It's totally Random

Though, I had gone through the existential crisis a few years back, I had not imagined that it would come to haunt me again and I will be caught unawares. Afterall, I was sad, lonely and depressed. How worse it could have got? 

Worse it did get.

 A few weeks back, I received a message, on one of the social networking site I am present, from a person whose picture looked all too familiar. Fake pics are in no shortage on such sites. Everyone knows how an Indian girl conned a dutch man making him believe she was Aishwarya Roy. 

Networking sites, such as the one I was present on has a few popular choices. The message I got had none of the usual suspects. The pic- instantly identifiable by any one who follows the Indian fashion industry even remotely-- had me taken completly by surprise. I hardly have the looks to receive messages from decent looking men, let alone this man. Therefore, I decided this is a fake pic and needs to go to deleted messages. Boredom and curiosity got better of me after I deliberated on it and sent a reply hoping against hope I will receive any reply.

A week later, I get a sms on my phone saying that it was HIM. ( Yes, I sent him my number, I am that desperate. Get over it!) I am all too excited to find that not only is he replying back but he is also real. Real? Do I actually know for sure he is for real, not some fake guy like ipl player. Being the pathological cynic, I demand to speak to him and he smses back saying he is in a meeting.

Ahh, I thought I had caught him.

After an hour, I got a call. The voice was all too familiar, it cannot not be him. I am very good with voices and was sure about him. We chatted briefly and I couldn’t contain my excitement.

From then one, we regularly started messaging each other and talking whenever HE got time ( He is the busy guy, not me).

He had asked me to send him my clear pics, which I did. And suddenly the messages stopped coming.

Hehe.

Big Deal?

Before I go any further, let me write something about the mystery man. Though, it will not be ethical to reveal his name, I can give some general hints.

He is a fashion designer who has made a name for himself in India and abroad within a very short span. He is Young – important for me coz I don’t date above a certain age when I told this to my ex best friend he thought I was referring to Vijay Arora—intelligent, well read with a middle class background.

He offered me a job on our very first call. He asked me to become his business advisor since I was the MBA type who knew his finance and fashion. Though, I didn’t commit anything to him as I was overwhelmed by the fact that I was speaking to this GUY, I was secretly hoping that perhaps this was the chance I could switch career

He was the Indian YSL and I was his business partner.

The fantasy was too short lived.

There is more to it, will write in the part ii

 

 

 

 

 

   

Birthday Blues

There is a lot happening in my life.

But still I feel my life is one of the most boring, staid and placid movies that one can make out of a real life. Last week I turned little closer to thirty. Though, just like the women in SATC, I have promised myself that I would stop aging beyond 29 and will be 30 for some ten years, the reality of having to confront another lonely birthday hit me hard.

I spent the day like any other regular day doing chores such as going to office ( I didn’t put much effort in selecting the clothes, which on hindsight I should have ), coming back from office ( I wonder what fine day it will be when I go straight partying from office, or err…do I have to keep a spare pair of clothes for that? Which will be such a nuisance) and doing my laundry – the third item must sound as if I am some kind of clothes fiend, but actually I am. Remember the best dressed person thing??

Some of my colleague got to know that I turned a year older despite my best efforts at keeping it a secret ( I had done it for last two years on orkut). Damn facebook was the place which I had not figured out much, and it gave away precious information. In fact, one of my blog reader --shall I say my only reader?- also ‘located’ me on facebook which is totally ok with me. 

So, those office folks got a cake and asked me to cut it. I might not have written this before but Cakes and I go long way back. In fact, despite being born and brought in 'bhaiyaa land' my craving my ‘english’ style cake pastry had seen no end. Slowly, I got curious to know as how one can make these at home and after almost hundreds of failed expreiments of gooey, half cooked, burnt cakes which were subjected to my class mates, my maids, pets etc I cracked the formula of making a decent ( read: edible) cake. 

Being a true taurian ( read: stubborn ), I never give up something until I get what I want, and then give it up unceremoniously without any remorse to all those people who suffered because they ate what I gave then disguised as cake. One of my polite neighbors told me after eating my caked that eating these biscuits cum cake is really a good exercise for his gums ( He so wanted to give the brick analogy, I could see from his expression).

So, though I digressed, I wanted to make a point that I can bake perfectly turned out cakes --which I would have done every day had it not been for my fetish for my weight—and no body gets surprised there. Imagine eating a decent cake after you have eaten scores of burnt ones.

On one of those nights, when I have really nothing to do and I am too tired of watching DVDs, looking for dates, soliciting for dates, executing solo dates with myself;  I run to the kitchen and see if I have the ingridients to make a cake. And thus I bake a cake. Since, I can’t eat my cake alone I often bring it to office and tell people that my maid has made it  ( alliteration, ye) even my colleagues have got used to this idea that I am a cake junkie. ( Don’t ask my BMI number now).

Therefore, the first thing that they asked me after they got to know it was my birthday “Have you brought cake?”.

“I am not desperate enough to bake a cake for myself “, I muttered slowly.

“Never mind, we look forward to your next offering any way”, chorused my entire cubicle.

‘Ha ha ha” , I gave their my lame laugh which I do when I get embarrassed/ nervous/ or shy.

All the wishes and hugging ( actually no one hugged me, except for one. How boring?) , a chocolate cake was produced by lunch time for me and I lost my nerves. Remember cakes and I go long way back. The truth is much as I want to be the centre of attraction, if and when it happens I totally chicken out.

I was mortified to find that I have to cut the cake and get my pics clicked ( remember my phobia with images)

As the order of things are, I got my chocolate facial in due time—just seconds after I had taken the first bite. And they even rubbed it on my chest ( I know it was some perv who just wanted to feel me: disgusting). 

Khair, I have given much time to write a trivial event in my life whereas all I wanted to write how it triggered a melancholic wave.

 I will post that soon.

P.S. I am reading chick lit  these days --which I have always frowned upon, but somehow I chanced upon a used book and the writer kept me hooked – and that explains why I start trying to be funny everytime I want to write something serious. Marian Keys is infectious and way better than Indian wannabes like Reddy Madhvan etc.

Literary Dreams: How literal are they?

There is a reason I don’t blog much.

And it’s not about me being lazy which you would have thought—which, on second thoughts is a good reason—but since I consider myself pseudo intellectual the reason I have is more profound one.

I think mostly what I write is crap.

When I read other blogs, I just find my writing and myself so inadequate.

 My writing which gets influenced by who I am reading at that moment flip-flops between styles. I mean I know fully well that I am not Zadie Smith or Atwood or Arundhati Roy, and can never be but there is a constant struggle within me to write something which I would feel proud later on.

And, for the record, there are things that I am proud of.

Now, the previous line was added as an afterthought, when I had written the entire post just to make it funny. But I find, this line looks very forced and artificial. Probably, I am not funny in real life. My humor gets restricted to sexual innuendos and a few one liners from American sitcoms. Yes, no jibber jabber here!.

It’s weird but in dreams I compose passages which are almost like the styles of writers I mentioned before. I don’t speak English much in real life ( meaning I don’t think in English), I learnt english very late and  started reading english texts much later in my life therefore it’s a mystery as to how those words which I see myself writing so clear.

There is nothing vague about the whole experience since it happens very frequently especially if I have read anything by writers I liked, before sleeping.

Since I have already mentioned, my favorite hobby is people analysis; and for lack of many real people in my life, I practice that a lot on myself.

I have an explanation for everything.

Every tiniest action that I take.

I see this whole writing in dreams as a portent of something similar that used to happen a few years ago.

Circa year 2000, I enrolled myself in one of those English speaking courses. (Embarrassing though it may sound, it was the only option for me since it was near impossible to find and convince someone to speak with me in queen’s language in my  town). The institute forbade people from using any other language except English in premises which created quite funny situations which I think I should devote a separate post later. But the interesting thing in those days was when I started dreaming that I was having an actual conversation ( without faltering, stuttering or  even worse mispronouncing words) before I could have a actual decent conversation one in real life.

Taking a cue from this, I am hopeful that I might write better in future and stop having writers dreams.

If you haven’t got it yet, I have stopped having dreams where I have conversation without faltering, stuttering or mispronouncing words. I have those conversations in real life and people inevitably ask me if I am a product of one of the most famous schools in the town I short lived before moving to Delhi. ( I secretly smile )

As an aside, I saw once an interview of a little known writer who when asked how one wrote good prose responded by saying that in order to write well, one needed to read well first. Those words got entrenched in my mind and I was determined to read as much as possible. I feel that I have made up for those years when I had little access to quality books in last few years since I have become financially independent and moved to a bigger city. However, there is a still a sense that I am not as articulate, expressive or funny as I should be.

There is something else which I read somewhere to the effect that every blogger secretly wants to write a book. This may be true for me and many others.  Because notwithstanding the fact how boring life I lead, there is a book in everyone’s life. They all want to be published.

Before I end this, I have a question. Do you think about the writing process, style, humor etc while you are writing or it just comes naturally? And do you want to be published?

I do but only when I have a little better craft.

Boy's don't cry!

For those of you read my last post—yes, I am referring to USP and Ramby—and didn’t get it, the guy in the second incident was me. I tried to distance myself from that incident and didn’t want to come across as sentimental hob. However, I thought I must confront it and accept who I am  the way I am.

 It turns out that I can cry at the drop of a hat. Well, it was not like this earlier when I used to cry only over issues of global importance such as pimple breakout, my ever increasing waistline or every time I saw food I didn’t like. I have a confession to make since I am already spilling beans on my personal stuff. I hate to look myself in the mirror. Unlike most of the guys who don’t leave any chance to run through their hand in their hair, puff their chest or adjust their crotch the moment they encounter any reflecting object, I would deliberatley duck away from such devices in those frightiening moments.

No prizes for guessing that I would always find fault with something in my body: The surprising thing was that the body part will never remain same. One day I find to my horror that I have a very big nose ( still smaller than Shahrukh’s) and other day it would be my ears ( still smaller than Amir) and on other days I will start looking with quizzical expression as to what was wrong with my ears, nose ,lips...Hope you get the drift.  This shame/ guilt/ anger would last forever and no amount of increased frequency of operation "mirror watch" would make me get used to my own self. 

I mean isn't it the case that if we something long enough we don't notice the obvious flaws. 

Case in point is Dev Patel-- with his perennial goofy expression and lanky body, I don’t know what Freida saw in her, and what I think of Freida’s beauty is very different-- who I have got used to seeing if I can use the expression and find him 'tolerable'.

Coming to my original confession, I don’t like to face mirror –and yes, I hate cameras too, if that was not obvious yet—however, and this is where the big surprise is: I look into the mirror every time I cry. 

I don’t know why I do it, but let me tell you I don’t do it to check how horrible I look.

Do I look to check if I look better ( I am so bored with using ‘look’ so many times, how vain can I get? ) with all those tears, bleary eyes and a running nose. 

Yes, I believe so. How many people can seriously look brilliant while crying? I think I can. With my eyes welled up, ears getting a crimson hue and the lone tear falling on my cheeks, I find it so..so...so not me. I kind of feel I am looking at a different person who I don't know. Who is smarter, better looking, more humane and vulnerable.

P.S. I guess this is one of the most weird post which I have written ever. But I can't help it if things are turning weird for me-- which I will post sometime soon. Now, I am gonna make a mean biryani ( there was a Hailstorm in Delhi, and it's so much cooler now) and eat it.

 

Signal Madness

Scene1 : Traffic Light, Outer Circle Connaught Place 

A thirteen fourteen year old school kid wearing clean white uniform, his school bag on his shoulders knocks on the window of a car. The car is a white Audi A4 costing 30 lac upwards. The kid has some long, thick pencils in his hands which he is trying to sell for some school project. He speaks to the lady sitting next to the driver. The lady shows some interest. Traffic light turns green. Everyone starts honking behind ( No surprises, this is Delhi). The lady takes out 5 rupee coin ( my guess, but I am sure it must have been 2 rupee) and gives it to the kid. The kid looks disgusted. Some more honking from the desperate drivers.  Seems, she does not want pencils. He throws the coin through the window slit and moves back.

Scene 2: The next traffic light, Connaught Place

Red Traffic light.  A middle aged guy carrying a four- five year girl knocks on a car window. The girl is allegedly sick. Her face is covered with a coarse cloth trying to shield her from harsh sun. One of the most common method of begging. The guy in the car doesn’t pay heed. He looks away. Suddenly, from some where the mother of girl emerges. Desperate, disheveled and angry. She has a bright face with big eyes accentuated by her olive complexion.  The father knocks on the window showing a government hospital prescription and shrieks” Bheekh nahi maang raha hoon main”. The guy in car looks other way. He dithers, then looks for his wallet. He could only find a 100 rupee note in his wallet. He gives it and speeds away. Crying. Crying inconsolably.