Chiffonesque

It’s a great day today! Feels like thunder! Practically glided through Mankhurd and had a pretty neat plate of medhu vada and sambhar for breakfast. Then I met a friend online who is the father of a very sweet two-year old. (Or “ 27 months ”as he pointed out.) He told me that he loves spending time with her. Sometimes he puts her on his back and does push-ups. Some other times, she starts jumping on his tummy when she feels Papa needs to do crunches. Saturday nights, though, father and 27-month old daughter go for movies by themselves. It’s the last thought that makes me feel so warm.

I had to take a rick to work from Kalanagar this morning. It was already around 9:30 or so when I reached the autostand opposite the ONGC building. I was quite certain that none of the autorickshaws would be ready to take on Marol at that time. One of the rickshaw fellows, though, agreed. I hopped in with the joy I reserve for Christmas parties. Rickshaw? Marol? 9:30 a.m.? Monday? ‘Tis the season to be jolly! Yay! Now, my usual experience of traveling in Bombay around this time is hardly ever pleasurable. One is lodged permanently in a strip of choked concrete and mortar with brittle pebbly air scraping your nasal duct. One reminiscences of having a fish bone lodged in the gullet for over an hour. If one is vegetarian, one suffers without appropriate analogy in mind. But increasingly, the traffic situation in Bombay is not just horrific. It’s unpredictable. Today, the rickshaw zipped and turned and went up the highway and zoomed down the flyover happily. Cars were neatly moving in, umm...

Earlier, I have usually cribbed about my insomnia or the racking quality of sleep. So, I think it is only fair that I duly appreciate my sumptuous slumber when I am getting it. On this count, I must admit that vegetarianism has done me good. I sleep beautifully now. In fact, the moment I lie down and go through a few pages of some novel or the other, I am slowly sinking into a sweet, dreamless zone. I breathe better and even if I have eaten a lot of rice and oily food, I don’t feel any discomfort or undue heaviness. The best part is that I wake up completely refreshed. There’s no heavy headedness or lethargy. I’m completely rested and ready to take on the world! In fact, now, when I say “ Good morning! ”, I truly mean it.

I don’t like the way people check you out at office parties. As if simply being out of office and sludging liquor gives one a license to freely ogle and comment on what one is wearing, what one is drinking, how one is dancing, etc. It is dismal that vegetarian fare in buffets is reduced to a staple of 4-5 dishes of black dal, some korma-type agglomeration of orange and red vegetables, palak paneer, rice, and chewy naan. Just because a person doesn’t eat meat anymore doesn’t mean that she has lost all taste for food. I think more vegetarians must be drawn to high fat and sugary foods than non-vegetarians, because one desperately looks for compensation to tickle the palate. One of my New Year resolutions is to lose around 8-10 kilos by the end of the year. It will be more difficult to do this now than before because the motivation is slightly tepid. Although, in my mind, I have a very clear image of how I want to be - sharp, lean, angular without any of those womanly ‘curves’, I don’t t...

I sit at my favorite table In a purple coffee shop Wearing smart corduroys And a flimsy orange top. I usually just take the largest cup Of the hottest, strongest brew, But it’s one of those days when I decide To check out the menu. Next to a dried blob of ketchup Is a dish that sounds wry It’s called ‘A slice of Life’ And it’s a piece of creamy fruit pie I order it immediately It sounds so cheery bright It promises of taste and sin And sounds just about right I get my pie on a yellow plate It’s a heaving slice in the center A long metal spoon to scoop up with It’s a positive Dementer The pie has blueberries and apples Folded cozily in creamy layers And also hunks of warm custard bread As some of its major players It’s soft and spongy and buttery-sweet And thickened to perfection The fruit pieces blend in like Image and reflection I pick up the last morsel And savour it with a sigh I promise to remember this forever… But I forget it by and by Many seasons later I am at a club for drinks...

Well, this is the second time today that I'm at the computer tip-tapping away. Again, for a second time, about nothing in particular. Let's see..is there anything earth-shattering that has happened in the last twelve hours or so? Well, nothing. I wonder why the phrase is 'earth-shattering'? If the earth shatters, you are not really in a position to type something out at a computer. If on the other hand, we call it 'sea-rolling' or 'cloud splitting', it's a rather handy way to describe the momentousness of an event and it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that one could have blogged when the sea was rolling or the cloud was splitting. But if you tell someone that I blogged about this or that while the earth shattered, they would probably ask you, "What?! Blogger wasn't down?" I would like to have Chinese in a nice place. One of my favorite places for Chinese food is the Golden Orchid in Bandra. I love the food there, especially a brown...

'Halla Bol' is so tepid. The movie, I think, is so disproportionately theatrical in places that it's funny. And while people may go to town about Devgan (who looks too wizened to be the arrogant filmstar he plays in the first-half) and Pankaj Kapur, I personally think Vidya Balan is fab-u-lous. Okay, she's not there in most of the film, and in most of the time that she is there, she's crying - out of happiness when her boyfriend is recognized by an admiring crowd for the first time, when she delivers a baby, when she catches her husband cheating on her, when her family is threatened by a mob, etc. etc. But man...she's got range. She has that quiet grace and dignity that is so rare to see, and therefore, such a treat. What I found most interesting about the film is the precept that you must speak up, no matter what...because you never know who might be listening. Anyway, on to more interesting things....I had a great lunch yesterday. A bowl of very spicy daal an...

I was eating a plate of hot, spicy aloo tikki outside the Paschimi gate of the Taj. The adjoining lane is lined with stalls selling ugly monstrosities that capitalize on one of the most beautiful monuments in the world. So, a stall may have plasticky-looking Taj Mahals that get lit up with orange and green lights on the flick of a button. For a few bucks more, the lights will also dance to the tune of ‘ O O jaane jaana, dhoondhe tujhe deewana.. ’ There are humongous rugs on which the marble mausoleum is woven against a garish maroon and yellow background. And of course, there are varieties of coasters with chipped transparent flicks (which are supposed to be ‘mother of pearls’, no less). Anyway, as I slurped my last spoonful of sweet and pungent chutney and asked for a plate of fresh matthi and chai , I overheard something interesting. A young lad of around 12 years and a much older man, weathered by age and climate and wearing a faded dhoti and brown mojris , were talking about whe...

I have been toying with scholastic ambitions for a while now. And I came across this web site in one of the dailies. It is such a mine of gems on a whole range of subjects – http://www.lecturefox.com/ . I noticed that there was a course on Philosophy or Metaphysics of Death or something that tied a morbid phenomenon to a lofty pedagogy. Just the thing for a cavernous intellect.

I spent a couple of hours with friends this Saturday evening. It was nice. But for some strange reason, I felt disconnected. It felt as if I were watching ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’ dubbed in Swahili. It seemed familiar enough, but not the same anymore. Some portions of the evening seemed to be unhappening. As in happening in real-time, but to someone else. Many moons ago, it was my birthday, and I had insisted that my friends write me a letter. I don’t know why I had insisted on a letter, but I had the feeling that all this would change. This circle would disperse. Like some molecule would split and the atoms would run helter-skelter. I get that feeling now. But now, I know that this dispersion will be final. I don’t mean that in a tragic, foreboding way. Change, I have come to realize, is always good. It’s good because it is necessary. When you adapt to a necessity, you use reason, logic, and a part of your heart that insists that you get on with it. No matter how sharp the transformation, ther...

I have just returned from a fabulous holiday in Agra. It was cold and the drive from Delhi to Agra was delicious – streams of sunlit roads, tickling stretches of mustard fields, huge kettles of boiling milk at Mathura, mounds of pale sand where women worked on swathes of ‘ phiroza’ and orange-colored cloth, delicate rims of pink and purple in the sky making you feel as in you were trapped in the pupil of a celestial eye with a fading iris all around it. Ruddy camels padding along brick-laid lanes, chaarpais laid out in the sun with raspy radio in the background, hot tea in glasses, full meals - husky rotis smeared with butter, and bowls of spicy yellow daal , dark chhole in thick, brown gravy, chillies slit and rubbed with salt and lemon juice, and tasty jeera papads . And finger-licking side dishes made with eggs. It was about 2 or 3 degrees when A and I first strolled along the dusty, crowded Fatehbaad Road. (Interestingly called ‘ Fatyabaad’ by some locals.) Considering I had ...