The eternal hunt

I am not the most practical of all people - but when its time for the girls to tie the knot, they come to me for advice (the ones I know, at least). No, I do not even know how to start listing down qualities for a 'perfect' groom. What I do is simpler - I only help people to get away from the prospective ones their mothers dump on them.
And all this knowledge comes from experience. My mother has wanted me to get married from the time it was the legal age to get me married(or was it much earlier? ok, no dirty linen in public). I am talking about a time when the shaadi.com or the bharatmatrimonial.com weren't that popular. In other words, my mother hadn't heard of them. So where did the boys come from? My aunt's neighbour's second daughter in law's cousin brother's brother in law. Or on those lines. Whew! So in the case I don't like the boy - once I am done explaining it to my mother and convincing her that there is no way I am considering the boy, I have to call my aunt's neighbour and apologise to her. I usually hate such conversations - not because they are difficult. Only because I lie, almost always. What I am telling them is why we are not compatible - his job, my continuing state of education...blah blah. What I am not telling them is that he is an insufferable bore who couldn't get past discussing the weather in Dubai and the food in Dubai and the people in Dubai. Did I mention Dubai?

To a generation of parents, aunts and uncles who married the boy or girl their parents found apt, this is Greek. "So what if the boy speaks about Dubai only? He likes the place. That IS communicating right? What do you mean compatible? He is educated right?"

Yes athai and periamma, he is educated. Like all the boys I studied with. How are we not considering them? Rule 1 that I learnt from experience - logic seldom works with parents bent on getting you married. Watch out for determined mothers especially, and that nagging aunt.

Rule 2 - You are not as bad as your mother portrays you to be. Its actually a brilliant strategy using your ego. They first deflate your ego, then stomp it and right when you feel like you are the size of a pea (a fat one - don't ask me how they do it!), they will drop the boy in your lap. So at this point you will feel grateful towards anything that remotely likes you. And suddenly, you are married. And now that my friends, can make even the pea smaller at times!

Rule 3- There is no such thing as a perfect groom. Because, face it, we don't know what we want. So do away with the lists. You Have to meet a few guys who want to make you run before you come across the one who you want to see grow bald.

And after alllllll this, there is still a likely chance his mother doesn't like you or your father thinks his job has no growth prospects and is likely to be overlooked as a prospective. Now for that, there is Rule 4- Go for it! Fathers and mother- in -laws are easier to deal with than being married to the wrong man.

Travelogue sans visuals
Chennai-Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Chennai.



Heart-broken
I see the train.
I see the train move.
I see myself running to beat the train's pace.
The beginning of every travel story of mine.
Today, however, the train beat me.

The tracks with their forlorn look didn't seem as appealing, sans the immediacy

They were there to stay, but I didn't feel grateful.
I turn back, always seeking the fleeting.


The key to the bag
A lot of hustle and a bit of bustle
Some shoving and a show of grumbling
He finally finds a place for himself and his lil' red bag

He steadies himself and pulls a lock out of it - the very size of the bag.
As he secures the bag with the lock to the seat, I can't help but wonder:
Is the bag for the lock or the lock for the bag?
My idea of a perfect love story.




Florence in Andhra
I remember bending over to see the lovely hills and the floating clouds of the Tuscany sky through a train window in Italy
At that precise moment, the beauty of the sight before me overwhelmed me.

Another train, another window. But this time, closer home.
And yet, I am overcome by the same sensation- watching the rain-washed plains pass by.

Has my memory fizzled out? Or has Europe's advertising had its desired effect?

3
The last few days have been uneventful, and I am grateful for that. On the contrary, the ‘events’ that happen with alarming regularity that give me indigestion, headache and stress have slowly melted into oblivion. Here are people and things and places I need to thank for someone/ something/ someplace I can always count on.
1. My mother -for giving up on finding me a groom (temporarily) - Wednesday to Sunday. I could surf TV, read magazines, listen to music and do a lot many other unproductive things for three hours until dinner time, peacefully. Thank you.
2. My bike- for getting back to running mode. I have always thought of you as a means of convenience, but I shall now admit that I love you. For the last ten years that you have served me. For saving me 2 hours of walking, bus and auto rides from office to home. Thank you.
3. Marina beach – for being there always, and never failing to lift my spirits up. The aerial view from the lighthouse when I was 5, ice creams at 10, the bajjis at 21 (yes, I find it hard to believe that I wasted all those years not knowing the joys of bajji at Marina. I was a product of snobbish Chennai where we don’t eat anything that is sold without a roof overhead and things that are at close proximity to the ground). I love going there on Sunday evenings where half the families in Chennai are picnicking there! How people enjoy togetherness - eating, talking and playing without worrying about people judging them. The world never fails to seem like a beautiful place when you are Yourself amidst thousands of people. I had a professor who taught us about the sense of content and happiness we feel when there are good vibes around us. This is for the non- believers – Come to Marina! We should bottle up all the good vibes from Marina post Sunday evening and give them away as birthday presents. I will then look forward to being 26.

Its been a while

Every time someone asks me why I don’t write more, I give them the same old excuse – no time. The truth is I do have time…lots of it. Enough to read romantic novels, watch chick flicks more than once and check my mail 25 times a day. The real reason is that I don’t really come across anything inspiring when I am in front of my laptop. Inspiring thoughts come when I am in solitude with greenery and a clear blue sky for company. But then of course I don’t have a laptop. So for the sake of people who used to read my blog regularly and have been asking me to update it more often (that will be 8 and 5 respectively), here is what I have come up with as a solution. My non- happening life this week. Yes. It is very ‘me’ to choose a Wednesday to start this.

Here goes

- Last week has been very normal. For people who don’t know my daily schedule, it consists of checking mail, checking mail and checking mail. Occasionally talking to a weaver who doesn’t understand. My diploma project isn’t headed anywhere. I always wondered why people took 6 months to complete work that required 3. What I didn’t realise was that it included checking mail which is of no use ten times and day and talking to weavers who don’t co operate. Throw in free internet and a new discovery of interesting illustrated blogs and you know where it is headed, or not.

- Since I am now based at home( If I may still call it so since I had to spend two months clearing a lot of things from my ‘room that used to be’ including my brother and two lizards),my mother is Always there when I get back from office. On the upside there is endless supply of good food and my very own bathroom, the downside are two brothers who don’t believe in niceties, clean bathrooms and sisters! There is also this teeny weeny matter of my mother Always trying to tell me about some eligible boy I should get married to. I am officially the black sheep of the family. My cousins at my age had two kids – one boy, one girl (defying laws of probability), one independent house( no mortgage), one flat (on mortgage), one bike/ car (to drop kids at 25 different ‘after-school’ extra –curricular activities classes). I am the idiot who decided to do a masters with her own cash (result- two years of working for corporate houses which don’t know morality started with ‘m’ and no cash owing to the expensive lunches that came with the job).

- Last week I receive a slew of orkut friend request mails from the same person to a mail ID a total of five people know about. Big mistake: one of them happens to be my mother. So I suspect it is a prospective groom, but then after checking his profile on orkut realise it was just another guy ‘wanting to make friendship’. This week he mails me saying he is a prospective groom and want to know if the interest is mutual. Aargh. I want to kill my mother, but since I like her cooking, I decide to vent my anger out at this boy/uncle. I had a nasty reply typed out and saved in drafts. I only needed the approval of my best friend/ guide/ counsellor/ sound board. Now for people who know her, she is someone who encourages acts of giving it back like this one. But to my surprise, she told me it was nothing but a chance for a poor guy’s attempt at online romance in a community infected with the arranged marriage system. Damn, is it me? My mother? Or all the lovely boys? I guess ‘adjusting’ is not a term I will add to my list of qualities anymore.

- Last week through a community mail, I receive one about dowry that got my attention (meaning I read it!). A very thoughtful person had written a mail asking people to be aware of the rules and laws that can be used against people who practice the system of dowry. As a note he mentioned that ‘seethanam’ we offer in our community is not dowry, but a gift (duh!). Now the thought of people in my community abiding the law when it comes to dowry is a farce. Everybody gives or takes (parents of the daughter or son respectively). So I mailed the community back saying, what are you guys talking about laws against dowry, all of you (almost) practice it. A couple of mails I received were in appreciation, the others justifying or clearing the first mail which was an ‘awareness’ mail. All this makes we want to go back in history when the men in my community paid money to the bride’s family to marry her! Sigh :D. I am no hypocrite. Just a nasty sarcastic person. Thank you thoughtless abiders of the society and law breakers.

Until next week...eh month....eh year. ok, whenever

My homage to Murphy
(If anything can possibly go wrong, it will)

Eve of Divya's Birthday. Milan. 6 very sweet and money conscious indian friends. Plan for the evening. Send Divya to help someone shop (she being the apparel designer, had to say yes), pretend to be tired and go home,but instead go pick up cake and wine for the party. Here are a list of things why I believe I am related to Murphy (so much so I believe his name was Murugappan , a nattukottai chettiar and illegal immigrant in America who decided to go cool...Murphy!)

The list

note: My partner in misfortune was Neelam. We are going to the church, psychologist and the voodoo speacialist this week in order to find out why these things happen only to us.

Scene 1

Mc Donalds. Sita clearing plate drops coffee. Spills and splashes remains ONLY on herself and Neelam (this would be a good time to inform the less informed Sita has never had coffee all her life. So much for helping)

Sends Divya for shopping and runs to take the metro to Esselunga (the super mart) to pick up cake

Out of the metro station, heavy rain. Nice and bloody cold

Enter Esselunga, no cake. Buy spumante (sparkling wine---- yes, we are self-proclaimed wannabe europeans. and the cheap price tag helps)

Enter pastry shop (miss tram) .Pastry shop hasnt heard of a complete round cake! quizzical look from people. we use the same old excuse.....INDIANO. they look satisfied. exit and take tram back to the metro station

divya waiting to take same tram from train station as we exit it. divya giving us the 'look' as she sees us carrying wine (like ya right she doesnt know its for her birthday!). make up stupid excuses and run. neelam inside the train. me outside waving. take the next train, meet neelam

find another mart, get in. THEY have CAAAKE. good. go to find snacks.....and just then some thing goes pop. yes, the wine bottle popped open, actually burst open and suddenly two of us drenched in spumante and a big pool of it forming right at our feet. Staff not helpful as the wine is not from their store. Neelam however is. Runs out of the store, or tries to. A big man stops her at the exit and asks her to pay for it (in rapid Italian). Neelam (state rank holder FOREVER uses one of her many skills- language and gets out of the sticky situation (literally!) .

Sita takes cake, runs out and cuts hand while clearing shards of glass. Walk smelling like drunkards to the metro (looking like illegal immigrants alone doesn't help. you need the alcohol effect!). Well thank god for small mercies, we both get into the SAME train. Reach tram stop...no trams. Still raining. Not helping. Exhausted after being on our feet all day, slyly planning for birthday, getting drenched and smelling like decayed fruit!
On our way back home Neelam and me in anticipation of the pot luck dinner using leftovers from the diwali dinner are in for a rude/ hungry shock. No potluck! apparently as we had a presentation next day morning we didnt have time to reheat things! ( i hate nerds!) After figuring out what to cook for myself for dinner I think....wat losers to ruin a perfectly fun evening. Then I think again. Wat presentation?

Well at the end of it did we have the party. Yes
Did we get to drink any wine. Yes
Did we have a cake tat looked like cake?....ehhh yes
Did the birthday girl get the surprise? I think she did. Either that or she acts well!

At the end of the day (we celebrated the birthday at 11. We decided to change to Italian time when we came from India. But thats as far as we go, day light saving isn't what we want to believe in. (Hey who are u calling a hypocrite?!)
Well we had wine and cake and a surprised birthday girl. What can I say but ' All's well that ends well' . Murphy to Shakespeare in 4 hours. Works.

HERBAL 'SLIM' TEA anyone??????


How does one very fat soul loose weight? I know this question might sound unnecessary to the lesser blessed ones, but for those (like me) who were born fat (oops...with a few extra pounds, excessively blessed, blah blah) this is the life saving (pounds and kg loosing) question! The only way to loose weight seems to be to either starve, exercise or buy all the products advertised on tele shoppe (though I can’t assure the authenticity- the fat women usually look like the ‘after herbal tea’ models with a pillow under their t-shirt). But what if I love food ,consider the effort to walk from the bike park to the restaurant –exercise, and think tele shoppe is too expensive because I’m shamelessly living off my younger siblings earnings??

Stated below are the reasons why I can’t ever, for the love of life (or anorexia) loose weight.
Because
-my grandmother and mother are great cooks :D
- making maggi is the easiest way to cook something not only edible, but yumm too!
- right opposite Stella Maris is Gangothree. And for us starved South Indians, good chat is elusive (and i thought if I eat a lot of north Indian food I’d start looking as thin as the next north Indian girl..........BIG mistake!)
- right next to Stella is ‘Shirdi Bites’ – place where u get the best parathas......not just in Chennai, but compared to any other place in India ( the ones I’ve been to at least- which btw, is Jodhpur, where I haven’t tasted parathas, and Ahmadabad and Bhopal)
- Diagonally opposite Stella Maris is ‘Mandarin’- the best Chinese food after ‘Mainland China’, and even better than Wang’s Kitchen (ok, I wasn’t bribed. It’s the quantity that made me a biased judge)
- Down the road is ‘Shogun’- another great Chinese place, but the waiter there pulled the chair for me ( awww.....in my hall of fame for men who pull chairs for me, he tops! Out of a total three), not exactly an after-college hang out so I quit after one visit.
- ok, now no one wants to know in detail about all the other restaurants that shared the ‘road of fame’ with my college- tat will be Dominoes, Pizza hut and a lot of other places whose names I don’t remember as good as their menu :D.

But the point of the argument is, how can u deny your intestine, your taste buds, all your senses, and your brain and that amazing feeling of satisfaction and gluttony-the piping hot pav-bhaji with extra butter from Pondy bazaar or the super chilly cheese sandwich that melts in your mouth, from the alsa mall sandwich stall, and the chocolate truffle cake from Marmelade, or the chocolate and millennium mousse from sweet chariot? Looking back, I had the most fun in college because of the food. All I can recollect are the amazing restaurants and the super food. Of course, wit less than 40% attendance in class and 6 meals a day, THAT can be explained, but not the great sense of making friends over good food that you fight over or share, or the joy of finding a slot for parking at your favourite over crowded restaurant, or the feeling when you know your friend(s) suffering from a bad stomach, which means you can take all the time in the world to savour the chocolate dessert she/he cant eat! While my other classmates were busy indulging in their passions (not just art – wink wink) I was busy paying heed to the advice of Bernard Shaw- “there is no love, like the love of food” and in the meantime, making my life memorable!(so who cares if that makes me fat, obese and ugly? Uhhhhhh................Damn. I need to call my brother for cash. Where are you morning walker and herbal tea?)

Jury......the dreaded word. The period of frantic activity when u make up for all those hours you sat watching TROY and The Departed for the 10th time on the computer (when you should have actually been weaving or shaping thermacol). The time when classmates start resembling spies from KGB and FBI set to steal your ideas and present it to the jury before you and make you look like the ass. The time after which you see a T.V and wonder where you have seen it before. The time when you wake up in the middle of a night cos u just had a nightmare that your weaving samples are not on your loom anymore. Any improvement would be a ghost who you see weaving the same designs you were planning to weave the next day! The time when you spend your lifetime savings buying pretty handmade paper for mounting so that your not so pretty work looks better.

JURY DAY - you take extra care and drink the glass of milk ur mom has been asking u to take , the night before the jury. you wake up in the morning and realise you have a jury in a couple of hours and most of your work is still incomplete! Then the inevitable moment comes. you stand in front of 4 people whose only requirement right now is to see you cry , and you tell urself u wil not do it. (u eventually do at the end of 1 hr of drilling). and then it starts. you explain your work. explain the process. explain the cause behind the choice of the particular subject. explain the source of inspiration. explain the purpose behind the assignment. explain. explain. explain.............................
Then comes the best part - "we shall now rip you apart" part. so they question your work. like....................i c that you have read every possible book in the library on the subject and done the work according to your learning from it. But did you c the book called "blah blah bkah" on the third rack- 754.345? i think you missed the point the author was trying to make. yes. i can be smart. but since you have decided to screw my life anyways, do i have to take the effort of trying to act it? no. so come on and get it done and over with. My sambar and idli is waiting back in chennai.

ORKUTTIN
Sounds like a Malayali last name, but thats what eating most of the time of most of the people who can find most of the alphabets on a keyboard and turn on a computer. Yes, I admit that it is a wonderful way to keep in touch and you catch up with old acquaintances. I mean how else will I ever get to be reminded of the girl who sat on the third row from left in 10th grade . And also come to know of news like she is married and living in the US of A and has a son called Rishab, or something that rhymes? Or that she is in touch with a girl who was my bench mate at Allaince Francaise and that she is in Delhi working???? (Wat can I say - its a small world!!!)
But I also find it very annoying when I sit in front of the computer waiting for the web site to open ( the speed is 100mbps in my insti - thought that was supposed to be fast, until I realised that 100 desktops have to share that!!!!)