The mother, on reading the post I put up about her attempts to reason with the princess: Why do you eavesdrop private conversations between two sensitive souls?
The brother is back home, and expected to be here for the next couple of months. He is also unwell, which means he is being more mollycoddled than usual. The mother asked him the other day what he wants for breakfast. This is the conversation that ensued:
Brother: Can you make that white thing?
Mother: What white thing? Upma?
Brother: No, no, that white thing.
Mother: Eggs? Idlis?
Brother: Arre that white thing which has leaves and peanuts in it.
Mother: Upma?
Brother: Yeaaaaaaah.......
The recent Bharat Bandh meant there were posters of all Opposition leaders all over the roads. Being clueless as ever, I struggled to recognise some of them.
Moi: That one's Nitin Gadkari, right? The second one from the left?
Father (not looking up): Does he look like a toad?
Moi: Umm, yeah?
Father: Then that's Gadkari.
BUT. It's not just my family which is entertaining. My job involves some amount of interviewing these kids who keep applying to us. Today, a girl from Bombay sent in her resume. Looked good on paper, so I gave her a call.
Moi: So before we take this forward, I wanted to check, are you comfortable relocating to Gurgaon?
Her: Well, I'm not against relocation per se, as long as the profile is good you know?
Moi: Sure, fair enough.
Her: Also you will have to arrange for my stay and food you know. I mean, food ok, I can manage. But we keep hearing how Gurgaon isn't very safe, so...
Moi: (deep breath) Well, you know, we could always give you suggestions on where to take up accommodation, but you will have to kind of arrange for it yourself. But...
Her: But you people will help? Because Gurgaon's not very safe for an alone girl you know
Moi: I suppose...?
The conversation then went on for a bit, with me saying that we'll call her again on next week when my colleagues are in office also. As we were concluding the call:
Her: But tell me, do you think Gurgaon is safe for an alone girl [NB: I swear, that is the phrase she used.] to move to?
Moi: Well, I've lived here for 15 years because my family lives here. But we have a few girls working with us who live on their own here, and they haven't had any problems.
Her: Really? But isn't Gurgaon in, like, Haryana proper?
Moi: Umm, yes?
Her: Hmm. Are you going to call me tomorrow evening again?
Till today, I can never tell what he thinks. He's one of those passive, non-expressive men - stoic, strong and silent. He's also the most intelligent man I know, as well as the most upright. He loves children. And animals. He thinks an experience is worth it only if you learn something from it. He has a weird sense of humour which no one gets, and uses long fancy words - correctly. I love him to pieces. He's my father.
Baba's never told me in words that he disapproves of anything I'm doing. He'll drop subtle hints. Are you sure you want to do that? Will that career option really give you the satisfaction you're looking for? Maybe you should meet some people from some other field and see if they can guide you. Do you really plan to go out of the house wearing that? But if I ask him upfront, "Do you think I'm making the right decision?", I wait till the end of time, and I won't get an answer. And when I go ahead and take decisions that he doesn't approve of, he'll still support me in them.
He never buys anything for himself, just because he feels like it. He can be very stubborn. I just watched him put tape on his old, frayed wallet, because he likes it better than the brand-new one lying in his cupboard. Both his laptop and his phone are about as useful as a floppy disk, but he won't replace them because he's "looking at options". And I mean that very literally - he's going to get the specs of ALL possible options, compare them, and will hopefully come to a decision sometime in the next decade.
I've only ever seen him break down twice - once, when Dadu passed away; the second time, when Thamma passed away. Ask him what he wants for his birthday, and he'll say he'll have to think about it. Gift him the complete DVD set of the LOTR movies, and he'll look at you puzzled, wondering why you spent money on something so unnecessary. But the first chance he gets, he'll pull them out and settle down to watch.
Till a couple of years back, he was an out and out workaholic. As kids we only ever saw him on Sundays, and the family holidays he would make a point of planning and taking us on. It was Mamma who was always there for us, Mamma I related all my day's happenings to, Mamma who I considered my best friend. Recently, that's changed. Three years ago, Baba quit his job with the company he'd been with for 28 years, and decided to do his own thing. Not only has this made him a lot more relaxed and chilled about his work, it also means I've got to spend a lot more time with him since then - especially since he pretty much appointed me as an unpaid secretary in the initial months (I'm an expert at doing travel bookings, don'tcha know?). And since I also stated working around the same time, and started needing/wanting to talk about work-related stuff, he and I have grown a lot closer than we ever were when I was growing up. Which I cannot be thankful enough for.
In terms of personality, I'm like the mother - volatile, hyper, quick-tempered, and not the most reasonable person around. The brother's like Baba - calm, logical, passive, but impossible on the few occasions they lose their cool. Despite this, or maybe because of it really, the brother is Mama's boy through and through, while I'm so much more a Daddy's girl. It's him I now go to when I need to whine about anything, when I need advice about something, or even if it's just to talk about the day's mundane details.
Mother's Day and Father's Day are a huge deal in our home - because I make them that way. The brother goes along with it (mainly because the alternative is listening to me nag), the mother just likes the gifts and the meal out - no cooking for one day. And the father, well, who can tell what he thinks really?
Last year, the brother was in town on his summer vacation. We made this huge plan of going out for lunch on Father's Day. As we entered the mall, we saw a huge banner advertising a Father's Day special fest - for two weeks later. I'd mixed up the dates, so two Sundays later, we again got up early, made him a nice breakfast, and took him out for dinner. He got TWO Father's Days. And yeah, I think he quite enjoyed the extra attention.
Baba and I are both nightbirds. When I was 17, preparing for my Class XII Boards, and applying to colleges in the US, I'd come down to drink a glass of water or get a snack to munch while studying (or pretending to) late at night. I'd peep in on the father, and invariably find him in front of his laptop, having dozed off while working. I'd shake him awake, and make him go to bed. I once asked him what he would do when I went away to college - who would come take off his glasses for him?
Eight years later, I'm still living at home (and probably continue to, till the end of time). I still stay up late, and I still go to peep in on him most night, and find that he's dozed off while reading a book. I still take off his glasses, and switch off the light for him.
A lot of people are going to react to this post by asking why the big fuss about Father's Day; the same argument comes around on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day - why do we need one day in the year to express our love for loved ones, and it's all a bunch of commercialized propaganda anyway. Maybe so, but the fact remains that in getting caught up in the mundaneness of our everyday lives, we tend to forget to tell the people we love that we, well, love them. So three hours from now, I will get up (hopefully), and nag my mother into helping me make omelettes the way Baba likes them. And I will give him the book I ordered from Flipkart because he wanted it. And I will wait for the brother to come back from his silly internship, and then the four of us will go out for dinner. All this to celebrate Father's Day.
Because my Baba may not be someone you ever heard of, but he's the best kind of father any girl could ever ask for. And I really do want to remind him that I love him to pieces.
NB: I also tried introducing the celebration of Daughter's Day into the family - unfortunately, this did not succeed. Much sadness comes.
My rides to office have become very reminiscent of my school days. In school, it was a well-known fact that I never reached the bus stop on time. My poor kid brother would have to tell the bus driver every morning "meri Didi aa rahi hai", as I would come running round the corner (unless the father had agreed to drop me) and board the bus with everyone glaring at me.
My colleague and I share a cab to work these days, since neither of us drives. The cab we've hired drops us to work and goes to pick up kids from a summer camp, and since the driver can't be late for them, we have to leave much earlier than what we're used to as well.
I suspect he's soon going to lose his temper with me. My house is the first stop, and three out of five mornings, I exit from the house, he sees me and starts the engine, and then stops it again because I've had a facepalm moment and gone back in to get something I've forgotten.
Every morning, while I wait to pick up my colleague outside her apartment building, I see this group of security guards looking thoroughly bored while they're briefed for the day by their supervisor. Briefing over, a whole lot of backslapping and waving to each other happens, and then they disperse to take up their positions for the day in the various apartment buildings along that road.
The kitchen is the only room in the house the princess is not allowed to enter. Well, OK technically she's not allowed to climb on beds or walk on carpets either, but there's only so much you can discipline her.
Anyway, so last evening, she was as usual sitting just outside the kitchen, looking longingly inside, making a woeful expression as if she'd never been fed in her life (as opposed to one hour back). The mother, who disapproves of the way the brother and I say "kiiiiitcheeeen" very grimly to make her move away, decided to use logic with Kyra:
"Why you do kitchen kitchen? I spend all my time in the kitchen. Trust me, it's not all that exciting once you're in here."
Previous attempts at using logic with the princess:
"We don't watch you when you eat; why do you stare at us when we eat?"
Today, I want to apologise to each and every one of you. Sincerely.
I have always cribbed that in Calcutta, when you ask someone how they are, they not only promptly relate every single ailment they have had in the past year, but also those suffered by their spouse, children, and grandchildren, if any. Being the naak-uchu probashi I am, I tend to make fun of the fact that only in Calcutta will people actuallytell you how they are when asked.
I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Bengalis are nothing compared to the people I interact with on a daily basis.
For the past week, I have been surrounded by obangalis (is that the right word for non-Bengalis? anyone?) who have been talking about nothing but their health. Every single ailment they currently have (and for some reason, all of them have a heck of a lot of symptoms) is discussed and analysed in great detail, possible causes and consequences have been debated with great animation (with most of these debates ending on the conviction that every single one of them is in the last stages of a terminal disease), and doctor visits have been analysed with as much intensity as a group of giggling high school girls would discuss a first date. To cut a long story short, I have been spending a lot of time reminding myself why it is wrong to murder a fellow human being.
Forgive me, dear Calcuttans. I am now suitably chastened. And now totally ready to deal with you when I visit in July.
NB: I am contemplating beginning every post of mine with an apology for my absence, from here on. It seems to be the sure shot way of getting lots of new readers and followers (apart from drawing comic strips, of course, which I am a total #fail at anyway). Not that I would know even if I did get lots of readers, because you crowd never comment. Yes, I'm talking to you, the person who visits regularly, according to Statcounter. Hmph I say.
Moving on.
It is by now a fairly well-documented fact that I despise shopping. When I die and go to hell, it will look exactly like either Ambience Mall or Select City Walk. Seriously.
My idea of shopping is going to a shop, finding exactly what I needed, paying for it, and exiting. And as cribbed about before, what I need is never what is available in the shops.
Which reminds me, what is up with Fab India and their sizes? Three kurtas, supposedly of the same size, one of which fits me just fine, one is too tight, and the third flaps around me like it's a maternity dress. Someone I know who is double my size had to buy a Small size recently. Even she was startled. Seriously.
Right. So, shopping. Hate it. Always have, always will. Unfortunately, if there is something I am a sucker for, it is freebies. And there, my friends, is where the folks at Select City Walk have trapped me rather neatly.
You see, they've come up with this loyalty rewards program kind of thing. You go to the mall, pay for anything (and I mean anything - books, clothes, movie tickets, even a bottle of water at Barista), you get points. Which add up to free vouchers. Which I can't resist.
So the other weekend, the family went there, supposedly to sit in Barista while the brother met someone somewhere in Saket. The mother being the mother, which is to the complete opposite of me, decided to go window shopping. Next thing I know, the father was summoned because she had found just the kind of curtains we'd been looking for. Then I'm called there too because this was Shoppers Stop and I have their cobranded card (well, yes, I may hate shopping, but I sign up for every single rewards points scheme there is - it all adds up to freebies you see) and so we could get a discount because of that. And then they tell us that if we take the bill down we get free vouchers. Worth 10% of our billed amount. Which was a lot.
So the father and I went down. Where we learnt that even our Barista bill could be counted. So I got free vouchers. For quite a decent amount. Woohoo!
Only, then came the catch. These vouchers could only be used in Select City Walk. Oh well, we figured, we'll come sometime and pick up stuff. And then somehow, exactly a week later, I found myself in the same mall again. To watch the most boring movie in the world, because the father got free tickets from his bank (freebies! woohoo!). So the mother decided we should club this with a shopping expedition and use up the vouchers.
Only, when we finished, we discovered that whatever we spent over and above the voucher amounts made us eligible for more points. As did the KFC meal we bought. And the movie tickets we never paid for.
Do you see my problem here?
I'm stuck. I'm trapped in this vicious circle which is going to send me back to that mall every second week. Because I can't resist freebies.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume at least some of you noticed my absence from the online world last week (and if you didn't, please indulge my delusions and keep it to yourself). Right so, to satisfy your curiosity, I've been living up to my name. Travelling, darlings, to Italy of all places.
I may have, fleetingly, mentioned my previous trips to Europe in earlier posts. This being my third trip to the continent in four years, one thing seems to be certain: the place hates me. Seriously.
So here's the story: Having arrived in Rome (three hours later than planned incidentally, because we managed to miss our connecting flight from Paris), we headed to our hotel to check in. The hotel was in a typical European apartment building, which meant that we had to lug our luggage up a few stairs before we could take the lift up to the 5th floor where our rooms were. Since a lot of people in my group had big suitcases, I kept my suitcase and backpack at the side of the corridor, and started helping others with their luggage. A group of three people, two men and a woman, had followed us from the reception, and started helping us with the luggage as well. We thanked them and said we would manage; they persisted for a while, but then left. I went up to my room only after everyone else had done so, where I realised that although my suitcase had come up, my backpack was missing. After checking everyone else's rooms, as well as the lift and the corridor, I rushed across the street to the reception to check if it had been left there. Not finding it there either, I asked about the three people who had started helping us, and discovered that they were neither hotel staff nor guests.
Last year, when I was robbed for the second time in Spain, when my wallet with all my money went (save the one note that I had stuffed into my jacket pocket because I was too lazy to pull out my wallet and put it in), it was my last evening in Barcelona, and I was due to fly home the next morning. This time, however, I was robbed my first day in Rome, barely an hour after I had encashed traveller's cheques at the airport. Moreover, my entire bag went, which meant that apart from all my money, things like my camera, the music player my brother was gifted for his Class X Board results, the 15-year-old Uno cards which have have travelled with me on every holiday I've gone on the past decade and a half, my copy of Dilip D'Souza's Roadrunner which I picked up as a birthday gift to myself last month - all went.
I wanted to return home that day itself, but the group I was travelling with refused to let me, especially since most bookings had already been made. They couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing - partially because I suspect they felt somewhat responsible as well, since I was helping them with their luggage when the blessed thing got picked up. But despite their support, and their willingness to lend me cash for anything I wanted, spending a week in a foreign country, having to ask someone for money every time you want to buy even a bottle of water - it isn't something I would wish on even my worst enemy.
Having said that, apart from this major tragedy, the trip was quite lovely. Seeing Rome was an experience I don't think I'd do justice to even if I tried to put it in words, and Pisa and Florence were as lovely as they when I visited them four years ago with the family.
Since coming back, I've been trying to take baby steps towards replacing whatever I can. Apart the constant stream of sniffles that took place all through the four hours I spent in the Rome police station the first day, the only time I've really broken down over the whole incident was when I got home and saw that my mum had bought me a new pack of Uno cards - I may be 25, but these things still matter, y'know?
Anyway, so the week since my return hasn't been exactly great either. I need to pay people back for whatever I borrowed from them on the trip, and I need to replace my dad's camera and pay him the money I lost - and he doesn't get that his constant line of "we'll see about that later" only adds to my stress levels; I hate owing anyone money, even if it's him. Fair amount of pressure at work, plus my phone's not working too well, which means I need to get that sorted out too.
The other ongoing battle I've been having this week has been with the insurance guys. We had taken a travel insurance policy before going, and I've been speaking to them since getting back too, but apparently the claim I would've been eligible for was to have been put in from Italy itself, within 24 hours of the bag being lost. How I'm supposed to have done so, is beyond me considering my first 24 hours were nearly all spent in the police station, and given that all my documents (except my passport!), including the insurance policy document, was in the damn bag. Plus I've seen the documents they require for the claim to be processed, and how they expect any traveller to get these together within 24 hours when they have no money in the first place is really a mystery to me.
So that's what I've been up to. I've seen some of the photos from the trip, taken by the group, and I look ill in almost all of them. If you follow me on twitter, you'll have seen some extremely frustrated and whiny tweets coming onto your timeline. It's just... all of it together y'know? And there are times when all I want to do is pick up a vase, and throw it against the wall. I suspect it may make me feel a whole lot better.
Ten days ago, I completed a quarter of a century as a living being. In this lifetime, that is. I have no idea how long I've spent as a living being with all my lifetimes put together. Or even if I have had other lifetimes. Which really isn't the point of this post.
What is the point of this post, you ask? I'm not entirely sure myself. I got a new laptop you see (and before you start, that is PURPLE, not pink - the lighting was poor). And I wanted to put up a post from it simply because I can.
Anyway, so as I was saying, I turned 25. Now as a rule, I love birthdays. This year, for some reason, I was totally depressed about my birthday, to the point that I didn't even make my usual very detailed wishlist handed over to the family two months before the day arrives for them to treat as a shopping list.
I mean, 25. Isn't there something just so... milestone-y about it? Shouldn't I have done far more than I have by now? Or at least figured out what the hell my life is about? A bit?
Well, whatever it was that I was supposed to have done by now, I clearly haven't. I am therefore going to instead write this post. 25 facts about myself. Which you didn't know. Or did. Depends on who you are.
You may leave now, you know. If you're still here that is.
*drumroll*
I love Hrishikesh Mukherjee's movies. There is no other film-maker in the world about whom I can say that I have loved each and every movie made by him/her. My life's ambition is to get hold of the DVDs of every single movie he ever made.
My one regret in life is giving up singing classes as a kid.
Gmail's Label feature is the best thing that ever happened to me. I label everything. I have two Gmail accounts - one official, one personal. The official ID has just short of 250 labels, and the personal one has 450-odd labels. Seriously.
My favourite colours are blue and purple. Hence the laptop. Dell's blue option was too electric for my liking.
I know nothing about English music. Or any music actually. Unless... Does Bollywood music count as a genre?
I perpetually feel cold. The family hates having meals with me in the summer because I whine about the fan being on.
I have had a godawful allergy since childhood as a result of which I get these awful marks on my arms and legs. The dermatologist once described it as "hypersensitivity to mosquito bites". I call it a curse.
I love numbers. And Excel sheets with numbers in particular. Playing with them gives me a joy like no other. Back in school I used to get this joy when I would solve a particularly tricky math or accounts problem.
I wanted to be a teacher as a kid. Nursery teacher. Mainly because I thought Rani Ma'am, my Nursery teacher was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
As a teenager, this ambition changed to being a librarian. I thought it would be awesome because I could sit and read all day long.
I am not a people person. By which I mean the company of others annoys me no end. Spending more than a few hours with even my closest friends exhausts me. Which makes my choice of career a mystery to pretty much everyone who knows me. In my defense, I hadn't realised how much of a non-people person I am till I took it up.
If it wasn't for the fact that I love my near and dear ones, I wouldn't like them much.
No one, but no one, is allowed to criticise my family. Other than me. Even if you are my best friend, and I have spent two hours cribbing about them, you do not say anything against them. Ever.
As a kid, it was instinct for me to look at every single vehicle passing by on the roads, add up its license number, and check if it's divisible by 3. I still do it sometimes.
Sanjeev Kumar is the greatest actor to have ever lived. In my very humble opinion. Exhibit A: Koshish. Exhibit B: Angoor.
I'm a sucker for spoilers. The only two things I have always refused to look up spoilers for are the Harry Potter books before they released, and Lost. Yes, I'm a huge fan of both.
I hate yellow gold.
Equality of the sexes is a hugedeal for me. Not just in terms of women getting the freedom to do what they want, but also in terms of men contributing more when it comes to household matters. I think it's important, and I have been known to get onto a soapbox about this issue fairly often.
The moon, butterflies, and rain are the themes figuring in most desktop wallpapers or site templates I choose. Which I'm guessing you know if you've been following my blog for a while now - you may remember the trauma I went through when I had to give up my rain template when "New Blogger" came into existence. I had to choose between keeping the labels option or the template - toughest decision in my blogging life so far.
Rounded off numbers are the most awesome thing ever. My obsession with rounded off numbers was at one point so intense that I would SMS friends last thing at night just so my pre-paid balance would be a rounded off number. Even today, the radio and TV volume has to be a rounded off number, and I refuse to stop the microwave till it's showing a multiple of 5. In fact, the only blessing I see about turning 25 is that not only is it a rounded number itself, but it's the square of a rounded off number. How cool is that?!
I have never quite got used to the whole concept of telling the whole world who you are, where you are, and what you do via your blogs and your tweets. It's something I'm still uncomfortable with, and most of my friends know that I'd prefer they didn't use my real name in the blogosphere.
I have a thing for tall and fair guys. And lawyers. I think it comes from watching way too much of The Practice growing up.
Imtiaz Ali's movies, in some ways, remind me of Hrishikesh Mukherjee. I have no idea why.
I can't read or write Bengali. In fact, when I visit Calcutta, my cousins make fun of my accent when I speak in Bengali. I am, in some ways, to Bengal what an ABCD would be to India. A born and brought up probashi, forsooth.
I have gorgeous hair.
You're still here? Wow. And you're not one of the two people I force into reading my blog everytime I put up a post? Double wow. And I thought I didn't have a life.
You can't blame people for being cynical in this day and age. Our politicians are crooks, the protectors of the law are no better, you can't do well in life unless you choose to take shortcuts, our favourite actors prove they're complete twits (literally) by joining twitter - what is there to make you feel good about the world? Really?
I’ve been guilty of it oh-so many times in the past. Despite being pro-Obama during the 2008 US Presidential elections, the day after he won, when a colleague mentioned that he seems to be “clean” I remember looking at him and asking him “But how do you get where he has by being completely clean”? I don’t any of us are capable of believing that the biggest successes came the “right” way.
Occasionally, however, you come along an overly cynical comment, which either makes you wonder the author is either trying too hard to sound cynical because y'know, it's the done thing, or whether he/she is simply blinded to anything else.
Exhibit A: A tweet during yesterday's World Cup match between India and Pakistan, where we were nicely thrashing the visiting side:
Seems almost like a fixed match, no? #hockeyworldcup
To which I responded "Why think that? Just enjoy the fact that our guys did a good job no?". And called an optimist for my pains. An optimist. Me. Gah.
Exhibit B:
Rehab, whose blog I have recently discovered (as in, some hours back), put up this post about a month back about Conan O'Brien's farewell speech where Conan essentially talks about how he hates cynicism. And there is, on that page, the following comment:
you should never take to heart what a guy who makes millions an hour tells you.
of course, he would advise against cynicism.
note: cynicism is not equivalent to pessimism.
My issue with both these comments was their refusal to acknowledge the message behind what they were observing, and look for hidden, darker messages. India can’t play so well, the match must be fixed. The guy earns millions, who is he to talk about the softer emotions?
But then again, I’ve been guilty of this as well. A friend and I were recently discussing a series of blog posts a fairly popular tweeter puts up – on her gratitude for various things in life. I was wondering if it was just me who though that far from sounding beautiful, the posts just ended up sounding preachy and priggish in nature. My friend, as it turned out, agreed with me, but I still wonder, have we completely closed ourselves off from acknowledging niceness, for lack of a better word, in people?
In our angst against “the system”, in our frustrations at our lot in life, in our tendency to hide our love and gratitude for near and dear ones, have we completely lost the ability to allow for the fact that others may not be the same way?
I get that there are times when we look around and see utter darkness. But does that mean we stop waiting for the light to come back? Is it so hard just to believe?
Quick, have you seen Dil Chahta Hai? Of course you have, you weren't born yesterday.
D'you remember Subodh's character? You know, Sonali Kulkarni's boyfriend till Saif and she got together in what was the weakest part of the movie?
There was a brilliant scene in the movie where Subodh's tendency to remember exact dates and times of event was brought to light, like so:
The family literally howled with laughter the first time we saw this scene because, quite frankly, this is exactly how ze father is. Ever since, the brother and I have taken to interrupting some of his more boring stories with the line "Subodh, tumhe time yaad nahi hai?"
What has struck me recently, however, is the fact that I am in fact as bad as, if not worse than, him (the comma usage in this line needs checking). Case in point: this post. I mean, who remembers such stuff? Me, apparently.
Chances are therefore, that if I've known you for a really long time, and if you're kinda important to me, I not only know your birthday and phone number by heart, but also remember exactly how and where we met/became friends, and have at least one weird memory which you would have totally forgotten about.
I also totally have a memory ready to relate as an example about ze father but a, he may not approve, and b, it is really long and boring.
I see potential in entering the blackmail business though.
