From Flat No. 302 to Flat No. 203

The great exodus is completed. The move that marks the end of many things and the hope for all that is to come my way. I have borrowed Suhel’s camera and spend my time walking from room to room photographing every nook and corner with probably more love than my landlord ever felt for Flat No. 302.

To party or not to party – that is the question

It’s that time of the year when everyone asks that inevitable question - “So what plans for New Year?” And I have been feverishly figuring out a way to do the impossible – have the maximum fun for the minimum outlay.

We would have made it an all-girls night out if one of the gang was not irrevocably entwined with one of the males of the species. So dinner, a walk by the lakeside, perhaps a movie and a quiet time is lined up.

Your whole fucking culture.....

I realised that on Orkut, people add you and scrap you without reading your profile. All they need is a female face on the photo. There seems little sense in having a profile and filling it out sincerely if people don’t read it. I mention my 4 year old quite often and then my age (30) is up there for all the world and his uncle to see. Despite that I have a vast number of hormone-driven 21 year olds sending me mushy e-mails and then blaming me for misleading them.

I grew old this Christmas

Went to church real early with Ponnamma Aunty and Prince. Prince is going to the UK soon. That’s probably the last of the cousins I grew up with going away. Everyone else has scattered far and wide. Canada, Kerala, Chicago, Florida, San Fransico, UAE, Sharjah, London and a host of other places. Our circle has been rudely broken up. Marriage and careers have taken us away from the neighborhood where we grew up together.

The fruitless search for cards and guys that I actually like

Had a good time Orkuting and Blogging and Googling all day! Did very little work. And then I went out to buy a card for Ken. I am so, so looking for a nice one. I can't believe that there is not a single card in all Hyderabad to suit my fancy. I covered 3 Archies outlets, Walden, Odessey and a host of other places. Will have to do this in Chennai. I wonder if I'm being a little overly picky.

Male strippers, broken cars and ghosts

mmm… I spent the day cancelling and rebooking my tix. For some reason I did the stupid mistake of booking the same way both times – Hyderabad to Madras and then again Hyderabad to Madras. Then I promptly went and lost my tickets.

24 hours with nothing much to record

Today has been office and hard work. Then went shopping with Tanushree. Returned home after pizza and crashed in bed. I am too tired to write more for now.

Church hunting, shopping, movies and why I still have a glow on my face.. though dimmed.. (In one word - Assorted)

Spent the morning hunting out a church for my very religious maid. All the churches seem concentrated in Secunderabad and after much money and time was wasted, we finally found a church which seems impracticable for the simple reason that it costs 300 bucks to go there and get back. I should find some other option to keep Rebecca happy.

Why the Rules don't work for me....

Quiet day. Spent the whole day with Rhea – and her dentist. She has been visiting her every weekend for the last three months that she actually suffers from the delusion that her dentist is a beautiful woman. It all depends on who has the extracting forceps, I guess. Sitting in the visitors chair, my vision still works well.

At night, we watched Rules: Pyar ka Superhit Formula together . We decided that the rules would never work for us. Rule No 1: Don’t give guys any importance.

If that’s supposed to bring them queuing up to your doorstep, sorry, you have to be as hot as Meera Vasudhevan. We lost there. So turned over and slept. As for the other four, since we lost at Number One, we decided not to kind of throw good money after bad :)

On a first name basis with Mr. Claus

Today has been wonderful. I have done very little work. Been orkuting intermittently all day. Only hope my manager never reads my blog. I wonder if Orkut would become a verb like google. Did you Orkut today?

Anyways, today was the office Christmas party. Our company's theatre club put up an awesome performance of Dario Fo’s The Virtuous Burglar. I can only say WO!

And then we sang carols in Santa hats and ate food. I so wanted to take a snap with Santa. That somehow didn’t happen. Imagine how much my USP would have gone up with my 4-year-old if I couldprove to him that I was one a first name basis with Santa. On second thoughts he is on first name basis with Santa too. He doesn’t exactly call him Mr. Claus!

After the party I went to a pub and danced to retro music of all genres. That will show you how much I love to dance. I will dance to Christmas carols, given a chance. And Akshay (of Annie’s Song fame) was with me and we had an awesome time dancing together. It was our last weekend together. He leaves to Kerala today for a Christmas vacation and Rhea n’ I move out next weekend, before he returns.

On being a careless blogger

The hardest part of blogging is keeping it up on a daily basis. And the whole purpose of my keeping one is to remember all the things – good, bad and ugly which shaped my life and my views and makes me what I am.

Now take today for example. I have been too lazy to remember all that happened because my mind seems a complete blank. I simply don’t have any idea what happened. Except that it was Rhea's birthday and that she looked beautiful today.

Why I don't live on the streets

There are many days when I feel so glad I'm single. I can't imagine anyone more in my space other than me and my son. We seem to occupy my whole world quite comfortably. There's stretching room and one more person will make things cramped. However, there are days like today when I'd love to switch places with a housewife who can devote ALL her time to her children.

Greed, lust and deadly crime

Taking over from where I left off last night – since nothing particularly new and exciting happened all day today – I have moved on to a new book of the treasured lot I picked up at The Hyderabad Book fair a couple of weeks ago. For around 600 bucks, I picked up 12 awesome books, including some that I thought were out of print ages ago.

Of Christmas Trees and Christmas crimes

I spent all of today sleeping. And then I woke up in the late evening, feeling just like a Hyderabadi version of Dracula. I roamed the streets with Akshay seeking Christmas gifts.

We used to go walking together a lot but we grew out of the habit and took a rather LONG hiatus. Even though it was the Ameerpet to Panjagutta Main Road, in the middle of heavy traffic, I still enjoyed it as much as our walks down the quieter and posher Jubilee Hills Roads. Popcorn, gossip and a cool dark night. Awesome enough for a walk.

Being poor, immoral and misunderstood

Today was an unforgettable day. After a long time I met one of those memorable characters who make life so colorful and whom you rarely meet outside books.

After meeting my owner and viewing my would-be castle one more time, making crucial decisions such as “Where will the fridge go?” and “How can we fit the washing machine into this tiny space near the washroom tap?” we were leaving the house when my flat-mate, Rhea, saw a Bengali name board in the flat downstairs.

Long term career goals

Mum and Dad are HERE! As is my long awaited maid. Quite in the fashion of old English homes, I now have a nanny named Rebecca. Ever since I read Agatha Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington, I always thought that being a maid was the ultimate of all jobs. One of her memorable characters, Lucy Eylesbarrow, an Oxford grad decides that there is money to be "maid" in the domestic service racket and proceeds to work as a maid for short periods in different homes for enormous amounts of money.

Do I really want one more White Christmas?

After that yesterday’s sentimental mush that was the product of a nostalgic mood, today I shall write about something less wistful. But it has been so long since I have actually written anything for pleasure or profit that I seem so out of touch.

Life seems to be less blue and more pink today. It even has spots of yellow here and there. For one thing, my would-be landlord seems to exceptionally decent. For another, work looks better today. And for another, the bean bags at office feel less like deflated balloons.

FLAT NO. 302

Yesterday I went and paid part of the advance on a house in Begumpet, Hyderabad. When I came home, I felt, for the first time, truly rudderless. Like I was cut loose from all I held familiar.

Kind of strange how I always found a bit of home wherever I went. Back when I was married I stayed just two streets away from my parents’ – among all the neighbours I grew up with. And then in Canada, I stayed with cousins, so the umbilical cord was still going strong.

The Godmother Effect of the Cinderella Syndrome…

I’ve been working for over 8 years now and the most enjoyable job I had was my second one. As I worked my way up in a journal published by the Madras Management Association, I worked with the best possible team and had the most possible fun.

Anne, my boss, was British-Italian, and married to one of the wealthiest businessmen in Madras. She was exuberant, amusing, outrageously flirtatious and great fun to work for. She always entered the office at 11 a.m. with much drama, calling us at intervals on her cell phone to announce her imminent arrival, large shopping bags, flowing clothes, unwieldy hair and a driver all swirling around her generous frame. Her lively, “Girls! I’m here!” almost always set us raising our eyebrows and grinning at each other. She often brought rich Italian food for us and we secretly called the mood she created around her as the “Godmother Effect.”