Chiffonesque

1. Watched Insidious 3 at Phoenix with some pals from Bombay - one of who has shifted to Pune. A quick write-up on that (that I'd put up on FB): 'Some parts give you the chills, but overall...meh. Although, I think I'm at the stage where cracked walls, broken windows, chipped tiles, short-circuitry do not make me think 'ghost'. they make me think 'contact landlord'. And whether it's from this world or the next, I know the landlord isn't coming anytime soon.' 2. Cook made some really spicy seviya today. Very tasty stuff. 3. Ma had sent from Bombay very tasty fried rice - so yummy and good - tiny grains of rice with gaajar , soya, capsicums. 4. Have been seriously ill since the last few days. Despite that had to haul myself to work to finish up stuff. Seriously, in this lifetime, I have to crack this method where one is organized enough to take off work when one is feeling unwell. 5. A pal at work had got me this really tasty home-made ...

The Zoya Factor will soon be made into a movie. It's that kind of  book. So, now that we got that out of the way... Zoya Solanki works in an advertising agency in Delhi. For reasons that are somehow important to the author, we come to know that Zoya is from Karol Bagh. I'm guessing this is to establish that she is not as cool and hep as someone from South Delhi, who would not be blasé about the fame and fortune that would befall her. Her agency is contracted to shoot the Zing! Cola commercial. The commercial stars cricketers and it's the year of the World Cup. Zoya was born the same day as India won the World Cup in 1983. She is also born with some kind of freakish luck that if she attends a match, any match - whether it is mohalla cricket or the semis in Wankhede, the team she supports wins. So, Zoya finds herself through an interesting but simplistic turn of events having breakfast with the Indian cricket team before every match. She travels to Australia with her Rin...

Tony neighborhood. Nice mellow light in the store. It glints off expensive bottles of wines. Vey pretty cutlery - flute glasses, wide whiskey ones. Stout bottles of organic ale. Packets of fresh produce like kale and rhubarb. Hunks of imported cheese wrapped in cling-film. Assortments of interesting teas - something with pink jasmines and something else with saffron. Blocks of chocolate - with a gazillion per cent cocoa and some chilli thrown in or something else with butter ... and pepper. Linguine pasta with squid ink. Linguine pasta with chilli. Packets of potato gnocci. Arboro rice. Jars of coffee powders - monsoon Malabar and arabiaca and something else that's Jamaican. Tiny implements in steel and glass for brewing tea and decocting coffee. I take something and go to the cash register. The man looks at what I have. "In all that we stock, you choose instant Korean noodles," his smile seems to say. "You still stock instant Korean noodles," my ...

Here's the situation. You have slept off all of Saturday only to wake up at 7:30 p.m. You hurry to  a pal's place for chai. You've taken some of your clothes so she could pick what she wants for a wedding later this year. You play with her dog some. She's made ginger tea which is excellent. She drops you off at the Aundh Crossword. You blink at the vast array of Amitav Ghosh's books. You blink harder at the book that, maybe for the very first time, gave you a description of the kind of man you'd love or the kind of love you'd want. That was Tridib Das in Shadow Lines. And when I'd read it, it was one book in the English syllabus. A friend had given it to me and it wasn't really available to people who didn't study Literature. And now, there were so many many copies of it. Whilst going through the other books, you get a call from another pal in Koregaon Park. We plan to meet. I walk back hurriedly from Aundh to Baner where I've parked my ca...

It's now been a week since I last wrote. Some stuff that has happened: 1. Rains. Gorgeous rain. Arijit Singh on youtube and grey skies and happy red roses in the neighbor's balcony. Black tea with a little sugar and ginger in my cup. Yes, I'll get to work and become cross-eyed with exhaustion...but you let a few moments of peace make you grateful, even if it is for a little while. 2. A couple of days ago, I returned at 3:00 a.m. The night before that, it was 2:00 a.m. You know what was good? That I would come home with a craving for something decadent and really unhealthy. So, anyway, one day I deep-fried some potato wedges (the frozen ones) with sharp mustard oil. Had some tea with that too. Also, one day, I melted a whole bar of Dairy Milk in milk. Then I shredded chapatti and added it to the milk, letting it get soaked, soft. Then I scooped up tiny bits of it and enjoyed it slowly and was very, very satisfied with it. 3. Read some really good books. I finally rea...

A lot of deep breathing required now. So many things happening at work and I am so scattered. The weather is getting beautiful and I'm just stuck in office morning to night. I have to drive to work and although carpooling and all is fun at times, it irritates me - that my exposure to human beings and my requirement to be civil has begun at an earlier hour. And it has to last longer too. Today, though, I went to 'Chocolate Room' with a bunch of girls from work. It's a cute little cafe in Aundh. We walked in when they had just baked a fresh batch of brownies. The place smelled really good. So that has been half the day. 

Day was busy. Lots of tough stuff happening at work. But mid-afternoon, we spotted a rainbow. Beautiful, bright, vivid and lush. A friend who'd stepped out to get some snacks, spotted a double rainbow. She had clicked a picture too. But the second one had vanished when I went out. Now, when I think about it, the colours of the rainbow that I saw were becoming so deep that maybe the second rainbow got mixed in it as well. Pretty sky, nice day. It too passed.

It was returningt o roost. It felt like I belonged once again and it was plump with possibilities and joy and well-being. The weather turned dreamy. I'm back to wearing my blue sapphire ring that I used to wear many years ago. When I was driving around Bombay, this time, I saw the reflection of trees and the sky flitting on the smooth, pale face of the blue sapphire and it looked so good! Just everything about this trip was about 'returning'. When I got back to Pune, there was no electricity. In fact, we hadn't had electricity the whole day. All the food had gone bad and the mosquitoes were out to party. My tooth started aching and I was in such a panic because all those memories from last time when I was unwell came flooding back. But then, one breathes slowly. One feels a little hopeful when one locates the torch. And then more hopeful when the torch shines on a bunch of stocky, white candles. Then I lit the candles and the home was gorgeous. Pale yellow soft light...

Now I don't even know whether it's the work or it's me. There is so much of the grind I have to go through from Monday to Friday that the Saturday is just spent sleeping. Waking up with a fuzzy taste in the mouth. Then sleeping. Then feeling dehydrated and having some water. Then sleeping. Today I am just so fed up with my inability to cope with everything that I ate a lot. And then slept again. This evening, though, I was invited to a friend's reception. A bunch of us from office were going together. I wore a sari. Interestingly, it was a sari gifted by a friend from Bangalore. The friend whose reception I was attending has also moved to Bangalore. I like my saree draped a little casual, no pins or fuss. The saree didn't have a fall and the pally had loose threads. I like sarees that way - especially for summer. Anyway, I wore tube skirt for a top and a large black bindi. A wardrobe is an interesting thing. Last few months I have been feeling ugly. Someone click...

I reached home at around 1. Roasted some vermicelli. I had a container full of chopped onions which I sauted properly in mustard oil. I also fried dried soya nuggets in the oil. To that I added the roasted vermicelli, salt, turmeric, chilli flakes, and water. Then I pressure-cooked it. While it was cooking, I did a few suryanamaskars. (That is not part of the recipe, by the way.) After 3 whistles, I turned off the cooker and ate this very tasty rice substitute with curd.

I ate a lot of rice yesterday. I had asked the new cook to make pulao - a little of which I had for breakfast. Then for lunch, I got some more pulao from the stall opposite my office. It was too salty and not very good. But it was rice. Then late at night, after I reached home, I had lots of the pulao (from the morning) with pitla. Still feeling so stuffed. I love - really love - how rice fills me up. But I haven't been doing any yoga since the last two or three days. Must go easy on that.

Since last week, I have been very tired. So tired that I wanted to cry but I couldn't. I haven't felt this exhausted before. I don't know whether it was because of the heat or my increasing sleeplessness. But my body ached, the muscles and tendons in my legs feeling sore and tingly because I'd imagine a deep tissue massage even when I was half-asleep. We have shifted our office space. It's a swankier location and it has yellow partitions which I like but I really preferred my old office. It was more warm. This place seems to buttoned-up a bit too much for my taste. But I suppose it will take time to settle in. There has been a lot of work so I am reaching home really late. I'm not able to sleep so by the time  hit bed, it's six in the morning. Then I wake up by eight to let the cleaning lady in. So, it's been two hours of sleep for a long time now. I've been irritable and grouchy. My mind has been so slow and woolly. I need to really focus on a ...