My Husband...

needs to thank his stars for the following (maybe)

• My job, which takes up a few hours of my day, and most of my mental energy...gives him respite from routine "after-his-long-day-at-work-and-my-holiday" evening cries of "Im BORED and/or Lets go out somewhere"
  
  
• Books that I read...they allow him his much needed horizontal snore time..
  
• Painting/Sketching.....keeps my imagination engaged....and him nag-free.
  
• This Blog...which is beginning to scare the h*** out of him,apparently,it keeps me out of his hair a bit TOO much and he's claiming that if things don't change soon enough,I am "going to turn into a screen saver and vanish into the world wide web" ...which would make him sad and itchy because then he would no longer have access to an automatic back-scratching-head-and-neck-massager:(
  
  

To be continued....

Colours of the Night

This has been sitting in my drawing room for some time now.....a new digicam makes it so much easy to show off ;)...both the picture and the subject are home made :-D

Just Push Play

Ninety percent of the music I like, is easy on the ears, composed/arranged/sung by someone of non-Indian origin, created anywhere between three decades B.M.bd (Before My birthday;) till two and a half decades A.M.bd(After My birthday;). hindi film music takes up all most all the rest of the 10%. I cannot appreciate Indian classical music (I've tried, and I respect the vocal prowess involved) and somewhat appreciate the better known pieces of western classical music( i.e. I may or may not go to the other room and close the door when that stuff is on ;) .


My husband , on the other hand, listens to( and enjoys) anything from Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, to Def Lepard ,Judas Priest, Van Halen, Chris Rhea, Dire Straits, trance and all the 90's stuff, to Mukesh , Hemant and to my great horror ( and sneaking liking;) Hindi film remixes and ooooooooooooooo Himesh Reshammiya!!!


A few days back, we were driving back from somewhere, and as usual ,the music was on full blast ...In the (rare;-) intervals of musical quiet , we had the following conversation--


Me: I wonder, is it "unpatriotic" of me not to like Indian classical music at all, and somewhat appreciate the western classical stuff?


He: A taste in music should have nothing at all to do with patriotism or the lack of it...tell me , why don't you like the Indian stuff?


Me: Basically , because I just don't.....its not as if I haven't given it a chance , but somehow, I just could never appreciate it.


He: Then where does the question of patriotism come in it? You don't, so you don't.


Me: Well...its just that till now, with a number of people I've met , a discussion about music, often leads down the path of Indian vs. Western music, and I've often been at the receiving end of "she's-such-an-unpatriotic-so-and-so" because the only music that I can discuss with any amount of "knowledge" happens to be of non-Indian origin.


Why cant it just be about the music?


He: Does it matter what anyone else thinks?


Me:...hmmmm, so which CD ,which track is that "Lady Godiva" number on.....and DONT you dare put on that "Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtrack again!!!!

Rain.......Rain.....GO AWAY!!!!

The last few days have been dull and gray...miserable ,pouring an endless supply of cats,dogs ,elephants etc..., wet clothes musty smelling house............so today I decided that if the Gods didn't oblige with some sunshine soon, I'll take matters in my hand....listen to some music at the LOUDEST volume I could stand (and get away with)....and funnily enough the sun's peeking out coyly too, looks like its likes my taste in music ;).....to entice it further I am going to keep the music on till the neighbours bang the door down...'cos at this volume there's no way I can hear a door bell;)

Mr SS

An Eternity ago, I woke up with a mildly scratchy throat...and decided to leave it alone, maybe ignoring it would make it non-existent ....alas , Mr. Scratchy Sandpaper a.k.a. Mr. SS disagreed...and with all the injured pride of the unwanted pest , ignored my heated efforts (at 102^oC to 104^oC) to beat him into leaving....Ulimately my long suffering ,care-taking hubby, marched me to the hospital (read propped and propelled into the car ,out of the car) for some external ammo .However, since Mr. SS had commandeered my oesophagus and decided to permit extremely restricted movement of rations to the central pit, the said pit refused to retain the ammo and sent it back up the way it came, along with a lot of other things (some of which I don't recall sending down at all :( sigh..) and kept sending up...sigh...Paet Paet na raha....


After 48 hours of this battle royale , the doctors stepped in and I stepped out ...of home...to hospital (prison)...only to be let out on parole intermittently, as a special favour, for meals and baths ...Another 72 hours and countless injections later (believe me, I counted the seconds too )..here I am ...Mr SS has been kicked out with a vengeance and all that's left are the metallic remains (of the strong ammunition ) on my tongue...


Thanks to Mr SS I now realise how precious my home ,health and hubby are (not necessarily in that order;)

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.......its a pome..not its not..wth..who cares.....

REALLY LATE NIGHT blogging

6:45 AM: Insistent door bells


Undeserved curses to the maid


An uncharacteristically EARLY visit from the
plumbers...JUST three weeks after putting in the complaint


7:00 AM: Insistent door bells


Undeserved curses to the maid


An uncharacteristically EARLY car wash guy


7:25 AM : Insistent door bells


Well deserved curses to the maid


Characteristically LATE maid!!!


Rushing through breakfast-


send off hubby-bake birthday cake for hubby's cadet-


bathe-put-on-any-suit-pick-up-bag-lock door-kick
scooter-mad rush to work-


3 sets of unripe homo-simians in batches of 34-


break-


vegetable shop


dump in fridge-


visit loo-


rush back to the zoo--


back again after 1 more set


-at one-


chit chat with friend/neighbour/crib buddy/confidant


cook lunch-


eat with friend/neighbour/crib buddy/confidant


back home-whip cream-aim for fastest ever cake icing-


disaster with running cream which refused to take a whipping


clean up the mess-


take a bath-


put on the war paint - spike heels-sari in 5 mins


rush to ladies club-


panicking as short order Mistress of Ceremonies


3 hrs on stilts on slippery tiled floor--Faux Pas
galore-


back home-


tired hug to hubby


Don old soft torn dress-manage maid-whip more cream-damage control icing done-


take a bath -


change-car ride-meet and greet cadet-order food-hubby
serves-change again into another old soft nighty-hog-brush-make bed-is the net
on ----AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
Itch Scratched
Tomorrow's another day , Im azzzzzzzleeeeep now:)

Rules are meant to be....

Ever since I was a kid, a visit to the railway station meant the acquisition of at least ONE new book, if I was just meeting someone, and at least two or three if I was going somewhere, anywhere, on a train.



On a train trip back to the grind at Delhi , ( from a too short weekend at home), around eight at night , I was knee deep into an Agatha Christie, when my peripheral vision and hearing latched on to two young men who boarded the train at a minor station. Apparently they had to travel on extremely short notice to Gwalior ( which was just 4hrs away ),and after much wrangling with the TT for last minute seats in that 3^rd AC compartment, one of them came and sat on my berth.


By this time, due to my trusty peripheral vision and the fact that he was in camos (camouflage uniform and heavy boots) , I had correctly recognised this guy (and his friend) as a Y.O..i.e. Young Officer( in army jargon) or, "hmmmmm...Interesting, I wonder if he's a bachelor" in grown-up-still-single- daughter-of-army-officer parlance ;).However ,in accordance with my self imposed rule of minimum contact with fellow passengers, (applicable to solo train journeys only), I continued to scan the greek book in my hand, pretending that I was the only one sitting there.


After an hour or so, he commented politely-


“Ma’am , whenever you’d like to lie down, please let me know , I’ll go up to the middle berth.”


As I was at an interesting point (in the book;), I told him that he could continue sitting for some time to come, since I had no plans of going to sleep just yet ( I was and still am a late bird and an insomniacal train traveler ).Since the ice had cracked a bit, he asked what I was reading (of course he couldn’t read the inch high title of the book;)…and thus began a conversation ,during the course of which he discovered that I was a card carrying member of S.O.D.A i.e "Senior Officer's Daughters Association" ( an imaginary sorority whose existance I deny ;) and I discovered that other than being a Y.O , he was also a member of S.O.S.A (again ,an imaginary organisation as according to the members;) and many an interesting similarity in the lives that we had led so far.


A few hours later , we had exchanged numbers , and he had left the train at Gwalior. We haven't spoken or met each other since, however the ease with which we could converse, helped me take a decision that I’d been mulling over for a while , namely whether I should marry back into the services or not .


As of now, I haven’t regretted my decision for a single moment.

Mirror-Mirror

A chain of thought catalyzed by Trishna's Blog

Intelligent, artistic, friendly, well behaved, happy....these were the masks that I wore for a long time to hide from the world, the insecurities that stemmed from being a fat kid and... the butt of many a fat joke ,at the recieving end of insensitive behaviour by many of my peers who would turn to me for help when they needed notes, and run away shouting "Moti" when I appeared in the playground....the "no boy will ever ask me out" insecurity of my teens and early twenties.


The masks ,however, always came off before my parents, so with a lot of love and common sense , they tried to teach me to accept this, learn from it and look beyond it. They reassured me that I was a good person, praised my other talents and said that people who couldn't see beyond the weight, weren't worth worrying about .I didn't always believe them , because I thought they were naturally biased in my favour…but a consistently good academic record, an artistic bent of mind , a fondness for books, winning a few speaking competitions at school, and supportive parents ensured that my weight was the only thing gnawing at my self esteem....



Some time in college, when I decided to lose the weight, my mother was there walking with me, cooking low cal food for me...as I lost the weight, I gained the beginnings of confidence in my ability to face and overcome a challenge.



When I began to work, I gained and lost weight
and self esteem with the regularity of a yo-yo. I also formed a romantic attachment or two, partly out of the loneliness of being away from family, partly because I was a young woman(still am;)....and partly in a misguided effort to prove to myself that I was attractive too...All the old familiar masks were on at work, and with most friends/acquaintances...except for three close friends, who told me the same things about myself, as my parents had, all my life.



Eventually, I married a wonderful person, and over many an interesting, honest conversation, heated fight and make up session with him, I finally realized in my heart ,whether the world sees it or not.... Iam a good person, who is ,physically and mentally intact , sometimes witty, often crabby, a "foodie", an average cook, generally intelligent with good taste in music, creative, mostly judgmental and opinionated but somewhat tolerant too , loyal and choosy about friendships, lazy, egotistical,somewhat tactless,generally honest, a nagging and loving wife ,a good as well as bad offspring and sibling, lucky to have a well adjusted,caring family and friends .... far from perfect, yet at peace ….and yes, I am still obese BUT I no longer cry about it, I laugh at how stupid I was to care about what anyone else said, eat the pastry I want to, then put on my walking shoes and take a LONG walk , because I dont want to keep spending money on tailors and new clothes :D

Any Good News Yet ?

Somewhere towards the end of January 2004, I added another 12 alphabets to my name, thereby tipping the (alphabet) scale at a petite 34 alphabets. Exactly a year later, I was slogging it out in the kitchen ( notably,with a few onions who had an aversion to turning brown in a wok) in preparation for the dozen odd friends who had hinted that they'd be dropping by in the evening to remind us of the fact that at this time last year, we were on a holiday from real life ;)


Since there was no sign of the two of us expanding to two-and-half-of-each-of-us anytime in the future, we were prepared for the possibility of either or both sets of parents, reminding us that this was something we might need to attend to sometime soon....They were beaten to the finish line by a close friend of mine who called up, and after the obligatory Best Wishes etc.. popped the question (NO NOT THAT ONE!!!), namely

"Any Good News Yet?"

As it was a day when uncharacteristically good behaviour was expected of me, I replied rather sweetly that

"Yes, I've been married for a year now to this phenomenally great guy!"

I fail to understand why this was greeted with the rather uncomplimentary promise to strangle me for being cheeky!


PS: The first person to spell my ENTIRE name correctly is the winner of the MBRC Bengali-English spelling competition. Phameely of blogger is NOT allowed to participate;) and answers from said phameely members will not be commented upon

Eggs And Crumpets...

When I was a kid , any book that I wanted to read ,had to be first read and approved by the MomPop Censor ( atleast the ones that I told them about;) . So it was, that "Archie" and me were not allowed to meet till I was a teenager. Unfortunately for Archie, by the time I was 13, I preferred older men such as a certain mad English gentleman known as Bertie Wooster and a few odd Eggs and Crumpets here and there.....all of whom, resided somewhere on library and book store racks marked Wodehouse, P. G.

Some of the reasons why I am still captivated, may be found in the following quotes-

`She had wanted to borrow my aunt's brooch,' said Ukridge, `but I was firm and wouldn't let her have it - partly on principle and partly because I had pawned it the day before.'

There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.

The Old Reliable (1951)

There is no doubt that Jeeves's pick-me-up will produce immediate results in anything short of an Egyptian mummy.

The Inimitable Jeeves
(1923)

He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life, and found a dead beetle at the bottom.

I have only two things to say to you, Lord Tilbury. One is that you have ruined a man's life. The other is Pip-pip.

Heavy Weather (1933)

``You can't do shorthand, I suppose?''

``I don't know. I've never tried.''

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
(1940) ch. 7 ``A Bit of Luck for Mabel''

The only thing that prevented a father's love from faltering was the fact that there was in his possession a photograph of himself at the same early age, in which he, too, looked like a homicidal fried egg.

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
(1940) ch. 4 ``Sonny Boy''

It was the look which caused her to be known in native bearer and halfcaste circles as 'Mgobi-'Mgumbi, which may be loosely translated as She On Whom It Is Unsafe To Try Any
Oompus-Boompus.

`Any moment now, he may get a vicarage, and then watch his smoke. He'll be a Bishop some day.'

`A fat lot of bishing he's going to do, if he's caught sneaking helmets from members of his flock.'

The Code of the Woosters
(1938)

Mr Waddington's expression was now that of a cowboy who, leaping into bed, discovers too late that a frolicsome friend has placed a cactus between the sheets.

Poets, as a class, are business men. Shakespeare describes the poet's eye as rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and giving to airy nothing a local
habitation and a name, but in practice you will find that one corner of that eye is generally glued on the royalty returns.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)