when i finish reading a book

my continuous date with some or the other author continues... i finish with one, i have another one waiting... it is a ceaseless process... so that is not new, what is, is my new fascination for Indian writers in English...
and Nagarkar is but one illustration... this one, a 600+ page book has a lot of weight, but when one starts reading, one can breeze through... and though the descriptions just won't leave you, you will not feel like putting the book down...
and one more thing i discovered with this book... who says history cannot be fodder for modern minds???
try this and tell me how you like it...

S, my driving instructor

... the second one, to be precise for the left hand drive here...the first one being the inconsequential guy who taught me how to drive a manual car, in the last century, but who did not almost hit me as S... thus his inconsequentiality...
and believe me, i remember S every single day when i negotiate bad traffic with a cool head, when i switch lanes effortlessly, when i drive confidently on a Round About, when i can manage a sharp turn with the least amount of jerk, all i do is to thank him silently for those loud hours of teaching, for those merciless evenings when i used to almost cry before leaving for the driving class...
i now know the benefits of a tough driving instructor...
my unfazed driving is solely his credit, rather the credit of his vocal chords...
and once i had the Licence in hand but still had not bought the car, thankfully B took me around... oops i took around B in his car and he was S's replacement, shouting and whipping (only with words, mind you) me to enable me to get over my road fear, all this after having given S a fat reward, since in his own words, "S has done what i have not -- shouted at you, without you retorting."
i just pretended not to hear... at times, i too know to keep quiet...

Made in India

this has nothing to do with Republic Day...
but recently while lolling around at an upmarket shopping mall here in Doha, R wanted to look for some nail enamel... little did i know that the colours she would want would be least what i would approve... she chose BLACK... and of a renowned and costly US brand...
following her to the same store, i started to shop for some lip pencils... the colours i liked were available from two brands, but i, unknowingly opted for an Indian brand...
the counter lady who had to prove her superior selling ability, was happy with what R had chosen, but as soon as she saw what i wanted, she blurted out, "Madam, this is made in India... so would you want it?"
i felt like k**king her... but with a straight face said, "I am also made in India and would want only what i chose."
she smiled with a hurt look... i had achieved a little bit of what i would have with the k**k...

12+ things that bowl me over

there are many such, but will note down what i can tell you...
please note that the order does not indicate the degree of importance or the extent to which each can bowl me over... it is the order in which those came to my mind while i started this post... so here i go:

Public Library: where i could spend my lifetime... where i can go with B and get lost in-between stacks... where i have spent time romancing both with books and B...


Muscat: where i stayed less than two years, but a place which is BEAUTIFUL, to say the least... more importantly, this is where i started working for a publishing house and am still with them till date, Insha Allah


Barack Obama:... no need of restating...

Lipsticks and glosses: fascinates me, sends me into fits of feel good...


Diamonds: am i different in this, nope, but i still have felt the urge to splurge to you


Souq: to pick up material for my everyday office wear... and then one trip to my tailor and am done...


Yum food: need i say more? any country, any cuisine, any taste... i am up for it...

Sports cars: for a swing and a zing in life, what better than a low, two-seater sports car....


R...


writing, writing, writing, writing...


Home...

Walking alone


Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping...


anyone who reads this is tagged...

i assume there is something called 'i-etiquette'...

... but i think, as countless other times, i am wrong...
i have a strange habit of getting rid of things i do not need which i have, of late, finetuned to extremities... just as i write this, B calls to ask about a Gift Voucher that he had got and given me for 'safekeeping'... nowhere is that found and his doubt is that i MUST have junked it, in the belief that we wil not need it... that is not the point of this post though...
i erase people's numbers i no longer call, i erase people's ids (mail) from my IM, in the foolish belief that if i do not see them, they will also not see me... clear instance of a tunnel vision...
but just a while back, someone with whom i have not communicated for quite sometime, pops out of nowhere on my monitor and hugs me...
she was a baby when i first saw her, but that was 31 years back...
this lady, all of a sudden comes like a gust of wind, and after the cursory exchanges of how we are, how the weather is (typical example of more important things coming), she pops her real question... about character certificate in some other country...
i am quite irritated with her sudden appearance, since when she changes countries and cities, she gets so busy that she misses even telling me, over the same chat site...
and on top of that, she reveals her purpose in the third sentence...
i brush it aside like a speck of dust and tell her, "have no idea"...
the next sentence is, "ok, bye, take care, catch you soon" and runs off...
what does one do with such idiots? can you tell me?????

history in front of the eye

tomorrow Barrack Obama will take oath as the 44th President of the US of A. every eight years, on this day, the 20th of January, a new President takes office... nothing new, so why am i writing about it?
a puny soul, with high human aspirations, i felt euphoric while watching him live on TV for his pre-innaugural speech... he has one thing for sure -- an electrifying capacity to inspire, with a capital I. in this day and time of anti-heros, Obama stands out and the colour of his skin becomes totally incidental... he clearly brings to mind the Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech that King gave on August 28, 1963
what King dreamt, Obama has realised.
at this point, i just want to cherish this feeling, the feeling born out of what King had described as "character"... and America has testified to that choice by voting for Obama...
why am i rejoicing? why am i sounding on top of the moon?
because of the victory of MAN, does not matter that it is not my country, not my continent...
it is still the human being above all else...
and what is the Obama couple doing today? Michelle Obama is spending the day packing bags for the troops in Iraq and her husband celebrated MLK day in various services...
so in spite of the slight pall of gloom of the recession, of the tough job at hand and that the world will scrutinise Obama for every moment, i want him to prove that as the President of USA, he is also a super duper human being...
all the best President Obama!

cheap thrills... why cheap?

we do it on an ongoing basis. and why not? flirting is good for health and great for the mind, as long as it is restricted within sane limits, does not hamper work and adds a little zing to life, it's perferct.
it allows one to stay young and bouncy...
so we at office indulge in it very regularly...
our crush lists get updated, we weed out stale guys (after a point in time, we also get bored, so we move on), and are on top (i mean ONLY figuratively speaking) of the most happening guys in town...
and what a multi-cultural list have we... you name a country, you have some representation in our database.
and what is the husbands' reactions? others i do not know, but mine makes out who my current crush is, going by the hoo-haa that i make over a story i have just done and when i carry the published copy, he immediately latches on to the guy and gives a dirty look at innocent me while i try hard not to break out into a guilty giggle...
that is my way of keeping him on leash... afterall my beau of 23+ years is a man in his 40s... it helps to know that one has a partner who is noticed and this is true for both...
try it and see the difference...

this one's for you, Mom

since we are born of our parents, it's natural that we are a combination of the genes of two people (the first step), our grandparents (the next step) and our fore-parents (not forefathers, please; the next step)... nothing new, you may say...
certainly not in what i have stated, but new is my latest avatar... that of a cook, who is cooking willingly, experimenting recipes and enjoying food after a long while and mind you, i have even cut down on my intake (in both the quantity as well as cutting out certain things totally, like sweets) since i am thoroughly enjoying what i am ruffling up.
what is the secret of this transformation? my erstwhile recruit, G, very very neatly put.
he had been cooking and cleaning since May 2008. initally a very pleasant chap, but suddenly got worldly wise... his speed of work increased, he started calling shots on what was to be cooked (no chana dal since it takes a long time to boil, only masur dal; no non-veg since he is a veg), no interest or time in learning to make any of my recipes since is "buzy".
i was seething inside but tried to make the best of what i had at hand since cooks are not easily available here... so in the meantime, i had started to make the odd dish that i wanted to have cooked. it was only making things more and more convenient for G who cared less and less.
his ways became more and more irritable and his timings more and more eratic; missed calls became common in an effort to intimate me that he would be late by a couple of hours since he was stuck with some odd job (read quick cash) at some odd place. SMSes also became cool with a cryptic note, "Please call me back."
finally it reached a boiling point when citing visa work he pleaded absence for 5 days, mind you through an SMS again...
if i can manage for 5 days, why not longer... so while i thought about it very hard, i replied to his message the next day, asking him to come on Feb 1 to collect his 3 day's salary...
since then (and it is more than a week now), i am the chef at home. it is grand freedom, to say the least. i decide what i want to have; i decide when i want to cook; and i decide at what pace i want things done, not in the pace set by my erstwhile bionic "buzy" cook...
and i have ruffled up kofta, bhape ilish and cholar daal
yesterday and both meals were silent, except for B's and R's clean plates and licking fingers.
while cooking, i was recalling the way Mom used to do when she used to... so all the credit goes to her...
muaaaaah, Ma, this is my way of saying, "I LOVE YOU."

how we create stereotypes...

while driving R to her Maths classes, she was fiddling with the car lighter. it was irritating me, i know not why. so i asked her, "do you want a fag?" "what's that?" she asked. "Papa's after-dinner snack," i said.
she knew what i meant... and said, "good girls do not smoke."
i was thrown off guard... while i have to admit that i was happy with her confidence in her belief in two things (a)that she is a "good girl"; (b)that she thinks she will not smoke since she is (a), it has kept my mind occupied on a whole lot of other questions:
(a)does she know that good girl does not mean being a door mat?
(b)does she know that good girl may entail a lot of choices which do not necessarily mean being smart (unlike the non-smoking choice she seems to have made)?
(c)what are the other attributes of a good girl in her mind?
(d)has she latched on to the idea of good girl, not seeing through my trick of getting her to do things by calling her a good girl (lokkhi meye, in our lingo) many times?
(e)have we successfully increased the number of a non-challenging stereotype?
... many questions, many doubts, many unsure ideas in the mind...

for the sake of conscience

does that sound passe? or prehistoric? or out of date?
yes, to many it does... but again, not to many, i am sure...
conscience is not a Moral Science concept or something we read about only in the books...
it is very much relevant today, as it was when the word was invented...
i am sure all of you must have felt an inner bliss when you have done something good, not necessarily for yourself but for someone else, not to your tangible benefit... that can be described as good karma, but the bliss was the feeling of joy your conscience gave you... the invisible reward.
or the reverse when you have felt an inner heaviness when you, consciously, have done soemthing that is not correct, lied, been harsh and rude?... bad karma and the heaviness is the chiding that the inner voice gives as punishment for being wrong...

my encounter with this inner master began quite early... while in a convent school, we necessarily had to study moral science, though i was not particularly inclined in any of what i learned (socialised at home as we were in a strongly anti-religious way), i understood the inner power when some little lies escaped me, in my effort to be smug... whether or not i was caught by others, this guy inside told me i was wrong... today i know, it was the result of the training that my parents gave me and the schooling i had...

in 1991, just before my wedding, my aunt (Mom's elder and only sis) came visiting... we (aunt and me) were great buddies... many a times, she has saved me from being thrashed by both my parents... so the soft corner i had (she is no more) for her.
in an after-dinner walk that we had gone for, she held my hand and said, "shortly you will be married and will go, leaving your parents, to another home. you will not like many things about the new place, the new people, even the guy you have chosen to be your life partner and you will not be able to discuss them with all, maybe none at times. but always take care to build the relationship with B and his family, guided by your conscience." this was no tall order i thought then, the immature 24-year-old as i was... i know better now, though i have tried to abide by her advice...

some instances stay on with you... this is one such. aunt was no career lady, no working woman, but what she told me for the sake of building a satisfied married life, has stood me in good stead in LIFE, in general...

when the soul is touched... i thank LIFE

the first day of the year... my birthday too...
am fortunate enough to be part of a small, well-knit group of colleagues who make life better, more worthy of living and cherishing...
that is the BIG picture, as one cliche would put it.
but i am grateful for that... but that is not the point of the post...
we had a small, simple New Year celebration in office, which was also a birthday celebration for me and my colleague N and today's post is wholly dedicated to her...
i have mentioned her in one of my earlier posts, but just in passing...
she is our office Mom, who takes care of us, literally... she carts food from home regularly so that we are not hungry. she takes care of all the parties we keep having, from planning to executing it, with the same degree of warmth and personal touch as she runs her own home. she cannot say NO, even when it deserves a loud, clear one. she is unspoilt in this day and age when people think only about their own benefit. and she does all of this with a broad smile that is not put on... it comes genuinely from within. this is again the BIG picture about N which everyone who knows her in the office, knows...
what i discovered today, is something beyond words...
N and A (her hubby) have gifted me on my birthday a framed family pic which we took at Paris... A took time and effort to edit it and gave it the background of Invalides garden, though it was shot at the entrance to Napoleon's tomb...
and when i called A to thank him, he merely stated, "N wanted to surprise you..."
some people are just made differently...
thank you LIFE for giving me these moments which bring a lump inside my throat...