw me off guard and make me wonder whether I interpreted the person or the event correctly...but all along I have always told myself.."You are fine. It will all work out"...

I doubt whether anybody really knows their place in life completely...even Gandhi kept experimenting with truth till a bullet stopped him in his tracks....or maybe in a way the bullet was the final confirmation that he had indeed achieved his purpose in life....

I frankly dont know what my purpose in life is...but I sincerely hope I dont have to take a bullet to find out....

Artistic License....

I have always thot of myself as having an eye for taking good photographs...to me photos are like precious moments captured in a bottle and kept on the side for everyone to walk past and admire...okk now that was slightly too tangential but you get the drift....I want to improve my photography ...and any tips would be welcome.....

Material possessions and me....

I dont know whether it is an Indian trait or just a human trait but one is always judged by the number of material possessions one has...

ofcourse needless to say I have been caught in this whirlwind of societal auditing of material possessions..hence in every societal audit by Tom, Dick, Harry, Mary, George, etc etc I have always come out really at the bottom of the pile... the main question asked is "Why dont you have a car yet? Ofcourse the fact that I dont know how to drive or the fact that driving 2 hours everyday in heavy traffic is extremely uneconomical when you have a train system that takes you to your destination in 20 minutes is not at all a major consideration at all for these kind souls. Other questions include "why dont you have a house?" "Why dont you have an I-Pod?" "why dont you have a Mont Blanc pen?" etc etc etc....

My standard reaction to all this is to play the latest hindi number in my head while such conversations take place....extremely effective especially since there is a smile affixed on your face throughout ..lulling them into believing that you agree with them...

In my view material possessions are easily available and can be acquired by everyone including Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem, Bin Laden and George Bush....and I am sure everyone agrees that they are not exactly the epitomes of virtue in society....it is character that one cannot acquire easily ....it is character that one will have even when the material possessions go away....

Ofcourse not that I am totally oblivious to the sweep of commercialisation or vanity.... my favourite possession is a bottle of Chanel's Chance perfume...which I bought very enthusiastically when I was a student in London...infact I was so possessive about it that I did not use it for one year at all for fear of it getting over fast....till I realised that evaporation was a factor that I did not consider ...... So now I liberally use it on every occassion..even when I visit my sister... and when my friend sniffed my pefume and asked "Rexona soap?" I almost hit the roof and screamed at my friend= "this is Chanel and it cost me more than 100 pounds!" .....

Well there you go ... I am normal as hell...and I love the little material possessions I have ....even though in my friend's view Rexona soap would do exactly the same thing for me as my expensive Chanel perfume I would still swear by the latter...so much for me being oblivious to material possessions...

Robben Island pictures

Robben Island- where no robins sing...

Thot I would start my writing on my south african trip with the most inspirational part of my journey...Robben Island...the surviving relic of the apartheid era...the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 17 of his 27 years of prison life....now a national monument and a major tourist attraction.....it is located about 22 kms from Cape town and we reached by ferry...

It is ironical that a prison that holed mainly black political prisoners would have the words "we serve with pride" atop its main gateway....as we entered the starkness of the place greeted us...it was bare...no trees, no animals, no life....just a long winding road taking us to the maximum security prison...we were greeted by a former inmate of the prison who was imprisoned for treason when he was 17...he took us through the many nooks and corners of the prison....where the classes were held, where the reception was, where the prison warden used to sit....and finally brought us to the compound where prisoners were made to work...the attached pictures shows this inmate standing behind a row of three pictures......one of which includes a picture of Mandela which apparently was a staged picture where they were given proper clothes......this was also the place where Mandela hid his the first draft of his book "Long walk to freedom"...if one peers closely the trees in the snap is where he hid the book for years...

The next stop was the prison cells..and we were taken to the famous cell of Nelson Mandela..a small cell which held his bed, his desk and a bucket for answering natures call(attached picture)........to think that he lived like this for 27 years was just unimaginable....I wondered whether living in these conditions, Mandela ever thought one day he would get out and people, both black and white, would be able to come and click pictures of his previous room .....We were then taken to the previous prison dorm of the tour guide....Interestingly one of the boards giving details of a prisoner for our benefit was that of a mallu nair called Billy Nair who was arrested for sabotage and whose religion was put as Hindu.....that single moment was enough to give us a snap shot of Indian involvement in South Africa....my aunt proudly told them he is from our village.....

The island had all the facilities for the prion wards and guards- tennis court, church, hospital and schools....a part that apparently the prisoners never got to see.....and the island also housed another leader called Sobukwe.......a leader who had fought longer than even Mandela...and who lost everything including his family..his two children were adopted by Andrew Young who was the Governor of the state of Atlanta... an act that South Africans are grateful for even now....

for the first time i understood the strength of character to actually forgive someone.....it is so much more difficult to not react than to react...so much more difficult to love than to hate someone....this man had imbibed Mandela's teaching of reconciliation and had chosen to forgive his previous enemies...yet one could sense in his words a feeling of helplessness brought about by the paramount question of "why did it have to be this way" ....now he accepted reconciliation as that was the way forward for the country.....


It was simply an honour to see this place...even though I share a country and even a birthday with the man I think I saw more of Gandhi here than I have seen in India.... Gandhi lives on in this country more than he does in India....

I came away from the prison feeling small.... for a person who gets angry if the internet is not working at home i wondered how long I would have survived in a prison of this nature...and most importantly whether I would be able to live in the midst of my wrong doers so peacefully.....

This visit was an inspiring trip...one that I throughly enjoyed....I discovered a unique history of the country that i was visiting...

and I also discovered in myself the long lost girl who once dreamed of making a difference to this world....maybe .... someday ...

More of south africa....

Africa-simply awesome!

Picture Essay