Chiffonesque

I had an off today. I didn't know what for but was later informed that it is MahaShivratri. This year, I had made some plans of fasting today and visiting the beautiful Someshwar temple near Baner. Instead, I had no clue that the day had crept up so silently. So I slept, watched some stuff on YouTube (an interview of the man who authored 'The $100 Start-up' was good), and went for yoga. The yoga instructor, who is a really good teacher from Alaska, told the class that we are making progress. However, I don't think so. I think that there are so many postures that I can't even begin to get right. But, I suppose if I just stayed the course, things will improve. Anyway, I walked back home after class through a beautiful, cool night. It was nearly ten o'clock by the time I got done. Some frugal rations had to be bought (end of month scenario going on at the moment). But I did spend on the last few hundreds on items that were not really necessary -like a chilled ...

Had done this a long time ago. Quite like it. Would like to learn to make posters.

1. It began early.  Had made plans with a colleague to go to Koregaon Park today at 10.30. She was on time, which was wonderful! So, we were out the door into the cool, crisp Sunday morning with delay. 2. The traffic was a dream!  The drive was like a motorized spa treatment.  We chatted about the different cities we'd lived in, thd different spaces in those cities, and the gloriousness of just 'being'. 3. A shopping spree at one of my favorite places, BusyBee in Lane 7 for some cute tops, dresses,  and summer jackets. And then in one of hers, Naksha, on the main North Main Road, near Lane 5. Very pretty, colourful cotton skirts and wispy, chic kurtis in pop oranges, pinks, yellows,  and greens. Sale currently on in both places but even at full price, good stuff. 4. Leisurely brunch (my absolutely most favorite meal) at Terrtulia. Friend had a very tempting Eggs Florentine with beer, I had a large Belgian waffle with a strawberry Margarita mocktail followed b...

The weather is terrific. Mellow sunshine that is bright and yolk-y but also warm on the shoulders and back. Feels so good. But also cold wind that makes you glad you wore that scarf even though it was afternoon. You wish for a lake and a bank and a sunny glen to read. At work, someone loaned me Maus. It's a graphic novel I have been waiting to read for a long time. Someone else brought in candied fruits from Singapore. Papaya flavors were especially tasty. Roses that are dyed blue look sad, scary, tacky. Somethings, like a peculiar hair colour, a rose can't pull of. It has much to learn from a carnation - the ditzy, slightly unbearable lightness of being. The day is pretty. Shines with a sheen of a bubble. Will float away like one too.

Just finished reading Moor's Last Sigh. It was a longer, more disturbing, at time even tedious. But the book is magical in thd way it brings out the desecration of Bombay after the Ayodhya matter...how a delicious city now has all the appeal of stale food. How wanting our love for the city has been. And yet what remains maybe is what Moor calls a defeated love. And yet, through even that, might come a deep sleep and an awakening into a new world. Many times, I am asked or I wonder why Salman Rushdie is so special to me. Maybe its his writing. Maybe its his imagination or the way he draws out history in a way that it collapses in the now. But mostly, his books always feel like stories he is telling only me. And he tells me these tales, at least in my head, when I ask, "You know what I mean?" And through his books, he says, "Yes...let me tell you a story..." Also, yes, his deep understanding of the way love, and occasionally Bombay works...making myths and migra...

Of being trapped at work when there is the last 140 pages of a novel to complete. 

Tonight, a friend stayed over. We had a simple fare of parathas, mixed vegetables,  and a spicy, cooked salad of rajma, chanaa, and soya granules. On a whim, then, we went to Peter Donuts to bring back hazelnut cappuccino and custard-filled donuts. He stopped elsewhere for chilled Coke. Then we sat in the balcony, shivering a little in our thin cotton clothes. Slender plumes of smoke climbed away from his cigarette to the moon. We spoke of the time when we were children; when much of our world was crossed barefeet. We spoke when youth so young clogged our pores. Somewhere we laughed at some of our ideas that carried the thumbprints of a naive past. Even as we snickered,  we somewhere knew that those ideas were true. Another cigarette was lit. Smoke again snaked towards the sky. I looked beyond at a tree top that seemed to anchor two tiny stars and a muddled moon. That little patch of a busy sky could have been anywhere. It could have been anyone's.  Yet, I saw it as chi...

I woke up early today. It was still dark and cold. My friend, Gia, was pottering about in the kitchen. She is on a General Motors diet and has decided to cook her own food. That really is the best way to stay on a diet, I suppose: plan your meals and cook them yourself. Sounds of shuffling feet (mine) and steady snips of parsley (hers) fill up the kitchen. She offers to make me tea. I agree and sink into the sofa. I reach for my phone and check a few messages. Then I flip through a Vogue, looking at an incandescent Katrina Kaif wearing a pale pink feather gown applying shell-pink gloss to her lips. Her eyes are smudged with a soft grey eyeliner and a bounteous curl frames her face. She reminds me of something very fragile and fleeting - like the really fine slices of Japanese ginger Terrtulia adds in one of their pear and ginger martinis. Terrtulia. With the wooden board that says, "Eat, Drink, Love." It's a restaurant in Koregaon Park that I really like. Sometimes, ...