Gossip, Girl and me.

The thing about having more female friends than male friends is that you end up knowing a lot more about chick-lit and clothes than you should.Yeah; You’ve seen enough chick flicks to give you fodder to make one yourself and know exactly what a girl means when she says that she’s having a bad hair day. You also end up knowing who Carrie Bradshaw is and also know where in Bandra, you would find the cheapest imitation clothes. Bargaining comes easy to you too. Not to mention the ability to wait outside a restaurant for a little over an hour when a party of about ten girls comes late, nonchalantly

That, and the fact that I have a fashion designer, a hair stylist and a fashion journalist as female cousins in the family, and also the fact that my sister is an, in need of a better word, avid “Gossip girl” and “Sex and the city” fan. Plus the fact that she has whiled most of her Bombay life in Bandra, where I have not very bravely been her shopping companion. But that is another story.Not to mention, another cousin too.
Well, this one’s for all of you.
There’s S, There’s T. Engineering whizzes. Co-Harry Potter freaks. Train companions. Friends in Junior college who made those two years worth it 
There’s B, self-proclaimed Drama queen, an agony aunt in need of an agony aunt herself.
There’s A.S, part-time blogger, part time Mtv VJ mimic. That’s when she’s not groaning about my blog and meat, that is 
There’s M, mall-accomplice and gossip girl.
There’s I., who sees the right in being leftist, a Che-loving feminist by heart.
There’s Ri and there’s Re, sugar, spice and tempers that rise.
N, somebody who I love scoring “brownie” points. Pun intended.
There’s S.B, regional buddy, hyperventilator.
K, coolness and craziness personified
A.T, materialistic pig, just like me. A Delhi aunty.
There’s M.A, a winner at being a whiner ;)
There’s S.G and S.B, confidante and crazy butterfly.
And who are they?
Well, that is a secret I can’t tell. You know you love me. (At least, I do)
XOXO
me :)

Villains

It could have had been a day like any other.
My dad went to office. My mom did her grocery shopping. B chilled out with friends. M studied for an exam. X spoke on the phone for an hour straight. C, Y and K played hide and seek within their apartment complex. And I, slept on.
It could have had been a day like any other. But sadly, it wasn’t.
Yes, I am speaking about the much-blogged about horrifying day of the 27th of November of this year. There, as hostages were shot and killed, we stayed glued to our T.V sets, blaming the government, the police, the terrorists and the media. But we still watched. We blogged. We posted photos. We discussed the events on online forums. And we started I-too-have-the-spirit-of-Mumbai- groups on social networking sites. We started “Hate Pakistan” campaigns. And then some more.
Criticizing the government which we had chosen.
Hating the media whose every word we listened to, and gossiped to friends about.
We spoke about the spirit of Mumbai, only to get back to work, and our lives the very next, as if nothing had happened.
Then it came to me.
We were the Villains.
There’s a villain in every one of us. In the 11 year old, who hits a girl classmate with a steel ruler. In the middle aged professor who smiles with maniacal glee to see her students suffer. In the old man who kicks the neighborhood dog every morning. In me. In you. In everyone else.

One of Us, One of them

A few days ago, I invited a few friends over for lunch. We were all loyal non-vegetarians. Well,almost. Save for one. She was a vegetarian.
And as the six non vegetarians loaded their plates with different parts of a chicken, coated with gravy, she cringed.
and cringed.
and cringed some more.
And then I thought.
What separates us from vegetarians? sure we tend to enjoy a few morsels of meat a little more than those leafy veggies you seem to find everywhere, But apart from that is there anything really different? Nope, we don't have pointy incisors like most carnivores do, nor do we have claws to tear out the meat. For every one of us, there's one of them. Well, sometimes there's more of us, but I don't think we should get into details.
Its not that we are heartless and don't think about the hundreds of thousands of fluffy yellow chicks which are reared to be slaughtered to feed us, we just swallow the guilt, which may or may not contain a bit of the chicken too. :)
Whoever needs to worry about what came first, the chick or the egg, when you can eat both.
And as one of my frequently-worn T-shirts rightfully says, "Why call animals meat, if you cant eat them?"

The way I were

A conversation with a friend on the phone about world domination and politics randomly steered to my childhood and before I knew it, there I was standing in my grey and white uniform, with a blue belt around my waist and shiny black shoes that would make any shoe cream company proud, in a very JD-esque daydream (Scrubs does affect me a lot. trust me, it does.)
I haven’t always been the messy hair-sporting, kurta-clad snob that I am now. I am talking about those days when social networking sites didn’t exist (Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?), back when Star Plus was an english entertainment channel (It really was, for all those who think I have gone loony and need a good mental check-up. and no, I am not an escapee from an asylum if incase you been thinking about it.). For you to get a clearer picture, I am talking bout the time when I was two feet shorter and a hell lot cheesier (which is saying something if you know me).
I remember being the cheeky little kid who asked his parents why he wasn’t invited to their marriage. Someone who thought that he started blinking at the age of six (A lot of my stories do involve me being at the age of six). Someone who his nose pinched by a cousin with a clothespin and begged others to remove it, in a Himesh-ish voice, forgetting his own two hands. Who fell inside a manhole and still got a scolding for it. Who thought that the world was black and white earlier, like they showed in old movies.
Someone, who thought that there were only three stars in the sky.
I was the boy with the He-man castle, the robot dog, the classic toy cars and the hundred G.I Joes. And someone who was still greedy for more. Who wanted to be a cook, a writer and a national geographic correspondent just because it was a long word and sounded cool. Who thought essay was spelled SA and dressed up as a Chinese woman for a fancy dress competition just because he had stitches near his eyes. ( I still don’t remember why I didn’t become, ahem, a Chinese man.)
I was the boy whose greatest worry in life was whether school would be open on Monday or not (It still is!)
And then I realized that there’s actually being no change in me at all. I still am here, happily sipping my tropical iceberg, being completely at peace with life, the universe and everything.

Avanti and I.

A few months ago, in a crazily sun-lit class, I played a game with my friends.
As we sat there, hiding from the monotonous drone of an irritable professor,we discussed emotions that we had never ever experienced.
amidst giggles, snatches of the abovementioned professor's voice and frequent shh-es, I pondered over the question in mind.
Anger,nope.
Love,nope.
Hatred, definitely nope.
Happiness,nope.
Greed,Nope.
Jealousy,nope.
The list was infinite. The lecture wasn't. The closing bell brought an end to the lecture. And to my search as well. Knowing that I had exhausted all possible emotions, I settled on acceptance.
Three days ago, I realized that I was wrong.
Losing someone who you were close to is nothing compared to the way it's portrayed in television soaps and romance novels, its much worse.
Twenty years of knowing her and I realized that whatever I have known about Avanti can't be summarized in a post,a blog or even a dedicated book.
Sure, we all knew about her love for Shahrukh Khan, (it almost bordered on obsession if you ask me) and her hatred towards Yuvraj Singh ( another obsession,if you ask me again!). Yeah, beneath this hair-loving,shopaholic, critically-acclaimed film expert lay a girl like no other.
A girl, who at the age of six, pinched my nose with a clothespin and pushed me onto an overly ripe jack fruit, (though not simultaneously) just for fun.
A girl, who at the age of eight, dressed up as a fairy for a family fancy dress competition wanting to spread peace and harmony across the world.
A girl, who at the age of nine, had a imaginary kangaroo friend named maya.
A girl, who at the age of ten, knew more about the world wresting federation than most boys her age did.
A girl, who at the age of eleven thought that flouroscent green tights and an Undertaker T-shirt were cool, and who was gutsy enough to still think they were.
A girl, who at the of twelve, gave up on meat, because franky speaking, she thought that being a non-vegetarian sucked.
A girl, who at the age of thirteen, loved songs from B-grade Bobby Deol movies, and had the guts to admit it.
A girl, who at the age of fourteen, wanted to become a Miss India Coordinator, and who, in her own cheesy way, wanted to make a difference in the world.
A girl, who at the age of eighteen, said, and I quote " Charlie and the Chocolate factory is a classic Tim Burton movie. Its a movie which says" Come, watch me!"", with a straight face.
A girl who at the age of nineteen, paid for the hundreds of times we went to Mochas or CCDs, telling me that she was going to get pay back when I started earning.
A girl, who at the age of twenty, took me along to see artsy plays at the Prithvi, after which we discussed them rather pretentiously outside the cafe to seem elite.
A girl who at the age of twenty one, obsessed over high heel confidential so much that she could exactly pinpoint a dress in a fashion magazine into the blog's archives, date,name or designer wise.
To the girl, who always wanted to stay tall.

Avanti, this one's for you.

The Morning After.

It is that time of the year again.
the sheets have been rolled, papers stacked in piles, distinguished from each other by the crease lines and coffee stains and the stationery all arranged, stacked away in order in bulging boxes.The pencils are in the pencil cases while the models have been neatly packed , old fading newspapers depicting the latest in the bollywood circles.
And that is when you wake up.
Picture this.It's the first day of your vacations, and you wake up when the sun's already halfway up, hungover because of the bliss and sheer pleasure of not having to do anything , and I repeat anything for the whole day. but who says happiness lasts long anyway ( well,it does in fairy tales and classic-how-we-met-each-other-stories where everything ends with a "happily ever after")
There you are,having hopped,skipped and jumped across your room, not as a celebratory jig, but because of the sheer lack of space to move about.layers of sheets flood your room,a tsunami of subjects crawling all over you. pieces of paper flutter by, carrying remnants of old conversations and made up games.You see a pencil here and a broken set square there,and as you sift through the almost fossilized layers of junk, you unearth chocolate wrappers and crisp packets that helped you through those exam nights while you crammed in an years worth of notes in an hour.
you flash back to the present,wishing that the junk would have had mysteriously disappeared, having had fantastical visions including a self cleaning mop and a robot which eats rubbish.
But it doesn't.
A vacation,indeed.

Journeys with myself

it is amazing how you tend to sit back and think when you are stuck in the traffic, in a car/bus/taxi/ any other vehicle while listening to your i-pod/ disc man/ mp3 player/ any other music player of your choice.it is here while you are sitting in the comfort of the seat of the car ( or the rather uncomfortable bus seat) that you tend to ponder about life and all that. about living life with a different outlook, letting go of friends, and realizing things that you should have probably realised a long time ago.
it is here that you have journeys with yourself.

Birthday Surprises

A first birthday is often celebrated with as much gusto and gaiety as a wedding ( not mine though, it was just a simple affair, only close family, not the wedding, my birthday!).
I had the opportunity to relive my childhood about a week back at a distant cousins first birthday party (I didn't relive much though, just chomped away at the appetizers, trying to catch the eyes of the waiters carrying the soft drinks while children zoomed past, cackling like the witches of Salem).
While I chomped on the millionth spring roll, I glanced across the room. Yes, a magician wearing shiny suspenders, an extremely energetic entertainer, a large highly decorated cartoon shaped cake ( dunno which cartoon, it was quite tasty though!), and 30-odd sugar crazed children.
two hours and many more oily spring rolls later, i had had 3 glasses of extra fizzy soft drinks,a plate full of rich food and had witnessed three of the most common games to be played during birthday parties. no prizes if you guess them.
finally i bid farewell to the baby girl and the other children and everybody else ( though no body paid much heed, they were all sugar crazed, you see), and walked away as my recently-turned- one cousin enjoyed for the last time, her very own first birthday party.

How I Met My Mother

Well, technically, I met my mother eighteen years and eight months ago in a spotlessly clean bright-white hospital room somewhere in the city of Bombay. About two days back, I realized that I wasn’t completely correct. I had been meeting my mother, the same woman who suffered through mine and my sister’s tantrums (there were many of them!), who sat back at home, not pursuing her dreams so that we could have a hot home cooked meal, and who pampered us enough for the melodramatic actors that we are today. Yes, I realized that I had been meeting my mother every day for the last nineteen years, who became a new woman everyday, forgetting the times we made her cry, repeatedly praising us for our past glories, and getting to know us every single moment she has known us.

And so this mother’s day (which incidentally falls tomorrow), I wish that I would get to meet my mother every single day for years to come.

Dustbunnies and some...

Did you know that the balls of dust which you usually find under your beds or in deep corners of your homes are called dustbunnies?
Pretty cute name for such a vile thing, don't you think?
Yeah, and then I think of ladybugs and blobs...

Reality Bytes

There I was staring at my computer screen, Figuring out what to do with the question which flickered in front of me, " Are You a real person?". posting a link would never have had been easier, i had thought.holding myself, I entered the code into the text box imitating the one which flashed onto the screen and clicked the submit button a split second before i realized that i had made an error. I glanced sideways as a new message popped up." Access denied. wrong code. You are not a real person" (OK fine, i made the "you are not a real person " bit up myself, but you do get the gist, don't you?)
Isn't it ironical that a virtual ( read unreal) object tells me that I'm am not real enough!

Medu vada movies....

It was yesterday when i was surfing through my television set, when i saw a South Indian flick reaching its climax. two overweight heroes, who looked old enough to be sitting in retirement homes, were fighting burly, dark skinned henchmen, while their damsels in distresses screamed in agony, while being chained to a nearby tree,(or was it, the tree being chained to them?) . as i laughed my way through this scene, it suddenly struck me.
Showing normal balding men as heroes is not wrong, neither is it wrong to show overweight women, dressed in plain sarees, as their wives to be.Though I think that the directors do it unintentionally.and that, I think should be taken with a pink of curry powder!

Please peruse pathetic poetry! :P

Well a few of my funny poems, because it suddenly struck me that too much of philosophy is not good for anyone's health:
Pitter patter it flows,
like a gurgling stream it flows,
drip drip it leaks,
when i leave the place, of urine the place reeks.
I know, but it was at the spur of the moment and you really cant help it now, can you? here goes one more:
The wind blows through my hair,
the scent of maple fresh in the air,
then i look up at the baby blue sky,
bird shit drops down on me from up high!
I repeat....these poems are funny! (please please please let them be!)

Mr.Tootles

Well, i was cleaning through my closet, when i chanced upon this poem which i had written in the 6th standard:

Mr. Tootles went out to buy,
a huge delicious blueberry pie,
He walked and walked on his pudgy little feet,
and saw the shop that sold the treat.
He licked his lips and praised the baker,
after all he was the blueberry pie maker.
On the counter, he placed a dime,
the baker packed the pie in no time
Soon Mr. Tootles hurried down the lane,
he stumbled upon a rock and winced in pain.
Down came the pie blueberry and all,
at which poor Mr. tootles began to bawl,
From dawn to dusk he cried and wailed,
at demure passersbys, he shouted and railed,
he licked the cream off his nose,
and arched his legs to lick it off his toes.
from a tear in his pocket, out rolled a dime
Mr. Tootles realised he was wasting time.
Mr tootles then set off to buy,
Another delicious blueberry pie!

if i only had a pie with me now! (sigh!)