Just Can't Get Enough

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-24T15:44:00.002+05:30

'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is directed by David Fincher - the guy who directed 'Fight Club', 'Seven' and 'The Social Network'. All 3 movies that I liked and come on...isn't 'Fight Club' like a cult movie?

He doesn't disappoint with 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' either. To begin with, the casting is brilliant. BRILLIANT. I mean the sequence where they introduce the cast members, not the choice of cast (more on that later).

As soon as the casting begins, you know this is going to be one hard hitting movie....what with the amount of violence in the book...there will be no shying away from that. And there isn't. The sexual violence is all there and it's done in a way that will move you, rather than make you uncomfortable.

The movie is engaging and fast paced, and like most movies that are based on books it would help if you've read the book before. There are a couple of things you may miss if you haven't, and a few things you may not understand.

The casting I thought was a mixed bag. The male characters are spot on. I can't think of anyone else in Hollywood who would fit the character of Mikael Blomkvist better than Daniel Craig. Even the actor who plays Martin Vanger is perfect for the role - comes across a regular guy, even nice! But mentally, he's sick and deranged.

I'm not so sure of the casting of the female characters though. Let's start with Erika Berger who is played by Robin Wright ('Message In a Bottle', anyone?). I agree she is never described as being hot or pretty in the book (or is she?), but she comes across as quite sought after and is an important character in the scheme of things. Robin Wright just does not have much of an impact as Erika Berger, not much to do in the movie.

And then there's Lisbeth Salander herself. Now. In the book. She kicks ass. And even though she is a complete social misfit you find yourself rooting for her because she is just so awesome. She isn't social because she doesn't give a damn, but the movie makes her come across as shy. The actress who's played Lisbeth Salander has done a good job no doubt - given it's such a challenging role physically and emotionally - but she's not all that Lisbeth Salander is. And that's a real shame because she is the hero of the series. Maybe I'm feeling this way because I've seen the Swedish version where I found the actress to be awesome.

My main grouse with the movie is that they have changed the ending!!!!!! It may sound like a nice twist, and people who haven't read the book will not pick up on it, but I don't like it when they change things in movies from what they are in the book. I can understand it if it's done to make things more cinema-friendly, but here they have actually changed a part of the story in a way that was not required.

2012-01-11T15:16:00.003+05:30

He's closing on 40 but Jude Law is just as sexy now as he was years ago.

Jude-You-Sexy-Law, why don't we get to see more of you? :(

Sherlock Holmes - The Game of Shadows is really good. Just as good as the first one, if not better. Check it out if you haven't already - it keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. You'll like it...unless you didn't like the first one and you're not a fan of Guy Ritchie's style of movie-making.

****

I went to Watson's Bay last weekend. It's a 30 minute ferry ride from Sydney CBD and is one of the most beautiful places I've visited so far in Australia (of which I haven't visited many yet, and I'm the worse for it because Australia is absolutely breath-takingly beautiful!). On one side of Watson's Bay are two cliffs over-looking the Tasman Sea (the picture on my blog header being one of them). You can climb right to the top and gaze out at the deep blue waters stretching to infinity infront of you.

At a short walk from these cliffs is Camp Cove beach with golden coloured sand and clear blue-green waters, and the legally nudist Lady Bay beach.

****

I am so glad 2011 is behind us. Annus Horribilis. I don't know about you but I feel it was one of the crappiest years of my life. Happy to be in 2012 - it seems to be a year of hope and optimism. It even sounds so much better! Twenty-twelve...a nice round even number.

Hope you've all had a good start to the year.

2012-01-01T20:52:00.005+05:30

The long braided hair, the stubble, the arrogance, the cockiness...SRK hasn't looked sexier before. I just wish this was his look throughout the movie.

Don 2 has made me fall in love with the man all over again.

On a separate note, Happy New Year folks.

Christmas Cheer

2011-12-25T19:07:00.003+05:30

There's no other city in India that celebrates Christmas quite the way that Calcutta does. The Christmas cheer does not spare people of any religion - how else do you explain people from all religions walking up & down Park Street wearing Santa hats??!!

Park Street is another story in itself. It seems like the entire population of Calcutta has poured on to it. The street has been lit up since days. They apparently also had a Christmas Carnival that I missed. Flury's was packed to the gills with people queuing up outside the shop to have lunch there and buy Christmas cakes. Apparently, it's some kind of a Calcutta tradition to eat at Flury's on Christmas Day.

My day consisted of having lunch with my girl friends at my favourite Chinese restaurant in the city - Flavours of China - followed by plum cake at Flury's. And the weather is perfect - the winter chill accompanied by a bright, glowing sun. I am SO glad I spent Christmas in Cal rather than Sydney. There is something just very wrong about a summer Christmas.

Going by the rate I've been posting, I'm pretty sure I won't be posting again until after New Year's. So I hope you all had yourselves a Merry Christmas. Wish you a very Happy New Year and happy holidays :)

'Rockstar' and 'Dirty Picture'

2011-12-07T14:17:00.004+05:30

Let's start with 'Rockstar', shall we?

My expectations from this movie were sky high given that it was an Imtiaz Ali movie. I really liked 'Jab We Met' when I saw it - for the first and last time, thankfully. I refuse to watch a million re-runs of it on TV! I found Geet's character very endearing and it changed my opinion of Kareena Kapoor to a great extent. I still don't like her, but I've moved on from not being able to stand her at all. Didn't quite like 'Love Aaj Kal' but I suspect that had more to do with Deepika Padukone than the story itself

The reason I like Imtiaz Ali is because he is a good story-teller and his movies have a certain simplicity and innocence about them. The fact he's from the homeland helps of course :)

With a name like 'Rockstar', images of an unshaven Ranbir Kapoor singing in front of a thousand-strong crowd and a song like 'Sadda Haq' that is likely to become the anthem of a generation of people who are frustrated with everything that is wrong with their country, I was expecting the movie to be about a, well, 'rockstar'. In the metaphorical sense of the word. A rebel who inspires an entire generation of young people to fight for a cause. But the movie turned out to be the story of a guy who fucks up his life for a girl who doesn't know what she wants in life and who dies in the end anyway (whaaaaaa???)

The music is mostly uninspiring and not at all Rockstar-ish, except for 'Sadda Haq'. The story is convoluted and has you clutching your hair in frustration. Nargis Fakhri is even more stone faced than Deepika Padukone and can't talk like a normal human being - her definition of 'acting' is yelling every dialogue out at the same pitch. She can't talk normally.

The person who walks away with all the accolades is Ranbir Kapoor. This must be the first serious role of his life and you can tell he's given everything he had to it. His character is really intense, yet there isn't a scene where he goes over the top and makes you cringe. Worth watching only for him, stay away if you're an Imtiaz Ali fan. I guess it's too late in the day to be saying that :)

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The Dirty Picture

Have you watched it? Did you like it?

Do I need to say that Vidya Balan hits the ball out of the park with this one and blows all the competition away with her acting chops? She is the hero of the movie, even Naseeruddin Shah pales in comparison to her. Who was the last actress one could say this about...Smita Patil? Shabana Azmi?

To play Silk Smitha on screen - at least as she is depicted in this movie - required balls and Vidya Balan has taken it head-on. Forget the acting - that's kind of a given when it comes to her. But to be as uninhibited as she is on screen - with her boobs and love handles all over the screen and faking and thrashing around on a bed in a red negligee, faking an orgasm...I'm not sure many actresses would have been comfortable doing that. Or pulled it off with such aplomb.

The movie isn't perfect. It's got its share of flaws and WTF moments, such as an extra song and a love track that is least convincing and doesn't go anywhere. But it is definitely a very engaging story. And there's the 'Ooh la la ooh la la' song that's stuck in my head even 3 days after I watched the movie. Bappi Lahiri rocks, doesn't he?

Dunaden

2011-11-02T15:05:00.004+05:30

...is the name of the horse that won "the race that stops a nation". That's the Melbourne Cup.

I've been hearing about the Melbourne Cup since I moved to Australia five months ago, as one of my clients is a sports and race betting major. It's one of the biggest sporting events of the year in Australia, with horses being flown in from across the world and a crowd of close to 100,000 turning up to watch the race.

To be honest, I've never been into the races. Maybe because we don't have too many horse races in India apart from the one in Bombay at the Mahalaxmi Race Course, and that too is known more because of the socialites and the fashion parade than the race itself. But Aussies are different - they love their sport and nothing comes between them and their sport. Except beer.

A public holiday was declared in the state of Victoria (that Melbourne is a part of) to honour the races. And the rest of Australia pretended that the race was taking place in their own town/city. Women everywhere wore dresses and fancy hats, work stopped at 2pm and pubs got flooded. The party continued well into the night even though the race was over by 3.15pm. Don't ask me why.

Our office too came to a standstill between 2-3.15pm. Pizzas were ordered, beer bottles were plonked on the table, and people started betting on their favourite horses. The more risk taking of the lot went to the betting outlet to gamble away hundreds of dollars.

The race itself was enthralling! The gallopping horses were a beauty to look at. So fit, so lean, so well cared for. And they must've been running really fast because they covered more than 3km in less than 5 minutes! It was the closest win in the 151 year history of the Melbourne Cup. Dunaden, a French horse, defeated the English Red Cadeaux by 1 millimetre! That too because she decided to stick her nose out in the end to win!

Besides being gorgeous, these horses are also pretty smart! I wonder how much it must cost the owners to maintain them. But then, Dunaden's owner won $3 million from the Melbourne Cup victory alone, I'm guessing that's enough and more to go around for the year.

A Sunny Afternoon and My First Ever Baby Shower

2011-10-29T15:03:00.005+05:30

I went to my first baby shower today. It was a girly affair and everyone was wearing happy summer dresses given it was a warm and sunny day.

The lunch took place at the Burnt Orange cafe in the upscale neighbourhood of Mosman, by the Sydney Harbour. The choice of location inspired by the fact that the mother is a red-head, so everyone's betting on a ginger baby!

Burnt Orange is a cafe and retail store overlooking the Sydney Harbour. The cafe is semi open air, so while you're sipping your champagne and having your lunch, you can look on to the sea and the hills in the distance, and wave to ferries passing by, taking people to the Northern Beaches.

It's an idyllic setting, perfect for a lazy weekend lunch. They let you stay as long as you want, and there's even a small shop where you can buy some trendy but over-priced stuff.

The baby shower itself was most fun. But then with 12 girls around how can it not be fun? The champagne flowed and the food was delicious, followed by coffee 'n' cake (everyone except me was British). There were many games played including one that involved a big cut out of a uterus with the mum's picture stuck on to it (denoting the egg) and the dad's head stuck on to sperms that everyone had to take a shot at sticking closest to the egg, blindfolded of course.

The party was very well organized. There were pastel coloured balloons with 'It's a boy!' written on them, tiny blue toys that rattled on shaking were spread across the table, and the mum-to-be was made to wear a beautiful blue tiara and a giant pacifier necklace.

I didn't take pictures of the view from the Burnt Orange cafe but I'll leave you with a few pictures from their website.

The cafe

The view from the cafe

The shop

Only at Oz

2011-10-18T07:42:00.003+05:30

Will you find...

People who go for a jog across the Harbour Bridge during lunch hour!

Offices that want to name their meeting/conference rooms after drinks!

Offices that sponsor unlimited alcohol once every 2 weeks as part of their "Happy Employees" initiative!

Colleagues who want to take your friend, who's visiting from overseas and who they don't know, out for drinks!

2011-10-10T15:50:00.001+05:30

But you see
It's not me
It's not my family
In your head
In your head
They are fighting

With their tanks
And their bombs
And their bombs
And their guns
In your head
In your head
They are crying

In your head
In your head
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie
Hey, hey, hey

What's in your head
In your head
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie

2011-09-24T18:17:00.008+05:30

I live in the City, an area that is dominated by Asians (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese). I work in the rich and very White neighbourhood of North Sydney, and the only suburbs I have explored uptil now have mainly been affluent ones such as Manly, Mosman, Balmoral, Bondi etc. But of course any big city that has centuries of history behind it has a variety of neighbourhoods ranging from affluent to grungy to trendy to quirky to cosmopolitan to the 'underbelly'. Take London, New York, Paris, Mumbai for example. Sydney is no different.

I went to an inner city suburb called Newtown today. I'd heard a lot about this suburb from friends and people of work who live in and around there. About how cool and hip and bustling it is. It's a suburb that used to be working class but has now evolved into a grunge-trendy place dotted with vintage shops, cafes from all cultures, artists, writers, musicians, goths, punks, migrants, and Victorian terrace houses.

As I said it's grunge - the buildings look like warehouses. They are run down and in need of renovation. There's graffiti art on the walls. But the vintage shops, cafes, bookshops, music stores and antique stores give Newtown a very trendy feel. The Victorian terrace houses have been there since the early 1900s and remind of the cottages and villas of Goa.

I didn't have my camera on me but I'll leave you with some pictures of Newtown from the net that will give you a feel of what I'm talking about.

King Street, Newtown

Victorian Terrace House

Photo courtesy: http://www.crowdedworld.com/ / http://www.australianterrace.com/ / http://www.sydney.com/ / http://www.las.new-england.net.au/

Post Office

2011-09-22T15:23:00.004+05:30

You read it right. I am blogging about a post office. Oh dear...

I haven't lost it. If you can ignore the fact that I get inside the lift and forget to press my floor. The reason I'm blogging about a post office is because today I saw the cutest post office ever!

You're thinking 'post office and cute?' Right? Post offices aren't supposed to be cute. They're supposed to be these bare-bone quiet places with grumpy clerks (what are they called again?) that you go in & out of.

This is the post office near my office in Sydney. From the outside it looks like one of those post-colonial buildings that's trying to be a colonial building. Once you climb up those stairs and enter through those brown doors, you'll be in the cutest room ever!

This post office sells greeting cards and stationery! And other things that don't excite me such as comics and video games. But let's talk about stationery...this post office has the cutest pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pens, note books, stickers and other knick knacks on display! All brightly coloured from pink to magenta to yellow to purple to green and aqua blue. Oh it's beeeeeeautiful in there! Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture of the inside but I felt like a kid in a toy shop surrounded by all that adorable stationery.

You know what, Aussies are fun loving people. It takes people with a fun mindset and who don't take life too seriously to come up with the idea of making a place as functional and morose as a post office a place that makes you smile :)

Image courtesy: www.localbusiness.com

Bodyguard

2011-09-04T15:26:00.004+05:30

Can I start by saying that Salman Khan is THE Dude?

Well, I just did.

No other actor can get away with the inanity that he does, even though he can't "act" to save his life. But I still like him. I like him because he doesn't give a damn about what people think/say about him, and goes on doing what he wants to do. That takes courage in an industry where image is everything and people pay a good amount of money to project the right image.

Anyway, on to the movie. Lovely Singh is a bodyguard who gives "guarantee along with warranty" and treats "royalty with loyalty", or some shit like that. He's assigned to protect the daughter of a very powerful man living in an obscure little town somewhere between Mumbai and Pune (don't ask questions), who faces a threat to her life from some of her dad's enemies. The girl is embarassed to be escorted by a bodyguard to college everyday (she studies Management at Symbiosis apparently), and so to get rid of him she starts distracting him by giving him blank calls from a 'private number' and claiming to be some Chhaya who is in love with him.

She does fall in love with him in due course, while he sees her as someone way beyond his league. Two hours of cat and mouse games between them and a couple of attempts on the girl's life later, the villains are dead, the father thinks the bodyguard is trying to elope with his daughter, and there's a twist in the story.

Like all of Salman Khan's movies these days, this movie too is full TP. A continuation of Dabangg if you will. Salman Khan is in his element (mujhpe ek ehsaan karna, ki mujhpe koi ehsaan na karna is priceless!), the villians come across looking like jokers, and the only person who appears to be acting is Kareena Kapoor (within the limitations of her role). The music by Himesh Reshammiya is forgettable. BUT there is actually a story in the movie! Hallelujah!

I heard some people in the theater cribbing about how they should've trusted the review that gave the movie 2.5 stars and stayed away. Like dude, who goes to watch a Salman Khan movie based on reviews?!! You KNOW what a Salman Khan movie is going to be like. People who watch his movies don't read the reviews. You've missed the whole point, mate.

Anyway, while we're on the topic of people who go to watch movies in theaters...why are Indian kids the most misbehaved of the lot? They'll be the ones throwing tantrums, wailing, running helter skelter, and being a nuisance to everybody in the theater. And their stupid parents, instead of disciplining them, will look at them adoringly as if they're doing something worthy of winning the Nobel Prize. Seriously, you'll never find non-Indian kids behaving so atrociously in public.

And then the mothers, to get rid of the kid, will send him/her to say hi to some random "aunty" or "uncle" in the theater. Whenever such kids come towards me at theaters or restaurants, I just glare at them because all I want to do is give them one tight slap and send them crying back home, and then glare at his/her parents too. Seriously, when will Indians learn not to be a nuisance to others?

2011-09-03T16:44:00.003+05:30

What can be the most frustrating thing if you're not a cook and you're trying to cook something to satisfy your craving?

The thing you're cooking turning out a big flop or not working out at all!!

I've been craving kadhi for quite a few days. Not the Punjabi kadhi with gram flour pakoras but the Gujrati one...lighter yellow in colour, thinner consistency (like soup) and flavoured with curry leaves and green chillies!

Guess what happened once I started cooking it...the curd curdled!!! Grrrrrrrrr.....

I ran out of yogurt and curry leaves so couldn't give it another go. Then I went online and figured out my mistake. 1) I was using low fat yogurt which does not have the emulsifiers of full-fat/regular yogurt and tends to curdle when cooked, 2) I took yogurt straight out of the fridge and started cooking it whereas I should've used yogurt at room temperature.

The recipe I was referring to used low fat yogurt and didn't mention anything about the possibility it could curdle, but I'm asuming the woman is a domestic Goddess that can make the impossible possible, I'm totally not. So I will be wiser tomorrow (hopefully) and give it another shot because I really really want to have goddamn kadhi. Oh, how I miss my cook from back home :((

Life sucks. Thank God there's chocolate.

And Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

2011-08-26T17:07:00.003+05:30

I don't understand why people love to bash up big corporations while happily consuming their products or working for them.

Take Coca Cola for instance - it's probably one of the most abused companies in the world. It's considered "cool" to be anti-Coca Cola because it's this mammoth company that sells harmful stuff to people. But that doesn't stop people from consuming Coke or any other carbonated beverages.

Or Nike. They were once accused of serious human rights violations as most of their merchandise was manufactured in sweat shops in developing countries. But that didn't stop people from buying their products.

So why don't we stop and take a reality check? The truth is these companies are just doing business, and if we have an ethical problem with the nature of their business or what they're doing we should have the courage to boycott their products. Whenever someone bashes Coke I want to ask them if they can assure me they haven't bought a single can/bottle of Coke since they started feeling the way they do about the company - not even on the hottest, sultriest of days. If they can assure me that's the case I will respect their opinion (I still don't agree with it because I don't think it's right to blame companies for the stupidity of consumers, but I respect it). But you can't go around bashing companies and consuming their products at the same time because it's convenient for you.

I come across people who trash the corporate sector all the time. Truth is that the same corporate sector pays our salaries. The standard of living we enjoy, the things we can buy, the places we can travel to are all thanks to the corporate sector. You needn't be in love with it but you need to realize why you're able to afford your lifestyle. Are you willing to give it all up and live a much less privileged existence? No? Then shut up.

The other thing I don't understand - and I expect to get a lot of flak for it - is our attitude towards cigarette companies. I don't smoke, never wanted to. Cigarette fumes make me cough and I wish people I love and care for didn't smoke either. Yet I think the way cigarette manufacturers are discriminated against is very unfair.

They are a legal business, then why are they not allowed to advertise like other legal businesses? First their right to communicate with their consumers was taken away from them, then they were forced to put ghastly pictures of people with mouth and tongue cancer on their packs (that hasn't dissuaded smokers from buying cigarettes but that's another story). And now the only means of communication remaining with them - the pack - is being taken away from them in Australia (there may soon be a legislation forcing tobacco companies to plain package their cigarettes).

I read a report on one of the companies planning to sue the Australian government for discrimination if the legislation is indeed passed, and rightly so. If the government truly believes cigarette companies are diabolical, then they should be banned. But they never will be because the tobacco industry yields the highest amount of taxes for the government among all industrues. You can't give a company the same status as other companies and then discriminate against them. Yes, these companies are selling products that can kill people but they're selling these products because people want to buy them. Like with everything else, I believe there is supply because their is demand. The onus is on the consumer to know what's good for them and what's not.

2011-08-21T16:22:00.002+05:30

What was the last cool thing you did?

This weekend I did one of the coolest things I've ever done - I did a flashmob!!

For those who don't know a flashmob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an act for a brief time (usually a dance), then disperse. Trust me when I say it's one of the most awesome things you can ever do.

I did it along with people from my company as a way of introducing ourselves to one of our clients. Quite an original idea, I must say. This is how it works: people are hanging around at a public place doing their thing, then all of a sudden you hear music. One person randomly breaks into a dance, then a few others join in, while people around are gobsmacked and have no idea what's going on! Then the remaining people join at short intervals until everyone who's part of the mob has joined in. And when it's over, people disperse in all directions like nothing happened. Oh, it's awesome!!!

Cars honked at us, people shouted out to us, passers by stopped and started filming. The Daily Telegraph even tweeted about it.

We danced to 'Can you feel it (MJ), 'Just Dance' (Lady Gaga), 'Fireworks' (Katy Perry) and 'Dynamite' (Taio Cruz). My favorite part was being able to do some of Michael Jackson's signature moves, such as the "Thriller walk" and the pelvic thrusts. Unfortunately, the crotch grab was dropped at the last minute in favour of the pelvic thrust given we were doing it for a client, but 30 women doing MJ's "crotch grab" in the middle of a street would've been pretty awesome I think.

We had so much fun practising at Hyde Park before the final act. The English Junior Football Team was playing nearby and about 20 of them came over and danced with us. And when we started doing the "Thriller" walk, they went "Oh, is this from thrilla?" Gorgeous!

All I'm trying to say is, flashmobs are a fabulous way to spend a Saturday morning. I'm so going to do it again. We're planning to do a Janet Jackson flashmob on the day she performs in Sydney, and am already looking for some MJ tribute flashmobs happening in Sydney that I can be a part of.

Since my video hasn't been uploaded yet, I'll leave you guys with a couple of really cool flashmobs I've found on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKmn_pgYqjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebcfFg2ihYw

Have fun.

2011-08-18T16:20:00.005+05:30

It's funny...Australia was never on my list of dream travel destinations (I've always been obsessed with Europe). It was a country/continent I thought I'd visit when I was done to my heart's content with Europe. But now that I'm living here, I'm coming to realize how blessed Australia is with natural beauty. And I've only just seen Sydney!

Sydney has a beautiful harbour - the water is a dark shade of blue and when sunlight falls on it, it glitters like little jewels. The dark blue water is dotted with little white sail boats...it's the prettiest and most calming sight ever!

The Sydney Harbour Bridge stretches across the water majestically. It connects North Sydney and the northern suburbs to the Sydney CBD, which is also referred to as the City. Beside the Harbour Bridge sits an example of path-breaking architecture - the Sydney Opera House. Honestly, I was a little underwhelmed by it the first time I saw it. It's one of the most hyped monuments in the world, and is a symbol of Australia, and when you see it for the first time it doesn't all come together for you. Then I went back to it, went closer and realized what a feat Jorn Utzon had pulled off when he designed and oversaw the construction of the Opera House.

There are many neighbourhoods in Sydney, such as Kirribilli and Milsons Point, that offer stunning views of the Sydney harbour along with the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. I lived at Milsons Point for a month but never made the trek (though it was hardly a trek). Plan to get down there one of these days.

Last weekend I went to Bondi beach. The water is a light aquamarine and so clear, you can see the bottom of the sea bed. I'm too lazy to describe it further in words so I'll leave you with a few pictures.

We did the walk from Bondi to Bronte beach, which goes through rocks that have been eroded into beautiful patterns by salt-laden air.

I'm already scouting places to visit in Australia over my long weekends :)

And I Say to Myself, What a Wonderful World!

2011-08-14T08:15:00.005+05:30

One of my favourite things to do on Saturday and Sunday mornings is to tune into news from across the globe, in the respective languages of those countries (including our very own Hindi news by NDTV India :)

Call me someone who doesn't have a life - and honestly, I'd rather not to have a life on weekend mornings - but these news shows keep me more engaged than any other program on Australian television, with the exception of MC Aus of course.

The languages range from French to Italian to Greek to Portugese to Spanish to Dutch to Turkish to Arabic to Russian to Estonian to Bulgarian. I don't understand any of it, except French a little bit. But I like to have it playing in the background while I potter about the house. My favourite part comes after the new programs are over. It's called 'What a World' - they play western classical music and show random live shots of cities across the world. Both famous cities and obscure little towns. Cities steeped in history that have me dying to visit them, and places I may never get a chance to visit because they generally don't fall on a tourist's radar. I can watch the program for hours. Unfortunately, it lasts only ten minutes :(

It's amazing how much Aussie TV sucks otherwise. The reality shows are crap, and the soaps and sitcoms are years behind even Star World India!! Now that takes quite a bit of doing.
Oh, there IS another show I like though. It's a morning show called 'Sunrise' and is an amalgamation of all sorts of things - news, entertainment, sports, updates on financial markets, gossip, other general stuff and chit chat. It's a feel good show with plenty of jokes and laughter. And the chemistry between the presenters is palpable. Mel is this really feminine, emotional, caring woman and Kochi (pronounced kau-shi) is this goofy guy who cracks really silly but endearing jokes and is even funnier when he's trying to be serious and give financial advice! And Australia loves the two.

There are some things about Australians that baffle as well as intrigue me. For instance, I don't understand why they would let food inflation go out the roof but won't import fruits and vegetables from other countries. They are so paranoid about agricultural diseases coming into Australia that they'd rather bananas cost $14 a dozen (I'm sorry I can't get over the price of bananas in this country!) and the market be out of chillies and tomatoes, which to me is ridiculous.

I am yet to see another people who are as proud of everything grown and made within their country as Australians are. Every Australian brand, whether they are into food or clothing or furniture or telecom, emphasizes on it's 100% Australian heritage in all its communication. I used to wonder why this was the case and I think I may have finally understood their psychology.

Australia is so far away from everyone else and to be honest, the world never cared much about them either. Inspite of that, they have managed to develop to the same level as any other country in Europe or America. Their isolation from the rest of the world and limited population hasn't stopped them from being self-sufficient, and that may be the reason the Aussies are so proud of themselves.

2011-08-09T17:16:00.003+05:30

And we thought riots happened in Mumbai and Calcutta only!

What's happening in London is so unnecessary and mindless. It may have started as a protest against the killing of an individual but has now blown up into what can be called "recreational rioting". People with nothing better to do with their time are pouring on to the streets, destroying buildings and setting fire to anything they can put their eyes on.

The scariest part is that most rioters are young enough to be in high school - one of the boys arrested was 11 years old!! What are their parents doing? Why are they letting their kids run mad around the streets of London looting and plundering? Can't they keep their kids at home???

Another thing that shocked me was that the rioters are using Twitter, Facebook and BBM to alert each other about their whereabouts and discuss new areas to target. This is unprecedented - looks like someone was paying attention to the revolution in Egypt. Isn't it ironic - the same social media that helped a country overthrow it's tyrannical dictator is helping ignorant people in another country ruin one of the most historic cities in the world. It's saddening to say the least.

I can imagine what the London police might be facing - it's like their worst nightmare come true. I think they should arrest as many rioters as they can and bring them to trial - if these kids are old enough to commit crimes, they're certainly old enough to face punishment. I hope things calm down soon.

Masterchef Australia Season 3

2011-08-01T17:21:00.007+05:30

BIG FAT SPOILER ALERT: Masterchef Australia Season 3 is about to culminate soon (sob sob). It's finals week already! But they start airing it in India tomorrow, so those of you who are really into MC Aus, like me, and don't want to ruin the suspense please stop reading right now.

I love Masterchef Australia. I guess I can't say it enough. I've done quite a few posts on it already, and I try my best not to miss an episode.

I don't like to cook but there are a number of reasons I love the show. One, I've realized that looking at food on television comforts and de-stresses me. I love the vibrant colours of the dishes being cooked, I can imagine the flavours and the aroma, and that has a very calming effect on me.

Second, MC Aus is probably the best reality show I've watched in terms of its spirit. It's all about constructive feedback, not about criticizing and demotivating people or sensationalism. Of course it has a fair bit of drama but none of it irritates. The judges genuinely try to mentor the contestants - they aren't just sitting on high horses and passing judgement on the efforts of amateur home cooks who are aspiring to become chefs. They want the contestants to learn and realize what they're capable of.

On an aside, my favorite is Gary. Who's yours?

Third, the format is really engaging. It keeps you hooked. The challenges this season are much more difficult than the previous two seasons and that made me realize just how good the contestants this year are. My all-time favourite was Marion from Season 2 - she was so amazingly talented. She was supposed to work on a series of Asian sauces and marinades after Masterchef, and I kept hoping that her line of products would make their way to grocery stores in India that stock imported products. And now that I'm here I see her on TV, I see her sauces and meals on supermarket shelves. The other day I saw Jimmy's products at Coles, with his smiling face - which I know quite a few of my friends are a fan of - on the packaging! It made me so happy to see real-life people who were on a TV show and who I adored doing well for themselves.

Coming back to this year's Masterchef, there has been such a variety in the challenges. There are a few challenges that I really enjoyed and remember off the top of my head.

There was a team relay challenge where the first member of each team had 25 minutes in the kitchen with the recipes for 6 dishes. The recipes were then taken away, and the person had only 60 seconds to bring the next team member up to speed on what had to be cooked, what was already done and still needed to be done, and the next member then had 20 minutes cooking time before he/she had to brief the next member on the processes and hand the kitchen over to them. No prompting allowed, so if you didn't brief the person well enough the first time around, you would have to silently watch them making disastrous mistakes and send the entire team into elimination. Once the challenge was over, the contestants were surprised to learn that the recipes belonged to Nigella, who would be judging them!

There was another episode where the contestants had to make burger, fries and a milkshake. Except the challenge was set by the mind blowing Heston Blumenthal, which meant that the contestants had to prepare their own bun, cheese, tomato ketchup, fries and an incredibly complex burger patty. The other two episodes I really enjoyed took place in NYC. In one of them, each contestant was sent to a different part of NYC - such as Harlem which is predominantly African-American and Bronx which is a tough Italian neighbourhood - to spend a day there and create a dish that was inspired by that neighbourhood. The person who created the worst dish would spend the rest of the week in lock down (inside their NYC hotel) and would emerge only at the end of the week for an elimination challenge. This episode gave me my first favourite of the season - Billy. He was sent to the Bronx, which is supposed to be a hot bed of Italian mafia in the US, and he represented that in the way he plated up his dish - he spattered red sauce very artistically all over his plate to represent blood!

The other NYC episode I really enjoyed was when the judges appeared to the contestants on the electronic displays at Times Square and told them that they would be cooking for a dinner party for chefs. The contestants were broken off into pairs. Each team had to find a clue directing them to a restaurant where the head chef would show them how to cook the recipe, and then cook it themselves. This challenge involved running across NYC and had to be completed in a very short time frame.

This season of MC has had its share of controversies as well. One of the contestants was thrown out of the competition b/c he sneaked in a smartphone into the house while the others had no means of communicating with the outside world and/or looking up recipes. Then there were allegations that the contestants are allowed to plate up their dishes even after their time is up, so the dishes can look good on camera. And then there's this online hate wave going on against one of the contestants, Dani, who has made it to the top 4 but I would have to agree with people who say she doesn't belong there.

Most people don't like her b/c they find her very annoying - she's loud and in-your-face and doesn't have the talent to make up for it. She makes the stupidest of mistakes, is the most inconsistent of all contestants - she is brilliant on some days but such days are few and far between, and mostly she has bad days when she cries to gain sympathy from the judges. Unfortunately, she's the only contestant in MC Aus to have won 2 immunity pins. One of them was won genuinely cooking off against a professional chef while the other was a joke - she beat the winner of 'Celebrity Masterchef'. She used that immunity pin to get to the top 4, and that turned people off her even more b/c other more talented people had to go home.

I can't wait to get my friends' reactions once MC Aus starts in India. It's a good season...you'll enjoy it. And don't forget to tell me who your favourite contestant is. Only, I'll know their fate before you do! :D

2011-07-14T16:18:00.004+05:30

So I go to sleep and everything is alright with the world. And I wake up to news of bomb blasts in Mumbai. Yet again.

Seriously, I've lost count of the number of terrorist strikes the city has been a victime of. Lost count of the number of times the city's famous "spirit" has been evoked. Lost count of the number of governments that have gone out on the back of these strikes. Yet Mumbai gets battered, time and again.

The drill has started. America has condemned the strike. Our central government has expressed regret, the Home Minister has washed his hands off the responsibility saying he had warned Mumbai Police of possible terror attacks, and the Mumbai Police are as usual clueless about how such a thing happened (you'd think they would at least have an excuse for non-action pat down by now). And the Government of Maharashtra says it's not sure whether this was a terror attack or gang war. Really?

Goes to show that nothing will happen this time around either. At the most Maharashtra will get a new Chief Minister.

The Australian media does not cover India. The TV channels here are so involved with what's happening in their own country, they don't really care which part of the world is going to hell. Unless it's the UK. They care about the UK. In fact they have been following Will & Kate around the globe every single day since the two got married. But terrorist strikes in other countries get 20 seconds of air time.

Well, maybe they're not to blame. Australia is so far removed from everyone else - and to be fair to them the rest of the world doesn't care much about them either - that they've learnt to be self-sufficient. Good on them I guess.

*****

So this woman I know...went to work yesterday, went into labour around lunch time, hailed down a taxi, checked herself into the hospital and had a C-Section done - all on her own. Her partner was out of town and by the time he was back, the surgery was already underway. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

*****

That's it for now. I'm having a bad sinus attack. Have been on decongestants since morning. The weather really needs to warm up. And the icy winds need to go take a chill pill (ironic!). And the sun needs to work harder. I NEED SUMMER. NOW.

2011-07-10T06:37:00.003+05:30

An incident that happened yesterday has me upset and seething.

I was in the bus with a couple of Indian friends of mine, one of whom was seated between a person who I later realized had some form of mental disability and his lady friend.

My friend said something to me in Hindi and I replied. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw the guy smile at me so I smiled back (till this point I hadn't realized he had a disability). And that's when his friend took off on me and my friend - she accused us of making fun of her friend in "our own language", saying it was so obvious the way I looked at him and rolled my eyes (which I didn't) that we were laughing at his expense!

There are two sides to this - one that while in a foreign country we should avoid speaking in Hindi (or a language that people around us don't understand) in public places, which I try and do as much as I can. But there's the other voice in me that says I have the liberty to speak in my mother tongue if I wish to, and no one should have the right to question me or accuse me of something based on a conversation they don't understand.

Since the incident I've been trying to give the woman the benefit of doubt - she's probably defensive about her friend all the time. But I still think she was out of line accusing us of something she couldn't have been sure of.

I was too stunned to react then, and when I gathered my wits I tried explaining to her that we weren't talking about her friend and rolling our eyes. But now that I think about it, I should probably have given her a piece of my mind.

Does this incident reek of racism, do you think?

2011-07-08T18:51:00.005+05:30

I get amazed at how selfish people can be. There's a girl that I've met through some friends. She usually hangs out with us.

A friend of mine from Melbourne was visiting a couple of weekends ago and we planned to go to a restaurant that I've wanted to go to for a long time. Like I really want to go there. This woman refused to go because she found it expensive (I suppose the bill would've come to approx. $30-35 per person, which is a little bit expensive, but then it's virtually impossible to have a quality dining experience in Sydney for any less than that. A meal at a very mediocre restaurant would cost you $20-25).

So we ended up going to some random place that no one wanted to go to just because the food was cheap enough for her. And today, when someone offered to take her out for dinner, she promptly suggested that restaurant (the one I wanted to go to)! She even went to the extent of calling them and reserving a table!! I was aghast!!

Now, I completely respect the fact that people may have different financial motives than me. Most of the times we don't know what their real financial situation is. But this woman is earning a dollar salary and she NEVER goes out for lunch/dinner/movie/shopping. She doesn't even buy coffee, so it's not like she's bad with money and is trying to get some financial discipline in her life. You'd think that when a friend is visiting from out-of-town, people would at least have the courtest to put that person before themselves.

And this woman will ask me anything she fancies about my personal life, and consider it her birth right to give me unsolicited advice on my relationship status and my life decisions, but today when I asked her something in response to something she said (she said she couldn't wait to go back to India and I simply asked why), she snapped at me saying "she has her personal reasons".

And oh my God, she is so dominating! It's come to the point where I don't like to hang out with her anymore.

She'll walk around telling people what to do and what not to do - how they should cook their egg (scrambled vs boiled vs omelet), when they should open and shut the window to THEIR room, which type of biryani they should eat, how everyone should love milk because she and her husband do. Basically she thinks that everything she and her husband like/do is THE way to go and everyone should like/do the same things. In fact she speaks so frequently for her husband I often feel sorry for him - she may be forcing her way through his life as well. But then he made the decision to marry her so maybe I don't feel sorry for him anymore. I do feel sorry for the kids she will have though - poor things don't have a choice of mother.

Like, no thank you! I will have my eggs exactly as I want to and if you have a problem with that, go shove some eggs down your husband's throat. Or better still, lay a few. And stop telling me what I should or shouldn't do.

Gaaaah...I think I'll just go to sleep now before the buzz from the wine wears off. Have a great weekend people!!

What Is Your DISC Profile?

2011-07-05T17:57:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer: As far as I'm aware information relating to the DISC profile is available in the public domain. In case this post violates any copyright laws, please let me know and I'll be happy to take it off the blog.

I recently underwent a people management training at work where we learnt a number of managerial skills such as how to motivate your team members, conflict management, the right way of giving feedback (there is a right and a wrong way believe it or not. 'Hey, great job!' just doesn't cut it anymore) etc.. But the part I found the most fascinating - and useful - was the DISC profile.

DISC is the way of classifying people into 4 broad groups based on their style of working and the way they behave at the work place. So you have people who are high on 'Dominance', which contrary to perception is a positive quality to possess at work since people in this group are focussed on results. They are confident, fast-paced, decisive, action oriented and constantly challenge themselves as well as others. They don't like to get involved in the details and processes, and are always looking for the bigger picture. They have little patience for routine, mundane tasks and are champions at the art of delegating.

Then there are people who belong to the 'Influence' category. These people are highly sociable, gregarious and complete people's people. They are also the most persuasive of the lot and use their persuasion skills as the key tool for succeeding in their careers. They are motivated by social recognition and fear disapproval and the loss of influence and attention.

Then there are the 'Steady' ones. These people are strong team players whose style of working revolves around cooperation and collaboration. They tend to be good listeners and think of the greater good of the team before an individual. The downside of belonging to this group is that you may be mistaken for someone who lacks the confidence to act on your own and is slow to make decisions.

And finally there is the 'Conscientious' group. People belonging to this category are extremely methodical and detail-oriented. They are perfectionists who need to have every minute detail in place before they take a decision. They are motivated by quality and accuracy and are afraid of being wrong or taking wrong decisions because they missed out on details.

The D's and I's typically tend to be extroverts where as the S' and C's are mostly introverts. There are exceptions to this of course.

According to the DISC profile, most people tend to fall into two categories with one being the dominant trait and the other secondary. For instance, a person can be a Di which means they are predominantly a D but also possess many traits of an I.

At the same time, we can all stretch into the remaining two categories depending on the situation we are in or the people we are interacting with. For instance, there is a girl in my office who is an Sc at work - calm, quiet and diligent. But when she's playing a competitive sport she is a total D, leading her team, yelling out instructions and screaming at people when they mess up!

The way we arrived at our DISC profiles was very interesting too. Before the training we were asked to take an online test where we were presented with various work-related scenarios and had to choose the response that came closest to the way we would react/handle that situation.
On the day of the training we played a card game where we were each given 6 cards with words written on them - attributes/personality traits belonging to each of the D, I, S and C categories. We first had to discard 2 cards that contained words that least described us, and then we had to move around the room exchanging cards with other people in the group until we arrived at the 4 cards that described us the best.

Most people ended up with cards of 2 of the 4 DISC categories, which became our dominant and secondary styles (depending on the number of cards of each category we ended up with). We were then given the results of the online test we had taken and 90% of us had the same DISC profile that we arrived at ourselves!

Now, I generally don't like to categorize people as I don't believe slotting people into boxes works - human behaviour is way more complicated than that. But of all the other personality/work personality tests I've taken or read about, DISC seems to be the most accurate because it has 4 very clearly defined but broad groups that each allow a variety of behaviours, but also allow people of one style to exhibit certain traits of all the other styles all the time or depending on the situation.

As a manager, I found the DISC profile very useful. I've been working for almost 8 years now and in this time I have had to deal with all sorts of team members and bosses. I've had team members who have driven me up the wall by their slow pace of working, their refusal to take instructions from me, their manager, by always getting so caught up in details so that they completely miss the bigger picture etc.

At the same time I've had bosses who were extremely cautious about what they said, forever questioning & critiquing and very demanding. DISC has helped me realize why they were the way they were and how I could have improved my working relationship with them and handled them/the situation better.

Even now I have a very diverse group of people working with me and I know how to interact with them so we don't drive each other batty and get the optimum productivity. I also know which way I tend to sway (in terms of my style of working) and when I need to act in another way.

I've rambled on and on about this and I'm way past my target bed time for today :-)
Why don't you tell me what you think your DISC profile would be? You could choose one for the sake of simplicity, or choose a dominant and a secondary style. Game on!

2011-06-30T16:14:00.003+05:30

Warning: This is a major crib post so if you're feeling annoyingly happy (annoying for others, not for yourself) or are pissed off with people in general, you may be better off not reading beyind this.

The past couple of weeks have been so hectic! I've been running around since I moved to Sydney. For one, I need to be at work latest by 9 every morning, so I'm getting an hour & a half less of sleep every night. Less sleep makes me cranky and perpetually exhausted. And just when I had started feeling settled into my service apartment, it was time to move house.

I moved in on Saturday and since then I've spent all my evenings buying things for the house, so I can set it up and make it feel like home. To be fair, it's a reasonably nice house - fairly big for one person, fully furnished with stuff from IKEA, and very conveniently situated right in the heart of the City so that it's a 30 second walk from the bus stop, 2 mins from the train station and a couple of minutes from 2 of the biggest supermarkets in Australia. So why am I complaining? Well, it doesn't FEEL like home. And it's obviously not as luxurious as the service apartment I was staying at, neither does it have a harbour view :(

Australia is so far away from the rest of the world that traveling anywhere is a hassle. A round trip to India costs approx. $1500 (Rs 65-75k) if you book 3 months ahead of your travel date, and the connectivity is so poor that unless you're supremely lucky you will end up with a 10 hour stop over in South East Asia! You can forget about traveling to Europe unless you have $2000-2500 lying spare to blow up on flight tickets and you get a kick out of flying (24 hours flying time to London). You would think that with the technology that we have access to today, life in Australia would be simple. It is a developed country after all. But the truth is that this is one strange country.

In many ways, Australia is ages behind other developed countries. Internet is shit expensive. So are fruits & vegetables because Australians won't open their economy to imports. They have a number of protectionist policies for their farmers & retailers, which is a good thing, but it also means that consumers pays ridiculously high prices for the basic necessities. If there's a flash flood in Queensland, which happens only every month, bananas will cost you $13 for a dozen. Which is beyond ridiculous, it's insane. It's cheaper to drive to work than take public transport. A 500ml bottle of Coke costs $3.50 and pizzas don't have enough sauce. Subway makes horrible sandwiches. Their coffee is too bitter and luke warm and they look at you like you've just escaped from an institution if you ask for milk & sugar (I have baristas offer to put chocolate in my coffee instead of sugar since sugar is high in calories. Really, since when did chocolate become health food?). And no one in this country seems to have heard of plastic bottles! (They still make glass bottles that you have to uncork & pop the lid of, to store water).

You know I'm thinking maybe Australia should increase its minimum education requirement from high school to college. They could certainly use a couple of Eureka! moments.

2011-06-28T18:16:00.004+05:30

They say that expectations kill relationships. But you can't have a relationship without expectations, can you? The same holds true for friendships, and that's one of the things that distinguishes friends from acquaintances.

I expect someone I consider a friend to be there for me when I need him/her, and I would do the same for them. But 31 years and I still err when it comes to separating my friends from acquaintances.

The key is to remember that there IS a reason why you aren't "friends" with someone you may have casually known for some time. People who're meant to be friends click at the first go. If you didn't - or it didn't occur to you both to take things to the next level - it's a sign that you should invest your emotions, time and energy elsewhere. If you pursue something that's not meant to be, you WILL be disappointed sooner rather than later.

I'm very lucky and blessed to have the friends that I do - friends who are there for me when I'm going through a rough time, who stick by me through thick or thin, who lift my spirits when I'm low, and who know when they need to put me before themselves because my need at that time may be greater than theirs. I try to be there for my friends as much as I can. And that is how the cookie crumbles.

Does Art Work for You?

2011-06-21T17:25:00.007+05:30

You see I'm just not an art person. I don't know how to appreciate art and honestly, I couldn't care less.

Yes, I can appreciate a painting and if that's something you're good at, I respect your talent. But it's the pseudo-intellectualization of art that escapes me completely. You draw a face and the person to whom it belongs has a story behind themselves which I'm supposed to guess, how?

And then there's the fact that no art exhibition is complete without a few paintings whose sole intention is to create shock value. All in the name of artistic freedom of course. And you see people, "art connoisseurs" supposedly, over-analyzing every single stroke of the brush, every color on the canvas as if they've been inside the painter's mind and back.

I'm sorry but art just doesn't work for me. Not even if there's unlimited free champagne involved. And definitely not when my feet are killing me from the high heel torture I've inflicted on them all day, and I'm expected to spend 2 hours walking around looking at paintings that make no sense to me and making small talk with strangers.

Nah, not happening.

A Fun Monday. They Happen.

2011-06-20T13:38:00.005+05:30

Going by the number of comments my posts have been getting of late, I don't think many people read my blog anymore :( I don't blame them though, I've hardly been updating this space of late. Anyway, on to happier things...

I had the most fun day at work today (apparently that IS possible) and I just have to share it with you guys!

So, today was 'Team Building Day' at work. Which means that clients were duly informed that we would be out for fun 'n' games and wouldn't be available all day. We were divided into teams and during the first half of the day, we had to write, script and shoot an ad!

The theme for the ad was 'the advantages of riding a horse to work' (!!!) and we were given props that we had to use in the ad - a horse that made strange noises if you pulled its ears and a bunch of Hula skirts.

Our ad revolved around bringing chivalry back. Horses are integral to that theme, of course. We did a very cool old Hollywood style British voice over talking about how men have, since time immemorial, been trying to impress women. In the medieval times they used to do it through chivalry, however over time they somehow seem to have lost their way and it's all about "getting laid" now. And they go about it in the most tacky, crass manner.

In line with the theme, we shot scenes where a White Knight slays a Dark Knight so he can rescue damsels in distress (with women wearing blond wigs and acting all helpless, of course), scenes with men opening doors and pulling out chairs for women.

Cut to modern times and we have men wearing Hula skirts and holding up 'Honk if you're horny' signs heckling women on the streets (basically to show how stupid men really are these days...LOL). The women were disgusted of course. We had a restaurant scene where the man pulls out a chair for his date but goes on to sit on it himself. And we had a scene in a club where men in pink cowboy hats are "accidentally" falling over women and trying to pick them up by using cheesy pick up lines.

We closed the ad with a scene where we showed a woman walking out of work and waiting for a taxi. A guy in a Porsche stops and offers her a ride, which she declines. And then a man gallops up to her on his horse and she rides with him into the sunset. Our closing line was "Riding a horse to work will not only get you noticed, it will also increase your chance of getting laid...because when it comes to choosing between a Porsche and a horse, she'll always choose the horse."

It makes no sense whatsoever, I know, but we had a blast shooting it b/c men in Hula skirts running down the streets and trying to act seductive is a hilarious sight.

During the second half, we were divided into teams again and we did a Masterchef Australia-like team challenge! We were taken to a restaurant called 'Cooking for Blokes' (need I elaborate further?) Each team was given a dish to prepare along with the recipe and the food we cooked was our lunch! My team made corn tortillas with a chorizo sausage filling (yumminess!), salsa & guacamole!

At the end of the challenge we had 2 starters, 2 main course dishes and a dessert! We also had judges and the team that came up with the best dish won a team dinner. There was also unlimited beer, champagne and sangrias, and by the time lunch ended we were all quite "happy" on spirits and were told that we didn't need to go back to work. Not a bad way to spend Monday at all, is it?

PS: I guess we're not done with the spirits yet. I'm now working on a half finished bottle of bubbly that's been lying in my fridge for a few days. Some days, you've just gotta let it flow. Cheers people!!

Finding My Groove

2011-06-19T14:09:00.000+05:30

Sydney is growing on me, and I'm sure the sparkling blue water of the harbour has got a lot to do with it.

I grew up in a rather land locked part of the country, but ever since I moved out of home I've been ending up in places that are either on the coast or very close to it. Which is ironic given that I'm hydrophobic (I love the sea but I don't like getting in). Maybe it's the Piscean in me that seeks out places close to the sea? My favorite cities in the world (amongst the ones I've been to/lived in) are all near a water body - Bombay, Chicago & San Francisco. It's to be seen whether Sydney makes it to that hallowed list but what I can say right away is that it's one of the most livable cities in the world.

For one, it's clean and green and all those things that seem to occur so effortlessly in developed countries.

Secondly, the people are extremely friendly and helpful. They smile at you in elevators, they'll happily help you with directions and will ask you to walk with them if they're going in the same direction, they'll stop and ask if you want them to take a picture of you/your group. The only other friendlier people I've met are the Americans but it depends on which part of America you're in!

Getting around in Sydney is really convenient thanks to the excellent public transport the city has. It's very well connected by buses, trains and ferries, all of which are clean, comfortable and run on schedule.

Sydney really takes care of its people. There are plenty of free attractions for citizens such as the Vivid Light Festival (that I wrote about in my previous post), and weekend fireworks & street performances at Darling Harbour.

And then there's the water front! The Sydney harbour is beautiful and they've done the most of using their water front to enhance the appeal of the city. Two of the most happening places in Sydney - The Rocks, home to the iconic Sydney Opera House, and Darling Harbour, a strip of restaurants, cafes & pubs - are situated along the water front.

Darling Harbour is home to some of the best restaurants in Sydney and has a number of cultural events going on at any given point of time. You can even catch free street performances if you're not in the mood to shell out dough for entertainment on a Saturday evening, and don't want to spend it cooped inside your home either. Twice a month, on Saturdays, there are fireworks!

And if you're from India, you can find comfort in brands. Many food and personal care brands available in India are available here as well - Lux, Dove, Nivea, Palmolive, Sunsilk, L'Oreal, Garnier, Olay, Nescafe, Tetley, Lipton are the ones I've seen till now. They even have Maggi here though they pronounce it differently (maji) and they don't have Maggi Masala noodles here of course!

The downside of living in Sydney is the ridiculously high cost of living.

Sydney is prohibitively expensive. Everything from real estate to groceries to clothes are e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. The cost of living in this city is 1.5-2 times that of living in a similar city in America, and that's one of the reasons why I miss the US so much. People here can't go out for movies/dinner/drinks every weekend and end up spending most of their Friday/Saturday nights watching TV at home! Ask any Sydneysider what's the one thing he/she doesn't like about the city and you won't need to wait for an answer.

Having said that, I'm starting to enjoy living in Sydney. I guess it's about finding your groove. It's about finding like-minded people to hang out with. It takes time but you do end up finding your place in the city.

Do I see myself settling down in Sydney? I would have to say 'no', as of now anyway. Once you've explored all there is to Sydney it can become quite a boring city to live in (SWB, are you listening? :P) But I can definitely see myself spending a couple of years here enjoying the spirit of the Aussies and soaking in the sun at the city's water front.

Oh, and did I mention the here food is awesome?

Sydney Blues

2011-06-13T13:43:00.005+05:30

The third season of Masterchef Australia is on air right now and I'm hooked to it. The format is just as engaging as the second season that I saw in India. But unlike last season, I don't find myself rooting for any one contestant. Maybe it's b/c I don't find this year's contestants to be as culinarily capable as those from Season 2. Remember Marion, Adam, Callum & Jonathan? There's no one as good as them this time around. Instead there are people who make very basic home cook mistakes all the time, who crack under pressure and come up with disastrous, under-salted food, and who it seems are there just by fluke!

I clearly remember last year's contestants being able to rustle up French, Spanish, Russian, Indian, Asian dishes with equal elan. The furthest this year's contestants can stretch is Asian food, which is no achievement given that the Australian food scene is heavily dominated by Asian cuisine.

Having said that, it's quite comforting to be able to watch shows that I watched in India as well. That's the thing with Australian TV - most of the shows are American. Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and other shows that are aired on Star World in India. I do miss the trashy reality shows of India though. I wish I could watch 'Khatron ke Khiladi', Indian Idol, Big Boss etc.

*****

This was a long weekend for us but the weather wrecked all my plans! I had plans to walk across the Harbour Bridge and take pictures of the harbour, to walk around Kirribilli Village (it's this cute little hilly neighbourhood near where I stay, with adorable houses and small shops & restaurants), and to go to Darling Harbour. But the cold, incessant rain made sure I was under house arrest for most of the weekend. I did brave the rains and go to The Rocks though....yay!!

You know, the thing is maybe I'm being too demanding of myself. I've been in Sydney only 2 weeks and I expect myself to be in love with the city already. Which I think is an unrealistic expectation given that I came here without any friends.

I think I need to give myself 5-6 months to fall in love with Sydney. That's the minimum amount of time it takes to find a set of consistent friends, get to know your way around, and generally feel "settled" in a city. What d'you think?

*****

The good news is that I move into my new house - which is in the heart of Sydney - in a couple of weeks. Yay!!

I'm staying in a service apartment right now, in a very upscale part of Sydney. Which means there are no supermarkets around, hardly any people walking the streets, and all the shops & restaurants shut by 4pm on weekdays and remain shut on weekends. This place is a ghost town after 5pm on weekdays and practically throughout the weekend...you can't even get a cup of coffee or a sandwich if you're dying of hunger and are out of food at home. Whereas I'm a city girl thru 'n' thru. So you can imagine how excited I am to be moving to a more lively part of Sydney. Heck, it doesn't get more lively than the City and soon my blues will go away...yay!!

Having said that, I so miss my mom and my dad and my sister and my friends in India. We usually don't know what we have until we don't have it anymore. The good thing is I now know exactly how blessed I am to have people who love me as much as my family & friends do, and I know never to take them for granted EVER again. Moonshine, Knife, Serendipity - I love you guys! :((

Sydney Lovin'

2011-06-12T12:01:00.006+05:30

'The Rocks' is where it all began for Sydney. It's the place where the first European settlers in Australia disembarked, and still hosts an Overseas Passenger Terminal for those arriving in Australia by ship. The 19th century warehouses have since then been converted to restaurants & pubs, and the narrow cobblestone streets are now home to The Rocks Market where you can buy arts & crafts, clothes/jewellery etc. as well as fresh produce. The Rocks is also the place where Sydneysiders can go to enjoy free events such as the on-going Vivid Light Festival.

Yesterday was a bright & sunny day, and this being the last weekend of Vivid, I decided to go to The Rocks with a couple of friends for a little bit of Sydney lovin' that I so seem to need right now. Besides, there was the lure of having a mocha at Guylian, a place highly recommended by The Knife. Unfortunately, the weather turned by the time we reached Circular Quay, the area leading up to The Rocks.

The Circular Quay is home to the iconic Sydney Opera House. Being adjacent to the Harbour Bridge, The Rocks also offers stunning views of the bridge. We were wet and cold to the bone but we just stood there watching the rain meet the open sea. It reminded me of Bandstand during the monsoon...there were so many times when my roommate & I would walk down to Bandstand in the rains, sit inside the Barista with a hot drink and watch the rain lash at the swollen sea. Then we'd take a walk down the promenade, get drenched and go back home wet, cold but utterly satisfied. I miss Bandra :-(

Anyway, back to Sydney and The Rocks. The mocha at Guylian didn't happen because there was a 20 minute queue to be seated inside the cafe, and being almost soaked, we weren't feeling adventurous enough to rough it out in their outdoor seating area. But a double cheeseburger with fries from Hungry Jack (Burger King as it's known in Australia) and a hot chocolate later, we were good to slum it out for another couple of hours to watch the Vivid light show and the fire dance.

The Vivid light show is this thing where they decorate the trees with dancing lights of various colors, project 3D lights on to the Opera House (I think they were trying to go for fish shapes but they came across looking like sperms!) and have choreographed fire shows and the likes.

It was a long evening...felt longer because we were wet and cold to the bone. But it was such a lot of fun. We shared umbrellas, took horrible pictures (thanks to the rain & cloudy skies!), and I realized once again how much I really love cities that have the sea.

PS: Should I kill myself before I admit that I'm in love with Katy Perry's 'Firework'? Or is it acceptable to like her? :p

PPS: I have a retarded wi fi connection. I just spent an hour uploading 4 pictures on Blogger and then I lost them all. There's no way I'm going thru' that painful process again, so picts will come when they come. @#$%^&*%$#@@!$%

Sydney, Part I

2011-06-04T16:04:00.004+05:30

It’s been a month since I last posted, and what a month it’s been! I packed up my house and moved continents! I’d call that pretty eventful.

Today is a week since I landed in Sydney.

Sydney is a beautiful city and pretty awesome too (I’m sure the fact that I'm currently staying a stone's throw from the Harbour Bridge in a service apartment with a Bay view, and that the walk to work includes includes a 5 minute stretch with breath-taking views of the Harbour Bridge with ships & ferries floating about, has got nothing to do with my perception of the city :P). But like any big city in the world, including Bombay, Sydney is fun only if you have friends . Else it can get pretty lonely.

Here are my first impressions of Sydney, Australia and Australians in general:

1. There are 2 parts to Sydney - Sydney & North Sydney. The area to the north of the Harbour Bridge is called North Sydney and that to the south is Sydney. Both have their own CBDs (Central Business Districts) and are both self-sufficient, but are very different in terms of ambience.

2. The part of Sydney you live in is directly proportional to your state of happiness. I work in North Sydney and am currently staying in the same area. And let me tell you something - this area can get pretty deserted & lonely after 6pm on weekdays and on weekends. Safety isn't an issue but if you're a city person like me, the kind of person that likes to have people and activity around, there's a good chance you'll find North Sydney depressing. In that case I'd recommend living in the City area. It's more expensive than other parts of Sydney - obviously - but it's alive and kicking till 10-10.30pm on week nights and pretty buzzing over weekends as well. Not to mention that everything from supermarkets to pharmacies to pubs/restaurants/cafes to shopping to healthcare centers will be within 5 minutes walking.

3. That's the other thing about Sydney, you've got to be prepared to walk. ALOT. But then that's true of most big cities, isn't it? You'll need to walk to the station, walk from the station to your office/home, walk from parking to office, walk to the supermarket, walk if you want to shop.

4. Sydney is an EXPENSIVE city!!! Phew!!!!! Be prepared to shell out big bucks for everything from rent to eating out to entertainment. Even public transport, though excellent, is fairly expensive. Sample this - a tube of 100gm toothpaste costs $5, eating out at a decent (not fancy) restaurant will set you back by $20-25 per person, on average, (I'm talking one dish and a non-alcoholic beverage to go with it), a regular cup of mocha will cost you approx. $4, movie tickets are $20 (!!!), the minimum fare for a one-way train ride is $3.20. You get the picture. I'd say the cost of living in Sydney is approx. 1.5 times that of an American city. You'll get used to how much everything costs here but it will take a while.

5. Sydney has excellent public transport - trains, buses & ferries. Public transport is the way to go if you want to avoid getting stuck in traffic snarls. Trains & buses are clean, run on schedule, and though crowded during peak hours, it's never an unpleasant experience as people are civilized and courteous towards each other. A word of warning though - public transport in Sydney isn't as cheap as one may think. But there are weekly passes available at 7 Elevens and news agencies, which allow unlimited travel and therefore work out to be slightly more economical. You can get Weeklies made for trains, buses & ferries separately, or you can get a Multi-zone pass that will allow unlimited travel by any mode of public transport.

5. The food here is mind blowing. Name any cuisine under the sun and it's available here. You need not go to a fancy place if you feel like having Thai or Lebanese or Turkish food. There are moderately priced restaurants/take away joints all over the city (when I say moderately priced in mean $7-10 per dish) where you can get authentic global cuisine, cooked by natives (part of the reason it's so good?). And they don't skimp on portions. The flip side - you need to really watch your weight.

6. Most shops and shopping complexes here close at 5pm on weekdays & Saturday and are shut on Sunday. If you're living in North Sydney the thing to bear in mind is that all shops, including restaurants & cafes, close by 5pm, are open only half-day on Saturday & are shut on Sunday.

7. Bank accounts are the easiest thing to get in this country. Everything else is a bitch. The only document you need for a bank account is a valid photo ID and an address (can be your employer's address). However, God help you when it comes to looking for a house to rent, a post-paid phone connection, cable or internet. You'll need more documents for this than you did for your visa! You'll be asked for your passport, health insurance card, bank statement (showing a fair amount of money in the bank), credit card, employer letter (in some cases), driver's license (if you have one), lease agreement etc.

8. People in Sydney are always dressed up. Quite like Europeans. The normal dress code for women in winters is jeans tucked inside boots, or short skirts with stockings & boots. The color code is black, grey & off-white. Everyone wears make up all the time. It's rare to find people dressed in jeans, sweatshirt and walking shoes.

9. Work starts early. Like reallllllly early. Working hours are usually 9-5pm. 9-4 if you're lucky. Most people are at work by 8.30-8.45am, so if you're not a morning person, think twice before moving to Australia.

10. Aussies are friendly people, very willing to help. Contrary to perception, they're not arrogant and snooty. I'd say they're mid-way between Americans & Europeans in terms of their culture and disposition.

11. They're very proud of their country and their nationality. This is very evident in TV shows and advertisements. They take pride in and support everything that's Australian grown/made.

12. Unfortunately, people in most parts of the world - including India - are not exposed to any part of Australian culture be it TV shows or news. Aussie culture is very different from the rest of the World, so be prepared to feel a little lost in group situations at the beginning. The best way to get up to speed would be to watch TV, including commercials, read Aussie magazines and visit Australian websites.

These are my first impressions of Sydney. It's a wonderful city even though a little bit lacking in history (there's a reason Australia is part of "The New World"). I miss the history that cities like Bombay, Calcutta, London & Paris have and that's reflected in their architecture. But I visited the City area today and fell in love with it. It's everything that one looks for in a city and more. You have to be a city person to appreciate it, of course. I'll do more posts on Sydney as & when I experience things. For now I need to go do my laundry. Ooh, what a fun way to spend to Saturday night!

NOT.

I'm On a Month Long Break From Work....

2011-05-06T13:37:00.003+05:30

....and I'm loving every bit of it.

I've been working non-stop for the last eight years almost. For the past couple of years I've been planning to take 3-6 months off (because anything less would've been too short) but I haven't had the opportunity and I don't have the financial cushion of falling back on a husband. Not yet. And I've been too chicken to give up my job without another in hand in the absence of a financial cushion. But I'm between jobs right now and with some clever planning and a little bit of luck, I've managed to squeeze in a month off. And I so need it given what lies ahead, but more on that later.

So as I said I've been thoroughly enjoying my time off. I wake up by 8.30-9 every day, pour over the gossip supplements of newspapers for hours, have a leisurely breakfast, laze around the house, take a shower, sleep, meet friends for lunch/coffee/dinner, go to book shops, work out, read, watch movies...and I could do this for the rest of my life! I will NOT get bored. It's just so nice to not worry about deadlines and revenues, slog over Excel sheets and presentations, fire fight, or rattle your brains over whether every member of your team is happy and is having their expectations met.

With the new job comes a new country....Australia!!!!! Sydney to be precise. Now the thing that I don't understand is, why do people have an opinion on a place without having been to it? My friends in Sydney and some friends who've visited the city recently have only good things to say about it. And there are some who've never been to Sydney but are going out of their way to tell me what a boring/dead place it is, based on accounts of their cousins/friends/whoever who didn't like the place at all. For all I know, they were most probably extremely homesick people or people who don't mingle with the locals of the place they migrate to, but keep looking for other Indians who they can celebrate Diwali Nights with.

No hard feelings against Indians in other countries or their Diwali Nights, but I feel the whole point of moving to another country is to integrate with the local population and experience things one hasn't experienced before.

To each his own though. I recently came across a person who didn't like Paris inspite of living there for 4 years! Paris, for Chrissake!!!! The reason - language and the lack of Indians. What can I say...it takes all kinds?

What I'm sure of is that if I haven't been to a place I'd keep my opinion to myself. At most, I'd tell the person that I've heard from people I know that it's not a great place to be, but I haven't experienced it myself so I could be wrong. I'd never talk as if I'm a veteran of the city!

Anyway, I may be infrequent at this space for a while given the impending move and the millions of errands that go with it. This post was primarily to share the news with you and to let you know that the party is in Oz :)

It's Not So Much About the Royal as About the Wedding

2011-04-30T20:30:00.007+05:30

Okay I'll admit it outright - I found the mass hysteria surrounding the royal wedding completely inane. Both among the Brits and Indians. It was just two people getting married at the end of the day. Thousands of couples get married all over the world everyday. And come on, who cares about royalty in this day & age of democratic governments? I fail to understand how Kings & Queens still exist in so many countries across the world....it's such an antiquated concept. And I can't fathom why the Britishers are so enamoured with their royals.

Even more ridiculous was Indians and the Indian media getting excited about the wedding as if one of our own was getting married. Hell, we don't get as kicked even if when one of our national icons gets married, do we? So why the excitement over the wedding of the grandson of the Queen of another country which ruled us for a couple of hundred years? Was it a sign that we haven't been able to shake off our colonial hangover yet?

When my mother and grandmother announced they were planning to watch the live telecast of the royal wedding, I made fun of them. One has to be truly jobless in life to sit & watch two people getting married all day on television. But there was that curiosity within me to find out what Kate Middleton was wearing on her big day. Rather, WHO she was wearing. So I tuned in to the repeat telecast of the wedding just to check her dress out, and ended up watching most of it! Well, till they kissed on the balcony of the Buckingham Palace.

First things first though. That woman didn't disappoint with her wedding dress. Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen - an unusual choice given that most of Alexander McQueen's creations are so radical and out there. But Sarah Burton - who was appointed the creative head of Alexander McQueen after his suicide - is known to be relatively more understated than the man himself. And what a dress she designed for Kate! I loved it! It was modern and chic, yet so timeless and elegant. Simple yet so stylish! The plunging neckline balanced the sleeves beautifully, the bodice was very well fitted, and the trail was long without being imposing. Breath-taking creation. And I have to hand it to Kate for not getting carried away by the occasion and keeping her make-up and jewellery minimal. Have you noticed how Indian brides end up looking the ugliest they've ever looked in their lives, on their wedding day? Ironic, isn't it?

What struck me the most about the wedding though, that made me all mushy inside and made me want a marriage (not a wedding) just like that right then & there, were the vibes between William & Kate. They were talking to each other at regular intervals throughout the ceremony, he was holding her hand, helping her climb/descend from carriages, and they kept deferring to each other throughout. Showing in little ways that they really care about each other. It was so heart warming. The way they kept looking at each other, you could tell they're so much in love. It made me, a marriage-o-phobe, crave a wedding with the man I love right then & there :/

It must be such a special feeling. Sigh!

Some of my friends were really stoked about the commoner-marrying-a-prince bit but I was moved by the love between the couple and the fact that they made it after ten long years of courtship and inspite of two break ups. I just wish the kiss had lasted longer. For the meantime, this is what we'll have to make do with...

He's Just Not That Into You

2011-04-22T10:57:00.007+05:30

Have you seen the movie? It's got a whole bunch of people in it - Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper (sigh!), Ben Affleck, Justin Long. And it's every woman's story!

All of us women have gone through most of the situations that are shown in the movie. The girl who's been in a relationship with a guy for a long long time but he doesn't want to marry her because, apparently, he doesn't believe in marriage. And the girl doesn't keep harping on it because she doesn't want to be clingy and needy and force him to do something he isn't ready for yet. And she keeps waiting for him to come around, until one day she realizes he's never going to marry her. She breaks up with him and the next she hears of him is that he's getting married to some hot 22 year old, or in the case of Indian men to some "homely girl with Indian values" of his parents' choice!

Or the girl who relentlessly pursues men who aren't really into her or don't deserve her while all along confiding in a guy friend who listens to her and talks her through her heartbreaks and rejections. Till she realizes that he's the guy she's most comfortable with and is meant to be with.

Or the girl who gets dumped by her boyfriend for completely ludicrous reasons such as "it's not you, it's me" (heard that so many times, ugh!). Or "I don't deserve you" (excuse me while I go find myself a barf bag). Or worst of all "I'm so jealous of whoever you end up with" (hello, it could've been you!)

Or the girl who falls in love with a man who's married or about to get married to his long-time girlfriend who he loves very much but need not necessarily be 'in love' with. He wants to be with the other woman but he isn't willing to walk out on his wife/girlfriend either, and it's the women get screwed in the process. Of course, in the movie it's the guy who ends up getting screwed - because movies have a sense of justice. Real life doesn't.

I recently came across a quote that went "Behind every gorgeous woman is a man who's bored of her". Now, that's quite a scary thought! It goes against every grain of optimism in my body, yet the cynic in me yells that it's so very true. And guess what....the cynic wins! For how else do you explain what we see all around us....men with the most gorgeous wives/girlfriends who will not fail to cheat if an opportunity presents itself.

And then there are people in this world who've never had their hearts broken. They just cannot comprehend what someone who's recently had their heart broken is going through b/c they've never had to face a feeling of having been hurt and let down. Do I envy them? Of course I to! They live in a state of bliss. They've never had to deal with a feeling of rejection, hurt and disappointment. All that bull about break ups teaching you a lot about life and yourself was designed by authors of self-help books whose books would otherwise not sell a single copy.

Okay, maybe there's some truth to that claim. Break ups do shape the person you become to a certain extent. But I'd rather have a happy life, thank you very much.

So the question really is 'what is true love'? Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France has a very different point of view on love and faithfulness in relationships. In an interview I read recently in The Times of India, he says that according to him being faithful to a woman means not abandoning her, it doesn't mean not straying. So long as a man stays with his woman, he should be considered faithful and his dalliances with other women should be ignored.

It's a very complicated theory but unfortunately that's the way relationships are evolving these days. Men have a completely different view on love and relationships than women, and the two couldn't be more divergent. And the way I see it, this entire thing about men's unwillingness to commit and likelihood of straying will only increase over time. The question is, are women ready to deal with this changing face of love and relationships? Because we WILL need to deal with it at some point. And the answer, sadly, is a resounding 'no'. We're not ready yet.

Will we ever be? I don't know.

Existential Angst

2011-04-20T12:03:00.007+05:30

You know that feeling when you're dying to pour your heart out on your blog but you can't because you don't blog anonymously anymore? And your blog isn't read only by your friends but by an assortment of people? And you're now at an age where you start weighing the pros & cons of your actions and you don't let yourself get carried away.

I so miss being in my early 20s. When no problem meant the end of the world. When you were able to just get up, shrug, brush the dust off your hands and move on if things weren't working out the way you wanted them to.

Since I can't - rather won't - crib about certain things on this blog, I'll tell you what I need right now.

A gang of the most fun girlfriends!!!!

I so miss having a girl gang at times. I've mostly had guy friends right through college and my 20s, and while boys are crazy fun too they won't pull you out of an emotional crisis. Most of them at any rate. You can only crib so much to them before their eyes glaze over and they suggest you drown your sorrows in bottles of chilled piss, a.k.a. beer.

Girl friends are so much more fun. They 'understand' and they know just what works when the chips are down - a great shopping session buying things you don't need, watching chick flicks and gossipping! Ah, therapeutic!

My girl friends are scattered all over the globe now and most of them don't even know each other, so I really do miss having a "girl gang". And what I need right now is a week in Goa with my girls, lazing around on the beach in beach hats, oversized sunglasses and floral flip flops, and sipping on unlimited apple/strawberry martinis. With a game of paintball thrown in. Why should boys have all the fun?

*****

Life isn't all gloomy though. I just learnt that my new place of work has the most laidback dress code - jeans! Even for client meetings!! Without rips & holes though. I think I can live with that :-)

And the city I'm about to move to has the most glorious weather - 18-30 degrees (Celsius) in the summer and 5-20 degrees in the winter. I can live with that too! :D

And I've been reading a very funny book that The Knife gave me when I met him last. It's a book by Bill Bryson called 'Down Under' where he talks about all the things that can kill you in Australia. There are thousands apparently! But it also showcases the spirit, niceness and funness (?) of the Australian people. It's a travelogue but one of the funniest books I've read.

So yeah, life is good too...in bits & pieces. But why must it always be bittersweet?

A First

2011-04-15T13:11:00.003+05:30

Never before in my life have I heard that stripping in public is a way to demonstrate one's patriotism.

Meet Poonam Pandey - the wannabe model who had promised to strip in full public view if India won the World Cup. Interestingly, she's nowhere to be seen since the victory. But she does manage to give sound bytes every once in a while.

First she said she wanted to strip inside the stadium right after the final. That obviously didn't go down well with the moral police. Then she said she was willing to strip inside the players' dressing room given BCCI's permission. The BCCI didn't agree, so now she's considering Paris as the venue!

Les pauvres Français! Thanks to their lassez faire culture, they now have to watch some C-grade model bare all.

What amuses me the most though is how she keeps insisting that stripping is not a publicity stunt but her way of showing her patriotism. Like...how? Next she'll say that she wants to sleep with all the cricketers who were part of the winning team one by one! As a way to show her love for her nation, of course.

I guess it takes all kinds.

Will & Kate

2011-04-14T12:19:00.005+05:30

The Brits need to get a life, they really do! What's all this hoopla surrounding William & Kate's marriage?

Like any girl growing up in the late 80s & 90s, I too had a massive crush on Will. How could one not - he was a shadow of his extremely good looking mother, and with that delish smile he could make any girl go week in the knees.

But look at the way he's balding now! And how old is he? 30? Even the smile has lost its charm.

And Kate...She's pretty but have you seen the dresses she wears? All buttoned up to the neck. She's so matronly! Which is surprising since William claims to have fallen for her on seeing her in a see-through LBD that hardly left anything to imagination. But he kept her waiting forever before he proposed, didn't he? Waity Katie, as the cruel British media is calling her. Poor thing. But that's OK, she's about to become very very rich.

But why are the Brits so fascinated and obsessed with the wedding? It's two people getting married. That's all there is to it, people! So what if they're royalty? I thought kings & queens were passe. Surely, the Brits take Monarch adulation to a different level altogether. So you have souvenirs being released...everything from commemorative china to street party accessories, nail lacquer (shimmery dark blue with grey undertones, if you must know), bottle openers, key rings, coffee mugs, coasters. Even condoms which cannot be used (stupidest thing I ever heard of) and sick bags!

Sick bags? Really? Why??? And what a waste of condoms! Imagine having a pack of condoms lying about your house that you cannot use! How frustrating will that be?

My grandmother, who considers herself British by virtue of having lived in England for a fair amount of time but who's as Indian by blood as one can get, says it's a very emotional moment for Brits. Copious tears of joy will be shed. She plans to shed some of her own too, I think. And she is eagerly awaiting the telecast of the wedding on TV.

Yes people, TLC is going to telecast the entire wedding live on 29th April. What I'm dying to know is - which designer is Kate wearing?? Not another matronly gown please! Time for some scandulous skin show for the royals. I'm sure Will won't mind.

The Mile High Baby

2011-04-11T15:12:00.002+05:30

It was definitely one of the most bizarre things that I've witnessed in my life. A woman delivered a baby on the flight I was in!!!!!

Like how?

This woman was apparently 8 months pregnant. I don't know why she was allowed to fly, don't airlines ask for a certificate of clearance from the doctor? But then, when airlines these days don't even ask for pilots' certificates, why would they bother about a passenger's?

Half an hour after take off, the woman started complaining of "discomfort". Air hostesses started panicking and announcements were made requesting any medical practitioners on board to identify themselves to the cabin crew. Luckily for her, there was a gynaecologist on board!!!!!

The woman was taken to the rear of the aircraft and she delivered a f*&^$#* baby right there!!!! Half an hour before the flight landed. And we didn't hear a scream.

I'm guessing it's not something that happens very frequently.

Thank you, Anna Hazare

2011-04-09T11:46:00.003+05:30

What a man. I mean, WHAT.A.MAN.

Imagine the amount of selflessness it takes to go on a fast unto death for the people of your country. I was praying for his health everyday, given that he is 73 years old.

'I Am Anna Hazare' was no twiterrati movement, as the government would like us to believe. It was a people's movement that got the government to acknowledge their demands. For there can be no government without the support of its people.

Corruption is eating away at our country. Every day we open the newspapers or turn on the TV to read/hear of some scamster laundering away people's hard earned money that they pay as taxes. And the government instead of punishing them gives them a free pass to go enjoy the cool climes of England, away from the heat they would've had to face back in India.

The timing of Anna Hazare's movement was a masterstroke. He waited for the World Cup to get over so people's attention was not diverted by the game. The fact that India won the World Cup only worked in their favor - people were already high on national pride, and they were feeling an emotional void for the sudden lack of something to root for. It was the right time to strike.

I'm very proud of my country and its people for the way we've rallied around Anna Hazare, particularly the youth that came out in full force to fight for themselves. The success of this movement is a glowing example that at 1.2 billion people, India is the largest and the most thriving democracy in the world.

Thank you, Anna Hazare.

We Are the Champions, My Friends....

2011-04-03T20:06:00.003+05:30

For the part of the world that was once colonised by the British, cricket is a bloody big thing. Particularly in India where it is often referred to as 'second religion'. And what not? Cricket in India achieves what probably no amount of cultural events, speeches by politicians etc. can - it unifies the country. The pains of living in a country struggling to raise it's infrastructure to the level required to sustain its 1.2 billion people, a country with corruption seeping out of its pores, a country where the hard working tax payers' money is routinely laundered in some or the other scam, a country which is relentlessly exploited by some (in power) to further their own gains - all cease to exist. Winning the world cup was the objective of not only those 11 men on the field, but also of the 1.2 billion people who were praying their hearts out. It gave them something to cheer about and look forward to. And that's why it bloody mattered. So thank you MSD. You need to be applauded. I really really like MSD. For one, he's a fellow East Indian. Secondly, because of his ice cool demeanour. That man refuses to crack under pressure. He absorbs it like a sponge. What he did yesterday required balls - to go and bat ahead of an in-form batsman who usually bats at that spot. But it was also a masterstroke - it ensured a left hand-right hand combination, and if he got out there was still an in-form batsman to carry things forward. And thank you Gary Kirsten. You've given us what no one else could for the past 28 years. The other man who needs to be thanked for what the Indian team is today is Sourav Ganguly. He sowed the seeds of self-belief and a fighting spirit in a team that was historically perceived to be meek and a push-over. To a great extent, MSD is reaping the rewards of what Sourav started. The celebrations after our victory were insane. Throngs of people were out on the streets wearing India jerseys, with their faces painted with the Indian tri-color and waving Indian flags. Hell, I didn't know there were so many Indian flags in the city!! And now that we've brought the cup home, the word 'feeling blue' has suddenly got a new meaning. Until 2015...

Black Swan

2011-03-12T19:55:00.003+05:30

Is it possible to find a movie beautiful and yet not be sure whether you like it?

Black Swan is as awful as it is awesome. As captivating as it is disturbing.

Natalie Portman plays Nina, a ballerina whose life is completely consumed by her dance. She lives with her bordering-on-psychotic mother who encourages her ballet aspirations on the one hand and grudges her success on the other, and maniacally controls her adult daughter's life.

The New York based ballet company that Nina works for plans to re-produce the classic 'Black Swan' ballet, a story of the virtuous White Swan and her evil twin the Black Swan. The director wants a ballerina that can play both the swans with equal elan. Nina wants to be chosen for the role and manages to bag it, even though the director feels that she can portray the innocent White Swan splendidly, but lacks the sensuality to play the Black Swan that represents lust and jealousy, possibly due to her own sexual repression and underdevelopment.

Her obsession with perfection and paranoia about losing the part to free-spirited rival Lily (Mila Kunis), who is the personification of the Black Swan, makes her delusional. As she gets drawn into the ballet and works harder to get the Black Swan right, she loses her ability to distinguish reality from illusion and becomes progressively like the Black Swan, frequently engaging in self-mutilation that culminates in the chilling climax.

Natalie Portman plays Nina with such passion & intensity that she sucks you right into her mental hell. And if she's done all the dancing in the movie herself, hats off to her. Mila Kunis is awesome too and I wish there was more of her in the movie. I barely recognized Winona Ryder, who has a cameo of a ballerina at the sunset of her career. And how pretty is Natalia Portman?!!

As I mentioned earlier, 'Black Swan' is beautiful - it's more art than cinema, poetry in motion. It shows you how scary losing one's mind can be, and how fragile sanity really is. Yet I can't say I liked the movie - I certainly wouldn't want to watch it again. It's passionate but very intense and disturbing. It's gory, it will make you cringe. It's good cinema but something you will want to watch to get entertained. It's not a feel-good movie like 'The King's Speech' and is completely stripped of humor. Having said that, I would definitely recommend watching it for Natalie Portman and the direction.

...

2011-03-10T20:44:00.003+05:30

Well, I could write about many things of significance - the Aruna Shanbaug case, legalization of passive euthanasia in India, my annual anti-women's day post, the pathetic state of the Indian media that goes into a tizzy the minute some B-grade wannabe starlet like Kashmera Shah goes naked. But, after a day of non-stop working, handling people's emotions at work, and my own PMS, I want to write about completely insignificant and irrelevant things.

I do want to write about Kashmera Shah. That woman is so desperate for attention, money, publicity, whatever that she's shot naked for a calender while claiming that it's the real her you get to see in the pictures, with not an touch of Photoshop. So this morning a local newspaper posted a picture of her as she is, taken a couple of days ago. And she has fat spilling from all sides! Hmmm...I wonder how she's going to get away with explaining that.

As I type this, promos for the new season of Desperate Housewives is on air. To be honest, I stopped following the show after a couple of seasons. Maybe because it was aired at prime time on a weekend night when I'd invariably be out having a life. This season looks interesting - there's a new housewife on Mysteria Lane, so we can expect sassiness, catiness and a whole load of bitchiness.

I look for something interesting to watch from 9-10pm on weekdays. That usually is my TV watching hour. For the longest time there was Masterchef Australia that I absolutely looooooooved. Then they started showing the retarded 'Bachelor' series, went back to MC US for a very short while, and now they're showing some random series called 'Las Vegas' that's not even vaguely interesting. Inspite of Josh Duhammel. I'm waiting for it to get over and for them to air another Masterchef series...MC UK, maybe? Please please please!

In case you haven't noticed, I only watch Star World.

Right now the smell of mouth-watering tandoori chicken is wafting from my kitchen. No, you haven't asked but we're going carb free for dinner.

What randomness have you been upto?

'The King's Speech' & CBTL

2011-03-06T19:07:00.004+05:30

My weekend's gone by in a jiffy. I was running errands most of the time...buying groceries, paying bills, dropping/picking up stuff from the dry cleaner, parlour (yes that's an errand too), cooking etc. I hardly got time to chill and suddenly it's Sunday evening :(

There were a couple of highlights though - a glorious Saturday afternoon nap that had more to do with the searing heat outside than anything else, managed to watch 'The King's Speech', and discovered the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in town that totally made my day!

'The King's Speech' is a must-watch movie. Just over two hours, it's slow in parts but there's never a boring moment. And what a phenomenal effort by Colin Firth. He so deserves that Oscar.

You know, every time I see such a soul-stirring performance by a Hollywood actor I really wonder whether any of our (Bollywood) actors will be able to pull off such a performance. And the answer, almost always, is a disappointing and resounding 'no'. You watch this movie and name one Indian actor who could've done as good a job of playing a person who suddenly finds himself annointed King of England at a time when he must lead his country to war and is expected to dole out inspiring speaches but who suffers from a debilitating stammer, as Colin Firth does. The director very cleverly shows a close up of his face every time he's trying to deliver a speech, and the contortions of his face to get those damn words out make your heart go out to him. You can feel his pain and anguish at not being able to get words out of his mouth. The humour is good too, if you appreciate British humour that is. Awesome movie, watch it.

And if you happen to stop by the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, do try their Philadelphia Baked Cheesecake and Brownie Cheesecake. They're orgasmic. And that, I think, is a great way to end this post. Hope you had a good weekend.

Masterchef USA

2011-03-05T20:33:00.004+05:30

So did you watch Masterchef US Season 1?

After endless episodes of 'The Bachelor/Bachelorette' (ugh!), better sence prevailed over Star World and they decided to go back to the Masterchef series.

Now, MC America was completely different from MC Australia. It was hosted by chefs and restaurant owners Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliott and Joe Bastianich (a tough tough cookie to impress). These people know food but they're Gary or George (of MC Australia)!

Gary & George were adorable! They were so friendly, always encouraging the contestants, giving constructive feedback...

The thing about Gordon Ramsay is that he's so jumpy and hyperactive that just watching him on TV can send your blood pressure soaring. And he can get really nasty if he wants to. But I find him hot in a strange, convoluted way. He took his shirt off in one of the episodes to switch into a chef's jacket, and that man has rock solid abs even at 43!!! I also found him to be the most compassionate of all judges - he was really patient and considerate towards Sheetal, a contestant of Indian origin who had grown up in a vegetarian home and used to find it tough to kill animals such as crabs (that she had to cook with) on the show!

Unfortunately, MC America was not a patch on MC Australia. First of all, it ended too soon (two & a half weeks I think). It got over before you could even get into the flow of it. There were no Masterclasses or celebrity chef cook-offs for immunity.

Secondly, the format was such that it didn't give you time or reason to root for a contestant. In MC Australia, everyone I know who watched the series had a favorite whether it was Marion or Adam or Jason. You felt like you knew a little bit of them, you would want them to win the challenges, and you wanted to see their dreams come true. No such feelings for contestants in MC US. No one I know had a favorite.

Third, the quality of contestants too was no patch on the Australian contestants. Those guys (Australians) were way more capable than the MC America contestants. They could whip up cuisines of any country - Mexican, Indian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French...they knew it all! They could tell one Indian spice from another. The MC US contestants on the other hand could make only American dishes. They could not even make Chinese! There were no spectacular dishes, nothing you would remember at the end of an episode.

Then there was the incessant crying (Tracey who cooked only out of her mom's recipe book and would cry everytime her dish got panned by the judges), Farooq (who would continuously make a victim of himself), and cocky, arrogant Jake and Sharone who thought they were better than everyone else.

The other thing I didn't appreciate was the constant bitching and trying to put others down, among the contestants. This was just not there in MC Australia! The contestants were so friendly towards each other, respected each other, and never bitched about or spoke disparagingly about a fellow contestant even when they were speaking just to the camera.

The only nice thing about MC America was Gordon Ramsay and the fact that it put an end to the horrible 'Bachelor/Bachelorette' series!!

What did you think of MC America?

7 Khoon Maaf

2011-03-02T14:54:00.005+05:30

Vishal Bharadwaj's '7 Khoon Maaf' is an adaptation of 'Susanna's Seven Husbands', a short story by Ruskin Bond. Priyanka Chopra plays Susanna Anna Marie, a woman who is repeatedly let down by the men she marries. But instead of leaving them, she decides to kill them. And that is the problem with the movie. But more on that later. Let's go through the husbands first...

First up is Major Edwin Rodrigues played by Neil Nitin Mukesh. Susanna is barely out of her teens, is a free-spirited woman while he is insanely jealous and possessive. So he's fed to a panther on a night of hunting.

Rocker Jimmy Stetson (John Abraham) is addicted to cocaine. Susanna tries to rid him of his addiction through re-hab, but he continues to smuggle in the drug behind her back. He's given an overdose.

Disillusioned with life, Susanna moves to Kashmir where she falls in love with a dreamy poet Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan Khan) who charms her with his poetry but turns out to be a sadomasochist He's buried alive.

Nicolai Vronski is a Russian spy who courts Susanna with his scholastic Hindi and Bollywood dialogues. She agrees to marry him but soon discovers that he already has a wife in Russia. He is very cleverly sent down a dry well where Susanna rears poisonous snakes. He never makes it out of there. To stifle a police investigation that's bound to happen in the wake of a diplomat's death, Susanna is forced to marry the sex-starved Inspector Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor) who is soon packed off via an overdose of the "magical blue pill".

Next in line is Dr. Madhusudan Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah), a weirdass doctor who treats all illnesses - including a failed attempt at suicide - by mushrooms! He makes the grievous mistake of trying to kill Susanna for her money and is disposed off through a game of Russian Roulette.

Frustrated with life, Susanna sets her house on fire only to get cold feet when the fire reaches her door. She manages to escape but a body is found in the house and is believed to be that of Susanna's. The police want her dead for obvious reasons, and the forensic investigation is carried out by Arun (Vivaan Shah), an orphan who Susanna had adopted and who has an Oedipus Complex vis-a-vis her (and who Susanna too tried to seduce at one point). Complicated, innit?

Anyhow, in an attempt to repay Susanna for her generosity earlier in his life, Arun confirms that the person whose remains have been found in the burnt down house is indeed Susanna. He then goes to Pondicherry looking for her and finds her about to become a bride for the 7th time!!!

Who's the 7th husband...who was killed in place of Susanna...which was the 7th murder? You go find out!

Honestly, I was quite disappointed with the movie. It's still head & shoulder above most of the crap that Bollywood churns out in the name of cinema, but after 'Maqbool' and 'Omkara' one expects a hell of a lot from Vishal Bharadwaj. He has the talent, and until sometime ago he also had the balls to let his talent shine without pandering to the demands of the box office. Based on his last two movies ('Kaminey' & '7 Khoon Maaf') however, one wonders whether he too is giving in to the pressures of commercial cinema.

My main problem with the movie is to do with Priyanka Chopra's character, and given that the movie revolves around her, any problem with her character lets the movie down by default.

For instance, there is no explanation as to why she's drawn to psychotic men in the first place? Take the case of Wasiullah Khan (the poet) - did she not know of his sadomasochism before she married him? And if she did, why did she marry him? Such flaws in characterization make one feel no sympathy for Susanna, and that is the biggest undoing of the movie b/c you're supposed to fsympathize with her.

There's also no explanation for why she must kill her husband when she can leave them. She's no psychopath, not a man hater either. In fact, I'd have loved to see Priyanka Chopra play the role of a psychopath - someone who derives pleasure out of killing people. Or someone who marries men of a certain disposition (jealous, possessive, exploitative, sadist etc.) with the intention of killing them b/c she was terribly wronged by one such man. Or a Mata Hari like character who sleeps with powerful men with an ulterior motive and then kills them. I would have loved to see PC sink her teeth into an out-and-out negative character, 'coz she's got the goods, you know. The movie was screaming out with possibilities, too bad VB decided to take a moralistic path by trying to justify the actions of his protagonist.

I also had a problem with PC's make up. She's supposed to be this gorgeous, sexy woman that men can't stay away from, but she looks hideous in the movie! She is actually made to look worse than she already is. Incredible. And honestly, I don't see the National Award coming PC's way as was hyped. She hardly had much acting to do, thanks to the limitations of her character and the script. She is very mediocre in the movie.

Among the men, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan & Naseerudin Shah stand out (though I hated Irrfan Khan's look in the movie). Usha Uthup is wasted in the role of Maggi, Susanna's loyal maid who cleans up after Susanna.

And the climax...oh my God, the climax! It's tacky!! You'll know what I mean when you watch the movie.

One of the things that I did like about '7 Khoon Maaf' was the use of historical events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, Babri Masjid Demolition, Kandahar hijacking, 26/11 attacks etc. to denote the period the movie is set in. Hopefully Vishal Bharadwaj will pay more attention to the script the next time he decides to make a movie.

Down Time

2011-01-24T19:39:00.003+05:30

The weather's got me y'all :(

I have no voice left and guess who's very happy about that? The Boy, of course!

It's got to a point where I had to beg and plead with the doctor to gimme some anti-biotics. He wasn't relenting so I had to go to the extent of threatening him - "I'll have to ask some pharmacist then, or worse still self-medicate. So you better give it to me yourself!" Finally he relented, good doctor that he is :D

There are also a million work-related things lined up and a trip to Dilli later this week, so I may be out of action for a while folks. But I hope to be back soon...hopefully with a voice! And the happy days of The Boy will come to an end again....*evil laugh*

Till then, stay outta trouble!

The Voice Within

2011-01-18T12:34:00.006+05:30

Hey You,

Yes you...the girl sitting at the computer, working away furiously as if your life depended on it. Ignoring the hunger pangs, the tired body and mind that are crying out for a break. Yes, I'm talking to you.

I'm back as you can see. So let's have another chat, shall we?

Really, I thought you were a girl that wanted a job, not a career. Or were you?

You're spending ten hours a day in front of a computer in an artificial, closed, air-conditioned environment while the sun is shining in all its winter glory outside. You don't even have the time to open the blind to let some of that soft sunshine filter in.

Is this what you wanted out of your life? Do you even know what you're running after? Are you really looking forward to reaching the point where your life is all about targets and sleepless nights because you fell short by an arm or a leg?

What about your love for the outdoors, your dream of traveling the world, your desire to know when you look back at your life that it's been about more than spreadsheets and PowerPoint? What about that language you wanted to learn, the book you wanted to write, the trip you wanted to take across Europe, the commitments you wanted to make to your health and fitness...when do you plan to do those? If you haven't had time for them in the thirty years of your life gone by, you won't in the next thirty either. And then what...you will regret the life you've let slip by your fingers just as you regret not having made the most of the six years you've been working.

So, give me an answer. Do you want a job that let's you experience things in life that you need money for, and still gives you the time to experience things that money can't buy? Such as time to soak up the winter sun, to write that book you always wanted to write, time that you can spend with The Boy and your parents (who by the way aren't going to be around forever, in case you didn't realize). Or do you want a career with more responsibilities and more stress that leaves your pulse racing, your mind hassled and cluttered, leaves you with an irritable mood and with no time for loved ones?

I know you're going to ignore me again. Shoo me away. Ask me to leave you alone. I will for now. But you know what...I'll keep trying. Till the time you decide to listen to what I'm saying. Because I know it's not your fault...I wish the world was nicer to its people.

Maa Exchange

2011-01-14T18:20:00.005+05:30

A shitty weekend followed by a super Manic Monday. There are a million things crying out for my attention at work, a zillion proofs of investment I need to gather so I can claim a good part of the money that I have slogged to earn through the year from the taxman's claws (and that would otherwise go into some fatass politician's pocket, not into improving my country's infrastructure) and a gazillion people who're pissing me off with their sheer idiocy. So while I fret and fume, and figure out how to survive the madness, read this post on a new reality show that I wrote last week.

What...don't you know we love talking crap here?

*****

Reality shows on singing and dancing. Shows where people answer questions to become millionnaires. Shows where a bunch of 'has-beens' and starlets who are complete strangers to each other are thrown into a house together for 90 days. Shows where celebrities are left to camp in scary jungles. Shows where celebrities participate in death-defying stunts to ostensibly conquer their fears. Shows on cooking skills of wannabe "masterchefs". Shows where a bunch of women squabble, bitch, plot, plan and disgrace themselves in public to win the affection of the sole guy. Shows where a celebrity couple without kids is made to care for someone else's child for a month. Shows where people are willing to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets on television even though it may ruin their lives forever. Shows where people are more than willing to lie down on the couch and let the shrink regress them to their past lives. Just when you thought Indian television had exhausted all possible reality show formats comes another reality show. Of course, most of these formats are borrowed from the West but there has to be some saturation point, innit?

The new reality show on the block is 'Maa Exchange' - the Indian version of 'Wipe Swap'. The original format would apparently have been too risque for the Indian audience given our concept of "family bonding" through television.

In this new reality show they take women from two disparate backgrounds and put them in each other's homes. These women have to run each other's houses for a week. The focus is on motherly and home-maker duties. For instance, a cleanliness freak woman will be put in the home of someone who thinks hygiene kills.

Week 1 saw Pooja Bedi "who runs her house very efficiently with the help of 3 maids" (their words, not mine) swap places with a woman who feeds her husband chapatis straight off the griddle, serves him hot tea whenever he wants and generally waits on him 24x7. I don't know if the show is stage managed but this woman was really bizarre - she believes dining tables belong at hotels, not at homes. That a house that's clean looks like a hotel. That it's OK to have breakfast at 3pm, lunch at 7pm and dinner at 3am. That kids who express their opinions infront of their parents/elders have had a bad upbringing. That people who thanks their drivers or house helps are being fake.

Next week will see a woman who's a cleanliness freak go into a home where the toilets have never seen a toilet cleaner.

It's a scary show, this one. And something I wouldn't do for even a lot of money (I don't know what my breaking point would be though. I'd like to say there won't be one but...it's money, honey). Rationally though I can't imagine being part of such a thing. It's not about stepping out of my comfort zone - just the thought of going to live in some stranger's house for a week and letting her live in mine and manage my house is kind of revolting to me. Kind of.

What about you? Can you see yourself participating in such a show?

No One Killed Jessica

2011-01-14T16:07:00.000+05:30

Here.

Should We Become Less Uptight About "Going Dutch"?

2011-01-13T16:58:00.004+05:30

Stumbled upon this article that talks about Dutch women working less, having a big gender pay gap and loving it.

According to this article, most Dutch women work half days, meet their friends for coffee at 2 p.m., and pity their male colleagues who are stuck in office all day!

Now that's a life any working woman will be willing to trade her present life for (working beyond office hours, not being able to meet friends for coffee even after work, and still having to crib about sexism at work). The flip side, of course, being that we'll have to depend on the male species for money. Is that something I'm willing to make my peace with? I don't know. What I wouldn't mind of course is working half day, making enough money to be able to meet my personal and very important shopping needs :D and the rest can be taken care of by the man! They are genetically programmed to be ambitious, ruthlessly competitive, and more objective about work than women, anyway.

What are your views on this article?

All About Bollywood

2011-01-11T12:56:00.005+05:30

Disclaimer: If you're not into Bollywood you're advised to skip this post. This one's a complete timepass post. Don't say I didn't warn you!

*****

Bollywood gives us so many reasons to laugh. First there was Rishi Kapoor taking up the cudgels on behalf of his son because some girls that Kapoor Jr. messed around with hung him to dry. In public. On national TV. The son has maintained his silence so far, but daddy dearest fighting with all & sundry on behalf of him makes it look like the grown up son can't fight his own battles.

Then I came across this quote from Kajol: "AIDS is just a little more worrisome than a common cold and it's curable, so just go out there and get it done."

Don't believe she said that? Go here.

I've always found Kajol to be dumb. By her own admission, she's a romance novel junkie. Anyone who thrives on such trash well into their 40s has got to be surviving on a limited number of brain cells. She may be a good actress - I think she's over-hyped - but intelligence isn't one of her assets.

On the other hand Shilpa Shetty's PR Manager (don't ask me how she came into the picture) said this when reacting to Kajol's statement: "Everything is curable with love and 'real' happiness. Cancer, AIDS or common cold does not stand a chance to affect anyone if the person refuses to be affected. Rather than getting immune to deficiency syndromes, the human race needs to attempt to get immune to Dis-Ease. After all, what we dread as "Disease" is actually 'Dis-Ease'. Ease yourself with magnanimous doses of happiness, cheerfulness, abundance, love, and all 'dis-ease' will cease to exist. Even common cold!Our bodies have a natural ability to heal themselves. I guess, abounding love and happiness is Shilpa's mantra too. It's always worked for her; and worked wonders. This year, it's attracted the affection of nations all over the world and come back to her manifold."

We'll move on when you stop laughing. But not without saying this - what's worked wonders on Shilpa Shetty isn't the "abounding love and happiness" in her life. It's her husband's bank balance. Such a whole load of $$$$$ in the bank that can buy us a massive rock, honeymoon in the Caribbean, a mansion in London, a cricket team, and a flat in the tallest building in the world - all within a year of marriage - will work wonders on us too.

Then there's Priyanka Chopra. I thought that woman had something up there but seems like there's no exception to the in-Bollywood-must-be-dumb rule. After returning to Delhi from Srinagar where she was shooting for Vishal Bhardwaj’s 'Saat Khoon Maaf' she said that she was very happy to be back to ‘civilization’. She's still trying to explain that one.

While we're still on 'Saat Khoon Maaf', have you seen the promos? They're scary! Priyanka Chopra almost freaked me out. I'm really really looking forward to the movie.

*****

One celebrity who's pouting incessantly at the cameras, irrespective of how idiotic it makes her look, is Kareena Kapoor. Don't believe me? Check this out...

Truth be told, it's very tough to get the pout right. One needs to suck in one's cheeks just the right amount to highlight the cheekbones and accentuate the mouth, but when done excessively it can make you look like a moron. A la Miss Kapoor.

Her obsession with pouting aside, have you seen how obsessed the woman is with herself? She thinks no end of herself, is always running down her contemporaries, and can't stop singing peans of her acting abilities. This is one narcissistic woman. I don't understand how anyone can date someone who's so full of themselves. But let's not get nasty :)

According to psychoanalysis, 'narcissism' is the erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development (http://www.dictionary.com/)

Looks like someone forgot to grow up.

*****

Those of you who think the promotions of 'No One Killed Jessica' with the fake lesbianism angle were highly idiotic, please raise your hand (yes, we're finding everyone & everything idiotic these days....must be a phase).

First there was the mock kiss between Rani Mukerji & Vidya Balan. So passé. Besides, if you don't have the balls to go all out and kiss for real, just leave it alone. Then there were the non-stop interviews on radio & TV talking about how they pacify each other with flowers, chocolates, lingerie etc. after a lover's tiff. And then came the thumb sucking on Karan Johar's chat show. Gross.

The reason I found this entire thing idiotic is that it was completely unrelated to the movie! There's no lesbianism angle in the movie whatsoever. So this promotional strategy came out looking like a cheap way of attracting audiences to the theater. Takes away from the credibility of the movie, don't you think?

*****

There's a new show about to be aired on Sony TV. It's called 'Maa Exchange'. Basically the Indian version of 'Wife Swap' which has been suitably toned down to make it fit for "family viewing" in India. In line with this tempering down the focus will be on motherly duties rather than wifely ones. I think it will be quite a bizarre and entertaining show, but I cannot imagine participating in it for even a million bucs.

Picture courtesy: www.mumbaimirror.com

My Year in Blogs

2011-01-07T16:02:00.005+05:30

I thought of taking stock of the events that happened in my life last year through the blog. So I went back and read all the posts I wrote from January through December 2010. The story of my life was hardly there! I was surprised.

Well, I had never intended to discuss or document my personal life on this blog, so I don't know why I was taken aback. The blog was always a place where I could come for some time off, rejuvenation, venting, cribbing, random babbling...that kinda stuff. I'm too queasy about putting my personal life on the web. Besides, I'm not an anonymous blogger anymore!

Still, it was fun to track all that I wrote about last year. I wrote a hell lot of stuff, mostly random, but here are some fun things I found:

January - I went to Mainland China for the first time!!!

February - Fretted about turning 30 in March :(

March - Turned 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April - Got a bob for the first time - an asymmetical bob at that. Got the Cherry on Top Award from Chanz (for beautiful blogs with that little bit extra). JK Rowling declared that Dumbledore was gay!! Developed a crush on Shane Bond.

May - The last Shrek movie came out :( Read one of the most depressing books ever - A Thousand Splendid Suns. Took me a while and many Vogues to get over it. Wrote one of my favorite posts - on coffee shops.

June - Got swept by the FIFA World Cup!! It was the month developing of new football favorites - Espana and Barcelona! Did a number of posts on football hotties - with & without clothes. It was a month of total football washout. Developed a crush on Fernando Torres. Was reminded once again that David Beckham is THE.ORIGINAL.HOTTIE :D

July - Spain became 2010 World Cup champions!! 'Inception' blowed away my mind - literally.

August - I started watching cookery shows and getting interested in cooking. Discovered a quaint Italian restaurant in the heart of Calcutta. This is the month Masterchef Australia started pulling me into its hold.

September - Started planning my vacation.

October - Went on vacation!! :) Visited Bangalore, spent time with the awesome Moonshine and her cool as a cucumber husband (that's a compliment, right? :) Visited my parents.

November - My 500th post!!!!!!! Diwali!!!!!!! Masterchef Australia mania reached a crescendo!

December - New role at work. Marion got eliminated from Masterchef Australia. Had my most amazing dessert till now - chocolate fondant with crushed peanuts and butterscotch ice cream with peanut & salted caramel. Divine. Christmas!!!!!!!!

The things I wrote about the most in 2010 were:

Food - Take a bow, Knife! :)
Hitting the Big 3-Oh!!
Weight issues :(
Social/current issues
Movie reviews
Cribs about life (sadly not so much about work or people at work...not being anonymous sucks!)

My New Year Post

2011-01-04T15:15:00.007+05:30

We're on the 4th day of 2011 (already!!!)

The year got off to a wrong start - my laptop stopped working and I've come back to so much work after my mini new year break that posting from office has been difficult. And I can see a hell lot of work coming my way this year, so my posts may be few & far between. But this is the place I come to retain my sanity, to push all the hassles of life outside my mind for some time, so I'll make sure I blog as much as I can.

How did you bring in the new year? I brought it in in a way that I think makes me old but people in my age group (30-45 years!!!!!) think is a wise thing to do on New Years' Eve - stay home surrounded by people you love.

Really, I stopped partying on New Years' Eve many years ago. What's so attractive about over-crowded parties, headache-inducing traffic jams that ensure you wish each other Happy New Year! in the car itself never mind the fat cash you paid for entry to the 'it' party in town, and massive holes in the pocket? I'll keep that cash to buy myself a new bag & shoes, and save myself that headache that would come in the way of some rocking sex later on in the night, thank you! (Just so we make sure that we get enough bags and shoes and rocking sex during the rest of the year, you see :)

I've decided not to do the introspecting-retrospecting-stock taking shit this year. Maybe the 30th year has finally brought me some wisdom! But mostly because there's nothing to take stock of...HA HA!

I casually checked my post from a year ago - my new year resolution post for 2010 - and what I realized was past shocking. It was comical. The 7kg weight loss that was supposed to happen has turned into a 5kg weight gain, fitness levels are abysmally low, spending habits have gone from bad to worse, and investments are way below the levels they should've been at.

So I've decided I'm going to be conservative in my resolutions for 2011. Here's what I plan to do - and hopefully will be successful in doing - in this brand new, shiny, new year (grammar freaks please excuse):

I'll stop fretting over losing weight and will instead focus on overall fitness. That means I'll eat healthy, eat 5-6 small meals every day and work out as frequently as I can. Which should do the job. Isn't that the approach that glamazons like Bipasha Basu, Kareena Kapoor and their multi-millionairess fitness consultants advise? If that doesn't work I'll try yoga, power yoga, artistic yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, Thai kick boxing, kettle bell, circuit training, resistance training, calisthenics...there are plenty of options out there. And if I die while I scurry around like a headless chicken doing all of the above, I'll know whose dreams to haunt. Those glamazons'. And no Mr Reebok, I don't want your Rs 8000 ass-tone shoes.
I'll cut down on my expenses (swear to those luscious Aldo shoes I saw the other day, I will) and increase my savings. Mango & Promod will continue to exist without my charity. I'll make a budget every month and stick to it. I do not need new clothes every week. I do not need to eat out every other day. I have enough bags & shoes. I do not need to build a stockpile of imported shampoos & body washes in my bathroom. I do not need to stock up on imported sauces that cost the GDP of a small country and lie unused in my fridge till even the fungii refuse to colonize them. I do not need to randomly buy people gifts b/c no one buys me any gifts anyway :(
I'll get over my fear of driving and learn to bloody drive!!!!!
I'll go on 2 long vacations during the year. And at least one mini vacation. I'm reclaiming my life.
I'll spend more time with my parents.

That's it - short & sweet.

I tried to find a word that I can use to most aptly define the year gone by, for me. The only word I could come up with was 'MEH'. That's what 2010 was for me - meh. It was a year of status quo, personally and professionally.

The prognosis for 2011 looks bleak - an impending relocation, bigger job responsibilities, and emotional challenges that are going to be difficult to overcome. But I'm determined to sail through - by taking one day at a time, by not worrying about things that are beyond my control, by focusing on my goals for the year and blinding myself to everything else. 'Coz I've got to see you on the other side of 2011, yo.

A very Happy New Year to you :)

And So, I Had Myself a Merry Little Christmas

2010-12-27T19:26:00.006+05:30

And I hope you did too!

Mum's here and we were out for 7-8 hours at a stretch on both days (Sat & Sun). We did the lunch-movie-coffee-shopping shindig. I was amazed at the amount of energy and enthusiasm my mom still has! Unlike my dad who's favorite activity is to watch TV - and who thinks family bonding = watching TV together - my mom is always willing to go out for lunch/ movie/ shopping. And she doesn't tire easily.

You know what eye-openers mothers' visits are? I'm talking of Indian mothers, of course. Apart from the tips she'll give you on how to live your life, what to eat/not eat etc., your mother will also introduce you to these strange shows on TV. On Colors, Sony, Zee and Star Plus to be precise. Shows where they paint a woman's face black or join her eyebrows with an eye pencil or make her eyebrows thick as Imran Khan's (the actor, not the cricketer...have you seen how thick his eye brows are?) to make her look ugly. Where women wear the blingiest, most exotic saris and are decked up in 20 tonnes of gold irrespective of whether they're at home or at a wedding. Where they are perfectly made up with the best of M.A.C. products and have not a hair out of place even when they're sleeping. Where women who are slightly more educated or ambitious are invariably vamps who spend their entire day plotting & conniving against the other docile women of the household and making strange faces, trying to look evil. Where the dialogues play in the background while the evil woman rotates her eye balls in every existent & non-existent direction, to show what mean thing she's thinking!

The kind of crap Indian television dishes out is amazing. And my mother, like millions of other smart, educated women across India watch it with the utmost dedication. She is glued to the TV between 7-9pm watching all kinds of assorted crap, and she watches them with a lot of involvement and emotion, giving her own comments and insights, lauding the "heroine" and chastising the vamp, tsk-tsking at the appalling state of society as shown in such serials. It's almost as entertaining to watch my mother watch those shows as it is to watch the shows themselves. Bhagya Vidhata, Balika Vadhu, Nakusha (this one's particularly hilarious), Uttaran, Na Aana Is Desh Lado...the list is endless. And funniest of all, she even wants to have a discussion with me during the commercial breaks and tells me what lessons in life one learns on watching such shows!

I really wants to know what is it about these shows that has our mothers so tightly in their grasp? Is your mom hooked onto prime time regressive television as well?

Merry Christmas!!!!

2010-12-24T14:14:00.004+05:30

So, appalled at the lack of enthusiasm around our favorite festival, we tried to force some Christmas cheer into life. Took out our little Christmas tree and decorated it with ornaments. Went to Flury's and picked up a couple of plum cakes (thanks to the mother who warned there better be plum cakes in the house when she comes visiting for Christmas-New Year's!)

I think it's going to be a quiet Christmas with mum. We'll probably go out for lunch, watch a movie, have cake & hot chocolate...that kinda stuff. And I don't mind, actually.

Gasp! I'm getting old. That's what it is!

Though there is the little person inside me jumpin' 'n' dancin' around 'coz it's X-Mas. And as long as I have that enthusiasm in my heart for this time of the year, I needn't be scared about losing my love for Christmas. Or getting old for that matter!

Merry Christmas all you guys! Eat, drink, make merry, party...OR...chill at home, watch unending re-runs of 'Friends', watch your favorite Christmas movie, make love...do whatever works for you. Just make sure to have a jolly good time!

Who Stole My Christmas?

2010-12-22T11:56:00.005+05:30

Crib post ahead. You have been warned.

It's two days till Christmas and I'm not feeling Christmassy yet :(

I'm a Christmas person. I decorate my house every year. I put up a tree, ornaments, wreaths, streamers...the works! I used to decorate my desk at work as well. My friends & I play Secret Santa. So it's very uspetting to not be feeling the spirit of Christmas because I know I'll have to wait an entire year for the next one to come around :(

Honestly, I'm done with 2010. It's been a year of constant change. The changes have been for the better, career advancement and all that, but they've been way too frequent for my liking. I'm also staring a few more undesired changes, personal and professional, in the face. Sigh.

Then there are the bitchy people. They abound in my life. People who pretend to be really fond of you to your face but bitch about you once out of earshot. People who spread all sorts of false malicious gossip about your personal & professional life. I'm amazed at how bitchy some people I know can get!

I understand that people bitch about someone when they're insecure or feel themselves to be inferior, and you'd think that after 6 years of working in the corporate world I would've learnt how to treat these people, i.e. ignore them. But I really can't ignore negative talk. I've learnt how to deal with it and not get angry over it, I've got to the point where I don't let it get to me. But I can't completely ignore it. Negativity affects me.

These events have taken the festive feeling out of this time of the year. Looks like someone has stolen my Christmas :(

Gone Are the Days...

2010-12-18T22:57:00.004+05:30

....when I would feverishly start making plans for the weekend on Friday evening itself. Now my answer to queries on what plans I have for the weekend generally is, "I don't have any yet", or "I don't know, I think I just want to chill". I wake up on Saturday morning & check if someone's up to doing something.

....when Saturday nights meant party nights and I'd feel completely unloved & unpopular if I had to spend a Saturday evening doing nothing. Now I'm OK with staying home on Saturday, ordering in, watching a movie. Or going for a quiet dinner & drinks followed by a movie, maybe.

....when I had to be out doing something on Sunday evenings because I'd get massive Sunday evening blues otherwise! Now I prefer Sunday evenings at home watching TV, reading a book or chit-chatting with The Boy. At most, I'd meet a friend for coffee.

Life changes and how! Or are these signs that I'm getting old? :(

My 'Go-To' Books

2010-12-16T17:15:00.006+05:30

I had the most wonderful day today, even though I spent it all by myself.

It's a long weekend. I woke up at 10 in the morning, dawdled over tea, had breakfast and went back to sleep at noon. Woke up at 2, showered, had lunch, went to Barista with my 'Adrian Mole', had a lovely hazelnut mocha and blueberry muffin, ran a couple of errands and am back home doing nothing.

Why can't we have more such days? :(

*******

I have a few "go-to" books and movies. These are books/movies that I turn to when I'm feeling low or have been having rough days.

My "go-to" books include the Bridget Jones Diaries (both) & Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Bridget Jones because...come on...it's Bridget Jones! Here's this girl who's constantly fretting about her weight, very much like me. She keeps landing herself in the most embarassing situations but she also has the courage to laugh at herself. She is being courted by two sex-on-toast men - one the biggest gentelman and the other possibly the biggest jerk in town - and she keeps falling for the jerk just because he is glib enough to talk his way into her heart. Now that's a situation many of us (women) are familiar with, aren't we? But in the end she goes with the nice guy. What's not to like?

Of course, the diary format also works for me. The book is fast-paced and not unnecessarily wordy. And I don't need to read it from start to finish at one go. I can read a few pages when I'm sad, put it down, pick it back up after some time and continue reading from where I left!

I also love Confessions of a Shopaholic. Becky Bloomwood is hilarious! She comes up with ingenious excuses to buy things she doesn't need. She also writes the funniest letters to her bank manager asking him to waive off her credit card bill and increase her credit limit! We could call her stupid and hate her for not having the mental strength to put an end to her shopaholism, but we don't because we know there's a little bit of Becky Bloomwood in all of us.

I've discovered two other books that could become my "go-to" books soon. One is 'Dork' by Sidin Vadukut. The book has workplace humor and it's outrageously funny. If you haven't read it yet, I'd say you MUST. You'll be rolling on your sides laughing.

The other book that I'm currently reading and finding absolutely adorable is 'The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Years'. Here's this adoloscent obsessed with the spots on his face, which he's convinced is a result of the poor diet his mom feeds him, and the size of his "thing". He's a drama-queen, a chauvinist (he expects his mom to worship the ground he walks on & he'll let his girlfriend work at a cake shop or some place like that but not to have a career), but he also cares for old people & animals and looks out for his father who's having a rough time. The humor is subtle but it's definitely there.

Then there's 'Love Actually', the movie. It's my favorite movie EVER. I think I've watched the movie more than 20 times and it makes me happy every single time. It's got so much love floating around - love between a brother & sister, between a father & his step-son, even between a musician & his manager (!). Love that transcends boundaries of social strata and race. And it's got this Christmas theme running all the way through. And we LOOOOOOOOVE Christmas over here.

Which reminds me, Christmas is right 'round the corner and I haven't bought my decorations yet! I have a little tree from last year but I need to buy the ornaments & mistletoe & streamers. And plum cake! Oh, Christmas is going to be so much fun!! :)

How I Long To Go Back Here

2010-12-16T17:05:00.002+05:30

Picture Courtesy: www.unc.edu, http://gazette.unc.edu

The One Year Itch

2010-12-13T12:36:00.007+05:30

I recently read an article on how the seven year itch has become passé. Couples have started facing issues in their marriage within the first year itself.

Let me say at the outset that this wouldn't apply to every couple, obviously. This is a general trend that's seen to be developing in Indian society of late. And I agree.

All around me I hear of and read about people getting divorced. This phenomenon is not restricted to celebrities anymore. There are quite a few people I know personally who have divorced/are in the process of getting divorced within a few years of marriage.

As far as celebrities go, we're reading about an ex-Bollywood actress contemplating divorce for the second time in her 3-4 year old marriage. The first time around, the couple took a vacation together and somehow managed to save their marriage. Will they be successful this time around as well? Are they even trying? Notably, the couple got married within a month or so of the actress breaking up with her then fiancé, so one wonders whether her decision to get married to her current husband was a hasty one. This morning I also read about a British actress splitting from her Indian industrialist husband. They've been married only two & a half years.

Closer home, there are two friends of mine who got married within a year of meeting each other. They come from very different social and financial backgrounds and the girl could not deal with the conservative thinking and financial habits of her in-laws as well as their constant interference in her life. The couple started having issues within 6 months, and 2 years later they're separated and waiting for their divorce to come through. Another friend filed for divorce 6 months after getting married. Her husband is a habitual cheater, and 6 months after marrying him she decided she couldn't take it anymore! I wonder why she got married to him in the first place? Did she really think he'd clean up his act? Does that ever happen?

My views on marriage aside (on which I've done very many posts & will spare you the brutality :), I've been thinking of why marriages have come to have such a short shelf-life.

Come to think of it, when a friend/relative celebrates, say their 5th marriage anniversary, many of us react by saying "Oh wow, 5 years together!", without even realizing the implications of what we just said. 10th anniversary, and this surprise turns into marvel. "Oh man, 10 years!!!!!" This is a sign of the times we live in. It's a sign of how the dynamics of relationships have changed.

So obviously, since I've been thinking I've reached a conclusion. If you're interested I'll tell you why I think fewer marriages work these days (this is my opinion alone and I'm no marriage counsellor :) If you aren't, you can skip the rest of this post.

To begin with, our generation is in a tearing hurry to get married and I don't know why! People decide to get married within a year, two years, and sometimes within months of knowing each other. That makes me wonder if they even know WHY they're getting married? I'm sorry but "I love him and can't live without him" is just not a good enough reason to take such a big step because once the reality of life kicks in - which will be sooner rather than later once you start living together - you will not be so much "in love with him" anymore.

I don't mean to preach, but we've got to have clear reasons for getting married. We should get married if we want to build a life together or share some of life's experiences together, not to prove a point to our family/friends or society.

Before we take the plunge, we need to make sure our basic philosophies in life are similar and if not, we need to have a clearly defined action plan on how we'll combat situations where we don't see eye-to-eye. We need to have common goals and aspirations for ourselves as a couple (though personal goals may vary). We need to be sure we can live with the habits (some of which WILL be irritating) and idiosyncrasies of the other person 24x7 because these things have a way of getting magnified when you're living in close proximity with someone. But most importantly, we need to be sure that we're mentally and emotionally ready for marriage because it takes a lot of commitment, hard work, trust, understanding and compromise. And all of these come from maturity.

Our generation is also low on patience and tolerance levels. We want quick solutions to every problem, and with increasing career demands on both partners we have neither the time nor the energy to work on a troubled marriage. Getting out of it seems to be the easier way of dealing with the mess, particularly since divorce no more connotes such a huge stigma as it used to, and plenty of divorced people do go on to date new people, start new relationships and get married again.

Financial independence has given a new sense of confidence to women. Working women in bad or even indifferent marriages feel there's no reason to suffer silently. They're simply less conditioned to give in than they used to be, and if they're not happy in their marriage they prefer moving on.

Then there is the issue of not working out the details of life together before taking the plunge. This ties to my first point of getting married in a hurry. We forget to work out answers to some pertinent questions that may give rise to marital disharmony later and become the basis of a failed marriage. What expectations do we have of each other as husband & wife? Are we willing to/able to fulfil those expectations? How will we deal with conflicts? How will we find solutions to problems where our points of view differ? What kind of spending habits will we have? How much interference by parents-in-law and other relatives is OK? How important are our respective friends going to be? What do we think of having kids? What kind of lifestyle changes do we expect each other to make? How are we going to share our space? These questions may seem trivial but trust me they can be fatal to a marriage. Married people may agree with me on this!

Then there is the issue of growing infidelity and the toll that the constant suspicion takes on a marriage. Is our generation really less loyal than the generations before us, or is it that the cases of infidelity are being exposed more? Are people who cheat on their partners less afraid to admit they slipped up than they used to be? Are people more aware and open about their sexual and emotional needs and less hesitant to pursue gratification with people other than their spouses? Whatever the reason might be, infidelity stares us in the face whichever way we turn, and we have become more intolerant of it because we know divorce is easier to get now than it used to be and it's not the end of the world.

This is the age when all the myths associated with marriage - such as marriages are made in heaven, there's only one person for all of us, when you meet your soulmate, you'll know he/she is the one etc. - are getting debunked. Marriages come with a 'fragile' tag and we can't breathe easy once we've tied the knot. On the contrary, that's when the real work begins.

Are we up to the challenge?

Marion, You're Being Missed

2010-12-10T16:59:00.006+05:30

Marion Grasby, my favorite person in Masterchef Australia Season 2, was eliminated from the competition earlier this week (well, the elimination really happened in July as that's when the series was being filmed but it's being telecast in India now).

Marion was tipped to win the competition by one & all. Even the contestants were convinced that she would win. She constantly kept winning team & individual challenges and invention tests. Everyone would want her on their team during the team challenges. She was also the only contestant to beat a professional chef in the Celebrity Chef challenge to win immunity, which she used to get herself out of another elimination challenge earlier in the show. That's how good she was!

Marion reacts after beating Chef Frank Camorra of 'Movida' restaurant

And then the unthinkable happened. The most bizarre elimination. I say bizarre because she got eliminated on the back of a Satay sauce. Marion is half Thai & half Australian, has a trained Thai chef for a mother, and has grown up cooking Thai food. So everyone expected her to come up with a brilliant Satay sauce. I guess she was having a bad day.

If what one reads on the net is to be believed, she's on her way to becoming a millionnaire! She's working on her range of Asian products & sauces and is apparently being chased by culinary houses to release her line with them, has landed a series of cookbook publishing deals, is being invited to various food events & product launches, and she's also rumored to be the face of Coles, an Australian supermarket chain!!

That's a lot of money for a girl who gave up a career in journalism to follow her dreams (how I wish more of us had the courage to do that!), and who admits she always wanted to start a food & wine bar along with her partner Tim, but didn't have the means to do so. And you know what, she deserves every cent of that money.

I hope her product range does really well and becomes available in India as well (I'm so buying!), and I also hope she gets to open her restaurant real soon.

Marion was a flavor cook. The dishes she produced had bursts of flavor, to the extent that the judges would complement her by saying "when you eat a dish made by Marion, you know it's by her". That I think is a huge compliment for a chef!

The sad part is that while such an exceptional cook as Marion is out of the competition, ordinary cooks such as Jimmy and Aaron remain. Jimmy can't cook anything except Indian and Aaron's good only with pasta. So it's very surprising that the judges would prefer to retain such average cooks and let go of a brilliant cook as Marion. Masterchef is just not the same without her. I miss watching her at work, I miss her dishes, her enthusiasm, her excitement, and her smile that goes right upto her eyes.

Something to Think About

2010-12-07T13:44:00.007+05:30

I don't generally read 'mommy blogs' (for obvious reasons) but I came across this post by Parul Sharma. I'm sharing the link because I think it's a topic that a number of women struggle with post-motherhood, and also because I think I've done a post on this topic earlier (I'm too lazy to dig it up so just take my word for it, will you?)

In her post, Parul puts across her point of view on the issue of stay-at-home moms vs. working moms. She talks about how women who give up their careers to look after their kids feel responsible towards their parents & their efforts to give them (the women) the best education they could afford, so they could be financially independent. On the other hand, working moms suffer tremendous guilt for not being able to give sufficient time & attention to their child(ren). And there are some women who're lucky enough to be able to work from home, and while it may seem that they have the best of both worlds, the flip side is that people often don't take their work seriously and trivialize it.

Parul also goes on to say that when it comes to deciding whether to be a stay-at-home-mom or a working mom, there's no right (or wrong) decision. That we have to respect other people's choices, and if we feel we're superior to them because of the decision we've made for ourselves, then we're probably just trying to hide our own feelings of inferiority and dissonance with the choice we've made.

My favorite paragraph in the entire article is this: ".....tough as it sounds, that we cannot turn on our babies and burden them with accusations. Here, I did all this because of you, gave up so much because of you, made so many sacrifices to give you a good, better, best life. Nobody asked you to. So just shut up already, yes?"

I see this happening all the time, particularly when it comes to the child making a choice of career his parents might be opposed to, or in our great Indian society, the choice of a partner. And I think it's completely unfair on the child.

For all the talk about how people want to experience the miracle of creating life, it can't be denied that people have kids for very selfish reasons. They want a child to carry on their family name, to inherit and tend to their assets after they're gone, and most importantly to take care of them when they're old. So they really do need to remember that they have no right to emotionally blackmail the child into doing what they want him/her to do by counting the number of things they've done for him/her and the sacrifices they've made. No one asked them to have a child and do any of it; they did it all completely out of their own volition.

Me, I have taken the easier way out and decided I don't want kids. But for those of you women who are/plan to become mothers, hop over to Parul's blog and read her post.

There. My good deed for the day.

Some Cribbing and a Cupful of Desire

2010-12-06T15:26:00.007+05:30

I don't like kids. Particularly in restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes & my house.

Gaaah, who am I kidding? I don't like kids anywhere, period. They are generally crying, wailing, throwing tantrums, misbehaving, destroying/messing up things around them, or acting like monsters. Not to mention they are major attention seekers. But more than kids, I can't stand parents who don't know how to/won't control their kids in public places.

Last weekend, we went for dinner to this nice restaurant where I had the most decadent dessert, but more on that after I'm done cribbing about kids.

There was a kid running around the restaurant while his parents were chatting away with friends at a table next to ours. He would often come and start running around our table. We tried scaring him away with angry looks but he just wouldn't leave us alone. And then he started poking his finger into our food!

So imagine you've gone to a really nice restaurant with your partner/friend/family/whoever and all you want is a quiet, sumptuous meal with lots of nice conversation and there's this random kid who comes over and starts poking his finger into your food! What would you do?

We turned around and asked the mother to get a hold on him, and this takes the cake - her reply was "shayad woh khana chahta hai, thoda khila dijiye na (maybe he wants to have some of your food, feed him some"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just stared at her open-mouthed. When I finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, I told her that I wasn't there to feed her kid. Neither were the other people in the restaurant. And if she couldn't control him at a public place, she had no business bringing him to one.

At this point, the manager intervened and thankfully, he had the sense to point out to the harebrained woman that there were perfectly behaved little kids at other tables as well, so could she please look after hers as he wanted everyone at the restaurant to have an enjoyable meal, and moreover, the kid might hurt himself by falling/running into furniture?

I was impressed by this man.

While we are on the topic of kids, I got a little shock this morning.

I ran into two of my neighbors who have 1 year old kids. They were going to drop their kids off at school!!!

I asked them what kind of school exists for 1 year olds and apparently, it's a play school that starts at 9 and ends at 12. But isn't 12 months too young for a child to be going to ANY kind of school? And both of these women are stay-at-home moms, so why do they need to be sending their child to school anyway?

I tactfully enquired whether they thought the child was old enough to be sent to school and they blatantly replied that they do it so they can get some peace in the morning and get household chores out of the way, pack their husbands off to work and get their pujas & what not done.

I mean, this really pisses me off. Everyone has the right to "peace" but if peace is so important to you, DON'T.FUCKING.HAVE.KIDS.

When you decide to have a kid, you undoubtedly & unequivocally give up your right to "peace" at least for a few years. It's like people have this pressure to procreate and then the kid can go to hell.

Why do people have kids when they can't take care of them? Gets my goat every single time.

Phew! So now that we're done cribbing about pesky, annoying kids, let me tell you about the mindblowing dessert that I had at the restaurant. Chocolate fondant with crushed peanuts and butterscotch ice-cream with peanut and salted caramel. Oh man, it was orgasmic.

For non-food connoisseurs, the fondant was essentially a cupful of molten chocolate, baked so it was slightly crusted on top. It had crushed peanuts in it and I love peanut butter, Reeses peanut butter cups and peanut Snickers, so I really enjoyed it. The crushed peanuts gave the molten chocolate a slight crunch as well as a slightly salty, nutty taste. The butterscotch ice cream was equally good. It too contained crushed peanuts and was drizzled with a salted caramel sauce. You couldn't help but moan with every bite.

I'm not much of a picture taker (basically I'm just a lazy person!) so I don't have pictures of this mouth-watering dessert. But here's an idea of what it looked like. All that the picture below is missing are tiny bits of peanuts and a drizzle of salted caramel sauce :)

Picture courtesy: http://blog.5min.com/

Baby Steps in the World of Cooking : Creme Anglaise with a Strawberry Reduction

2010-12-06T13:11:00.005+05:30

I finally came good on my plans to make this dessert. I've been planning to make it for the past 2-3 weeks but never got around to it. Then I saw a box of strawberries at the supermarket on Saturday and I knew this was my chance to make it.

Creme Anglaise, or English Cream, is an English custard made with milk & eggs. In theory, it sounds easy. Milk, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla essence. How tough can it be?

Well, I wouldn't say it's tought but it's quite labor intensive b/c you're adding hot milk to egg yolks and then cooking the mixture directly over heat, so there's a very good chance your eggs will scramble and you'll end up with scrambled egg in milk! Yuck!

So what do you do to prevent the eggs from scrambling? You whisk...and whisk...and whisk...

Don't let this put you off though. It's a yummy dessert. So here's the recipe for Creme Anglaise with a Strawberry Reduction.

For Creme Anglaise:
Milk - 200 ml
Egg yolk - 2
Sugar - 2-3 tbsp depending on how sweet you like your custard
Vanilla essence - 2 tsp (It would be ideal to use vanilla bean or pure vanilla extract but they're not readily available in every city, so vanilla essence will do)

For the Strawberry Reduction:
Strawberries - 100 gm
Sugar - 1 tbsp

Boil the milk. On the other hand, whisk the egg yolks till they are light yellow in color. The bad news is you can't use an electric whisker b/c you don't want to get too much air in, so this must be done by hand. And it takes a while.
While whisking, keep mixing in the sugar. I used powdered sugar so it's easier to dissolve.
Once the egg yolks are light yellow in color, start adding the milk bit by bit to the egg & sugar mixture. Keep whisking with the other hand b/c the milk is hot and you don't want the eggs to scramble.
Once you've added in all the milk, put the mixture on low heat and cook while stirring continuously (again to prevent the eggs from scrambling). The idea is to cook the mixture till it reaches the desired consistency without bringing it to a boil. Technically, the temperature should be between 75-80 celsius. You can keep a tab on the temperature with a food thermometer if you have one. I don't, so I just stayed alert. A sign your mixture has gotten too hot is if it starts sputtering at the bottom. If that happens, remove the mixture from the gas and stir for a few minutes to let the excess heat out. Then replace on gas and cook till it reaches the desired consistency. REMEMBER, DO NOT LET YOUR CUSTARD BOIL.
A way to test that your custard is done is to run a finger down the back of the spoon with which you've been stirring. It should leave a clean line (ie. the custard should not be runny).
For the strawberry reduction, chop the strawberries into small pieces. Add the sugar in 2-3 tbsp water and heat it on the gas till the sugar dissolves. Add the strawberries and cook for 2-3 mins, stirring continuously. You will get this lovely thick strawberry sauce with small chunks of strawberries. 2-3 mins would be enough as strawberries soften easily.
Pour the custard on to a slice of pound cake or chocolate cake if you like the combination of chocolate & strawberry. Garnish with a generous helping of the strawberry sauce.

I did take pictures with my Blackberry but the lighting was really bad, so the pictures didn't do justice to the dish. So I'm putting pictures of what the end product would look like.

Picture courtesy: http://www.recipetips.com/, http://myrecipes.com/

License to Cook?

2010-12-03T13:34:00.005+05:30

Since we are in a food zone, let me draw your attention to this article (courtesy The Knife).

Olive Bar & Kitchen in Bandra was never one of my favorite places to eat out in Mumbai inspite of it being the place to be seen at or its proximity to my house. I much preferred its neighbor, Out of the Blue, with its laid-back ambience, mouth-watering pastas, baked cheesecakes and live music on Sunday afternoons.

I've been watching a number of food based shows of late, and I've developed a strong admiration for Western chefs. Their cooking techniques are so evolved, their knowledge of flavors that will and won't work together so strong, and they can conjure up dishes that Indian chefs would probably not even have heard of!

But that's because developed countries have a much more evolved food scene as compared to India. Chefs are valued, celebrated even. There are proper culinary schools to train them in the techniques as well as the art of cooking, followed by an internship under a professional chef.

Reading this article kind of shocked me and was also painful at some level because it confirms what I suspected about Indian restaurants but hoped would be untrue - that the cooks working in restaurant kitchens in India are untrained. In fact, they can't be called chefs at all.

This article talks about how these cooks do not undergo any formal training in cooking. They are barely taught about food. Their training consists merely of showing them pictures of various dishes and leaving them to learn on their own, often by watching the head chef at work.

The proof of such shoddy training lies in the gruel that we are served at most restaurants in India, including fine-dining ones. Oily, over-spiced Indian food, Chinese dishes that are dunked in sauces, pastas floating in cheese. Any Western chef worth his salt will scrunch up his nose at such monstrosities, forget serving them to his customers.

The background of Indian chefs is equally to blame for the quality of food they dish out. Spices dominate the food cooked in Indian homes and vegetables are cooked till they become almost gloopy. The oven is the most under-utilized gadget in Indian kitchens. This is how the cooks grow up watching their mothers/grandmothers cook, and since no one bothers to train them otherwise, this becomes their general notion of food.

Watch a Western chef at his job and you'll learn to appreciate the beauty of food. They let the ingredients do the talking. Spices and seasoning are used just for flavor. And texture, which they get from using different kinds of side ingredients apart from the core one, is as important as flavor. They cook the vegetables only upto a point that it's tender enough to eat so it retains most of its flavor. Poaching, oven-roasting and grilling are also widely used techniques to cook meat to enhance its flavor. Not everything is fried or cooked directly on the flame.

My other pet peeve at restaurants is being served food that's made with ready-to-use sauces & marinades available in the market. I would like a chef to make his sauces & marinades from scratch because a) all the ingredients that go into Italian/Asian/Mexican sauces are available in India now, and b) if I wanted to eat something made with ready-to-use sauces, I could have cooked it at home! People don't pay for shortcuts at restaurants.

But then, it is our inherent tendency as a people to take short-cuts and dupe customers. An Indian businessman will try to cheat his customers to make a quick buck whenever he can find an opportunity. Restaurants are no exception.

Maybe I need to stop watching food-based shows? They're going to ruin my eating out experiences for life! I will never find any restaurant good enough :(

Photographs Courtesy: http://www.masterchef.com.au/

A Cute Little Love Story

2010-12-01T14:24:00.005+05:30

There are some memories that will always stay with you because they fill your heart with warmth every time you think of them.

I was 18 and had just moved to the US for college. He was 18 too and had moved to the UK. We had e-mail but for some strange reason we'd write each other letters. On those blue inland letters (remember?).

I honestly don't remember why we wrote letters but there was a certain kind of intimacy in receiving a letter from the person you loved and who loved you. Or make that lots of letters because he wrote lots! I think he wrote every other day because I'd receive 2-3 letters every week!

I'd rush back from class with huge anticipation. The first thing I'd do once back to my dorm was to run to my mailbox and check for his letters. I'd be elated when I found one. I'd read and re-read the letter until the next one came along. I'd be a little sad on days I had an empty mailbox. I think I'll always love him for that - for making my day countless number of times. Then I'd trudge to the post-office on campus, buy an inland letter myself and write back.

For all the writing to each other that happened then, we aren't even in touch now. Life changes and how! I'm vaguely aware of what's going on in his life thanks to mutual friends but I haven't seen him or spoken to him in ten years and sometimes I really miss him. There's something about 'first love' that you just can't shake off no matter how much you try. It just never lets go of you.

Envy

2010-11-30T12:42:00.004+05:30

A massive rock for engagement, a mansion in London & a holy friggin' cricket team as a wedding present, honeymoon in the Caribbean, and a flat in the tallest building in the world as a first anniversary present (just because you saw the building and wished aloud that it would be nice to have a house there!). Next is what....a private island off the coast of France? A personal jet?

Who needs love when marrying for money can be so much more rewarding?

Guess it's time to re-think my priorities!

Saturday Night Horror

2010-11-29T17:02:00.003+05:30

One of my pet peeves at a restaurant - and I mean something that turns me off completely and seals the deal as far as going back to the restaurant is concerned - is poor service. Service at a restaurant is as important for me as the food. It's 50-50. Unless I'm going to a low-end restaurant of course.

There's a new restaurant in town that's been advertizing pretty heavily in the papers of late. It's called 'Harvey's World Cuisine'.

Now, good "world cuisine" is something not readily available in this city outside of 5-star hotels. In fact, the phrase "world cuisine" is kind of a misnomer in itself as it stands mainly for Indian, Chinese and maybe Continental, if the owners of the restaurant are brave. The same holds true for Harvey's, except they have a couple of Thai and Mexican dishes thrown in as well to justify the "world cuisine" claim. The focus seems to be on Indian and Chinese though, as we weren't given the Continental menu till we asked for it, and most of the Continental dishes on the menu were not being served on the day we went. It was a Saturday night. Go figure.

Coming back to the point of this post - the service at Harvey's was pathetic.

Now, I'm not crazy. I don't expect 5-star level service at a non-5 star restaurant. But there are some basic things that I do expect such as a clean floor, plates without a layer of dust on them, water glasses being refilled without having to call out to the waiters everytime, appetizers being brought out before (and not after) the main course, hot food and desserts that are not burnt. Waiters who know their menu would also be nice. Harvey's failed to deliver on all of these counts.

The decor was really nice with white, wood and glass dominating the interiors but the entire floor was dirty. No one bothered to clean it up. The plates on our table had a layer of dust (!!) on them. The waiters didn't know their menu, didn't know if a dish was served with or without rice, and wouldn't refill our glasses with water unless we called out to them.

Since we were having Asian food, I requested our waiter to check with the chef if the sauteed vegetables that came with my dish could be replaced with stir fried vegetables (since when is Japanese food served with sauteed vegetables anyway?). He refused to even check!

And guess what they did after that?

They brought out our main course before the appetizer!!!!

If that's not a faux pas at a restaurant, blunder rather, I don't know what is. We told them to take the main course back and bring it after they'd served our starter. They did but they didn't bother to heat the dishes before bringing them back out. We were served cold chicken teriyaki and stir-fried prawns (that weren't stir-fried but doused in Chinese sauces). By then we were pretty pissed off to ask them to take the food back and heat it. That's not something I want to ask a restaurant to do! We didn't finish our meal and thought we'd make up for it with dessert. Once again, half the things mentioned on the dessert menu weren't available, so I ordered a brownie.

Now, how wrong can you go with a brownie?

Very wrong apparently, if you're Harvey's. The brownie was hard as rock. I couldn't cut it even with a knife. So I broke off a piece to check what it tasted like. It was burnt.

We complained to the manager. He apologized but didn't look sorry. We asked for the bill. They had charged us for bottled water which we never ordered. But that's a mistake I'm willing to forgive. I don't expect to have to check my bill at a restaurant, but I've been billed wrongly so many times that I don't mind checking.

There's no excuse for such pathetic levels of service though. Especially given that Harvey's is not exactly a low-end restaurant. A meal for two consisting of a starter, two main course dishes and a dessert cost us Rs 1000. Dirty floor, dusty plates, cold food, rock hard brownies and dumb waiters were complimentary. Needless to say I'm not going back. Neither am I recommending the place to anyone.

Saying 'No' to Jeans

2010-11-29T15:35:00.004+05:30

Sometimes you read/watch/hear people spouting such crap that you really wonder what the fuck is wrong with them!

First there was Aishwarya Rai on the season's opening episode of Koffee With Karan. Apart from giggling away to glory and talking in an accent she seems to have acquired on a trip to Mars, she was desperately trying to sound cool by trying to talk about her sex life - or the lack thereof - on TV.

I say 'lack thereof' b/c if she's anything in the bedroom like she is in front of the camera - read cold and plastic - there's not much sex that would be happening inside the bedroom.

Why would someone who comes across as icy in all her interviews and rebuffs all attempts by journalists to pry into her personal life, suddenly ask Karan Johar if she should disclose how she & her husband make out, in print? And then, when K Jo asks her which men, apart from her husband, she finds attractive, she looks horrified and wonders how she could even be asked something like that, as if answering the question would've resulted in her dying on the spot and burning in hell. Because, you know, she's a Bhartiya nari who cannot dream of any man save her husband in her wildest, wettest dreams!

For God's sake she wasn't asked to name the men, apart from her husband, that she'd jump or even consider sleeping with. She was only asked who she found attractive, and if she truly isn't attracted to any other man, she surely is frigid.

Then there was Deepika Padukone on the same show, tearing her ex-boyfriend apart b/c he cheated on her repeatedly. She went to the extent of saying that he should endorse condoms b/c he loves to use them. While her intention quite clearly was to hang him to dry in the media, what she overlooked was the possibility that by discussing his sexual escapades in public she was also shedding enough light on her sexual life, and also on the fact that she's a slow learner if not a complete dimwit.

Any woman with half a brain would know that if a man cheats on her once, he'll do so again. You forgive him once, you forgive him a second time, but if you keep taking him back again & again, it's not he who's the one with issues here - it's quite clearly you. Because you haven't learnt your lesson.

Then there's the granddaddy of all 'what the fucks' - Mr Subhash Ghai. He thinks that youngsters should not wear jeans anymore b/c jeans corrupt them.

You read it right.

Jeans. Corrupt. Youngsters.

This is the same Subhash Ghai who showed Sridevi in a swim suit in 'Karma' and Madhuri Dixit heaving her generous bosom in a barely-there choli in 'Khalnayak'. The same Subhash Ghai who raised the most profound question ever asked of Indians - choli ke peeche kya hai (what's under the blouse?).

I'm sure according to him the answer was Indian family values.

I can understand why Subhash Ghai has lost it though. If you made movies like 'Good Boy, Bad Boy', 'Apna Sapna Money Money' and 'Yuvraj' that tanked faster than the Titanic, you'd be losing it too. And thinking that a nation's character gets eroded by the kind of pants that its citizens choose to wear.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

Or maybe they're tripping on some really good stuff!!

BBC's Top 100 Books

2010-11-28T20:04:00.004+05:30

Tagged by Moonshine. This is a list of the top 100 books published by BBC. According to them, an average reader has read 6 of these. I've highlighted the ones I've read. Let's count!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (In school)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

That's 30!!! Wow...I'm impressed with myself.

Which ones have you read?

And I'm tagging Bluestocking and Supernova. And anyone else who wants to take it up. Just let me know when you're done :)

Of Rotten Luck & Conspiring Forces

2010-11-27T17:42:00.004+05:30

So I've been bitten by the cooking bug big time. My mom almost did a flip when she heard this because, you know, until a few months ago I never ventured near the kitchen unless it was to make tea, Maggi or scrambled eggs. I was always the kind of person that thought cooking is literally burning your time away. I thought cooking was for women who had mothers-in-law from hell and chauvinist husbands who believed that a woman's true position is in the kitchen. Cooking wasn't for liberated, independent women like me. I was meant for take-outs & ordering-in.

And then I met The Knife! Well, started reading his blog to be precise. He got me interested in food. And then I started watching shows by Nigella, Rachel Allen & Curtis Stone. And then came Masterchef Australia and I was hooked...on to food. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined such a day would come. But here it is, well and truly. And The Boy has been asking why I spend time watching such shows when I don't learn anything from them. All very good-naturedly, of course.

So I've been intending to cook some gourmet kind of thing (yeah right!) since three weekends now. I have elaborate plans to cook an appetizer, a main course and dessert. And I've been dying to cook Asian food - one of those light, springy, sweet & salty chicken dishes. You know, something with a light broth...or some fancy reduction...or jus! But each weekend my plans go for a toss.

The first time around I didn't get the time to look up a recipe in advance and by the time the weekend came, I had too many errands to run and couldn't get around to looking something up. The second weekend, I got so tired after gymming on Saturday, I spent a major part of the day sleeping! Sunday passed in the excitement of watching Harry Potter (yes, we belong to that group of people, lovingly, or disparangingly, depending on which side of the fence you're on, called Pottermaniacs that get excited about the Potter books & movies). And this weekend, just as I sat down to find a recipe, my internet crashed! It's up & running now but it's too late to go shopping for ingredients.

Rotten luck and conspiring forces, I tell you. And it pervades through life. For the same reason, I haven't even been able to blog in a week now! There are so many topics doing the hampster dance in my head...Masterchef Australia, 'The Social Network', 'Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows', Big Boss, Koffee with Karan and a tag by Moonshine. But I've been swamped with work and haven't had the time to write. Such injustice! But now my head is above water and I'm going to get back to blogging with a vengeance. Eat that, you work monster!

Till then, enjoy your Saturday guys. And please send me some positive vibes to counter the conspiring forces. And may the Force be with you too!

The 500th Post

2010-11-19T17:25:00.004+05:30

So here it is.....the 500th post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought a lot about all that I could write to make this post special - what blogging has come to mean to me, the way I've changed, and in certain aspects grown, over the past three years that I've been blogging etc. But then I realized that the best thing blogging has given me is FRIENDS!

No, I'm not one of those people who live their lives online and therefore, have more virtual friends than real ones. But blogging has given me some new friends, such as The Knife, and helped cement my friendship with some others, such as Moonshine. Then there are some who I don't know personally but enjoy reading immensely, such as Mumbai Diva, Mommie & Saltwater Blues (he's goddamn funny!).

Of course, there are the two people that I need to thank for getting me started - Serendipity who doesn't blog half as much as I'd like her to and Staarin' who doesn't blog at all (or at least at a location I know of!).

To all of you reading this, thank you much for reading my blog. I hope you've had a good time. And here comes the best part, for me at least - if you read my blog and I don't know you do, SAY HI!! :)

Give the girl a pat on her back for reaching 500 posts, won't you? ;-)

We're Expanding!!!!

2010-11-09T12:12:00.007+05:30

I hope you guys had a very happy Diwali!

I just realized that this is my 499th post on this blog. Which means that my next post will be my 500th!!!!

Phew!!!!

It's a little hard to believe that I've sustained at blogging for so long (3 years). I guess that's because blogging acts as a big release for me. Whenever I feel the need to take a break from work or generally switch-off for a bit, I blog! Which is why my posts are almost always random and sometimes funny. I try to stay away from writing about serious issues unless it's something I strongly feel about. So let's see what I come up with for my 500th post. I don't have any ideas...all I know is that I've got to make it special, haven't I? :)

You know what I also realized? I've gained 4 kgs over the past 3 months!!!!!! Someone KILL.ME.NOW.

Honestly, I've no one to blame for this except myself. I haven't been to the gym in a month & a half and I've been eating out 2-3 times in a week. That's not all, I've been gobbling up all forms of desserts like the world's about to face a sugar crisis. Gobble gobble gobble...someone stop me!!

Unfortunately, I also realize that THAT someone will have to be me. Poor me :(

So I've decided that I'm going to apply emergency breaks on my eating habits and haul my ass to the gym, starting this weekend. Here's what I plan to do:

I'm going to stick to my rule of 5-6 small meals a day rather than 3 big meals, but I'm going to put more thought into what I snack on in between my main meals. Though I'm generally healthy about this - I snack on carrots and fruits rather than fried stuff or junk food - there are times when I give in to temptation. THAT IS GOING TO STOP. I'm going to include more protein in my snacks such as nuts and yogurt.

Contrary to what my physical trainer suggests, I can't call the chef out and talk to him everytime I visit a restaurant. I don't want to be "that" freak-show and I'd also rather not have all sorts of pots & pans hurled at me in a public situation. So I'm going to do the next best thing - I'm going to cut down on eating out. I get bored of home food very easily and end up eating out 2-3 times a week. This is one of my major major weaknesses and I really need to get a handle on it. I'm going to eat out only once a week.

I'm going to cut down on desserts. I'll have them only when I'm having a real craving. There's always some - okay, alright, a lot - of chocolate sitting in my fridge. The idea was to get reverse psychology kicking in. If you have chocolate handy at all times, you know it's there when you want to have some, so you don't get cravings and you hardly end up eating any. This was my 'smartypants' logic. The problem was that this reverse psychology worked for a couple of months only. Now I pop in a mini-Bounty or mini-Snickers almost everyday!

I'm going to eat my breakfast within an hour of waking up. I think I have a reasonably balanced breakfast consisting of toast, a boiled egg (without the yolk) and fruit juice, or a bowl of muesli with milk and fruit juice. The problem is I generally eat it 2 hours after waking up. I really need to get my metabolism kicking sooner than that.

I'm going to stop my carb intake after 6pm. That means no rotis for dinner, only protein and produce.

I'm going to try and keep a food diary and enter everything I eat into it religiously. That way I can keep track of how good I've been through the week and feel mortified whenever the fattening/junk food intake starts to spiral. Now I just need to whip up the discipline to do this!
I will go to the gym regularly. I will go to the gym regularly. Repeat. If I don't, I'll become a butterball that can roll all the way from Ludhiana to Cochin with a single push, my clothes won't fit me anymore, I would need to be lifted with a crane, I won't get through doors without bringing the wall down and I'll need to ask the airhostess for an extra seat belt while flying! Oh, the horror!

Right, so 7 simple steps and hopefully the pounds will melt away, my jeans will clasp without me having to wrestle with them, my button-downs won't gape, and I won't have to take refuge in salwar-kameezes at work. And maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll also end up with a body like Bipasha Basu's!!

Now, that's something I'm willing to grovel for.

PS: I also just realized that I missed the 3rd birthday of my blog! I started blogging on October 31st three years ago. Happy Belated Birthday to 'Just Can't Get Enough' :)

Indian Hypocrisy Shines Through Yet Again

2010-11-08T16:18:00.005+05:30

Just what is wrong if Mr Obama is against outsourcing jobs to India?

He is the President of the United States, it's his responsibility to worry about the rising unemployment levels and protect jobs in his country.

The United States government is doing what a good government is supposed to do - care for its citizens and ensure their well-being. It's OUR problem if our economy is so heavily dependent on outsourcing, not theirs.

There really is no reason for Indians to criticize him. How would we react if people from other Third World countries start emigrating to India for better jobs? We can't even tolerate people from UP & Bihar moving to Mumbai to work!

I can understand politicians jumping on to the anti-Obama wagon - they are populists. But why is the media and other educated thought leaders criticizing Obama for his anti-outsourcing stance? Why are we so eager to show to the world time & again what hypocrites we really are?

Don't Work. Avoid Telling the Truth. Be Hated. Love Someone.

2010-11-08T14:44:00.004+05:30

This is a speech by Adrian Tan, author of 'The Teenage Textbook' (1988), that he made to the graduating class of 2008 at a university in Singapore. I found it interesting, so putting it up here. You may not agree with it but do let me know your reactions!

Note: I've taken the liberty to highlight parts that I particularly agreed with or that struck a chord.

-------

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the true worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

When Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

2010-11-07T18:56:00.004+05:30

Hanging out with girls can be the most fun. Boys can simply never match up :)

I went for a karaoke night with two of my girl friends yesterday at this new pub/lounge in town. I must admit I expected a great deal out of it, but that's b/c I'd recently been to an awesome karaoke night in Bangalore.

Well, what can I say except that I should've known better. As it turned out, our DJ, who incidentally came from Bangalore, claimed to be the "best karaoke DJ in India" and went by the tagline of "software engineer turned heartware entrepreneur" had left his flash drive with all his English songs somewhere. So what we were left with were really sad Bollywood songs such as 'raat kali ek khwab mein aayi' and 'pyaar deewana hota hai', which are great songs to hear when you want to have a quiet evening at home but not stuff you want to sing at karaokes. But we had no choice other than to make the most of what we had since we'd already paid a rather high cover charge.

The three of us started singing songs on stage. To put things in perspective, I never sing at karaokes b/c I can't sing to save my life. I don't even sing in the bathroom! But there was no other way to enjoy our evening. We sang songs such as 'tu tu hai wahi', 'roop tera mastana', 'kajrare' and 'desi girls'. I'm sure the other people there thought we were tripping on some really good stuff b/c we were volunteering to sing the most number of songs! But sometimes things can be so bad that they become fun in their own way. And we did end up having a great time, inspite of the DJ who kept snatching our mike away in the middle of songs to sing himself. Thank God for the unlimited alcohol!

Opus

2010-11-03T15:04:00.003+05:30

There's a pub in Bangalore that you should check out if you're visiting the city (or live there but haven't been to it yet). It's called Opus and is run by Carlton Braganza, a Goan. I don't need to tell you much about the place - you can check it out yourself as they have their own website, blog and how cool is this - their own 24x7 internet radio!

Opus is a laid-back pub. The layout is very Goan and resembles a beach setting - open air, pebbled floor, low stone tables with floor cushions, white color scheme. The music can range from hip hop to rock to retro to reggae to pretty much anything, depending on public demand.

I went there on a Sunday evening with Moonshine & her husband. It was karaoke night and I was surprised to see how full the place was! Most people were singing really well. I was then informed that many of those people were regulars at Opus' karaoke nights. Of course, there were croakers too, but nobody cared because everyone was having such a good time singing along (the lyrics are flashed on a screen).

The start to the evening was a little mellow but nice. Then someone sang 'I've got a feeling' and everyone was on their toes. The party just kept getting wilder after that. I didn't know karaoke could be so much fun!

It's not only music that Opus has to offer though. They stage plays, have quiz nights and regular music nights as well (Friday & Saturday I believe?). You can check out their calender here. The food is mainly Goan with a couple of Chinese & continental dishes thrown in, and is lip-smacking. The drinks are good too.

Talking of partying, one of the funny things age does to you is that it kind of turns you off partying. You know, the kind where you just want to get drunk and dance till your feet can't support you any longer. I haven't indulged in that kind of partying in over 3 years now, and to think that I always thought I'd be one of those rare people who'd party even when she was in her 40s! I much prefer "lounging" now; I like to hang out with friends at lounge bars with a couple of drinks and music that I like in the background (not the overpowering kinds that doesn't let you make conversation). Or a langurous dinner.

There was of course a time when I used to party 2-3 nights a week. I was in college then. Once I started working the frequency dwindled and now as I said, I haven't partied in more than 3 years! But, I'm about to break that jinx this weekend with my small gang of girl friends. We're having a girls' night out where there will be alcohol and there'll be music and there'll be dancing till our stilletoes...or the city cops...allow us to!

It's Diwali Week!

2010-11-01T15:14:00.004+05:30

This week (Diwali week) is one of my favorite weeks of the year, the other being the week leading up to Christmas. I love Diwali, really do. Just like Christmas engulfs one with warmth, Diwali brings me happiness - the uncomparable happiness of being with family. That the entire city is lit up and homes are aglow with candles/diyas only adds to the festivities.

This year though, I won't be with family over Diwali :( I'll be on my lonesome onesome, but that hasn't stopped me from lighting up my house. Yes, the lights are up in my house! They make the ambience so festive. And in the spirit of the festival, I've decided that I'll try to wear saris to work as many days as I can this week. It's very unlike me, I know, but the fact is that I really do need to get comfortable in a sari and the festivities around are giving me a good reason to wear them!

Seriously though, I see women gliding in saris all around me. They wear it so gracefully and carry it with such ease, you'd think they were born wearing it. I, on the other hand, cannot wear it for eight hours without getting murderous thoughts in my mind. Saris are annoying. First of all, there's so much cloth around you. I'm not used to so much cloth. Secondly, it's loose everywhere so you're constantly fretting about whether it's ballooning and making you look like a butterball or coming out from different sides. And third, it's so bloody difficult to climb in & out of a car wearing a sari. I somehow manage to clamber in and tumble out.

Saris may not be fun but Diwalis definitely are. So if I don't see you lovely people before Diwali on this space, you have yourselves a very Happy Diwali and a big truckload of happiness :)

It's That Damned Day Again

2010-10-26T13:49:00.003+05:30

Today is Karva Chauth. Married women will go without food or water the entire day, supposedly for the longevity and well-being of their husbands. Regular readers of this blog would know just what I feel about such "festivals" - regressive and sexist doesn't even begin to cover it.

No argument in this world can justify Karva Chauth to me. Some might argue that fasting is a healthy thing to do anyway, as it de-toxifies your system. My counter-argument would be : fast any other day then. Why this day in particular?

Others might argue that they fast b/c it's expected of them by their in-laws and it's a small price to pay to keep everyone happy. My question to them would be - why should it be the woman's happiness that must be sacrificed for the happiness of others?

Yet others might say that their husbands too fast with them, so it's only fair. To them I would say - no, it's still not fair. A husband that really cares about you will put his foot down and make it clear to his family that his wife will not suffer in such manner.

Really, Karva Chauth is another one of those ancient Hindu traditions that were introduced into society to ensure that women remain second to men. And this is no feminist's argument - this is what any rational mind would argue. Diefying men ensured that women would remain servile and wouldn't become a threat to them (men). Isn't it about time we stood up for ourselves and said 'No' to such non-sensical traditions?

If you really wish your husband to have a long and healthy life, reduce the amount of fat and cholestrol you feed him everyday. Send him on walks/jogs regularly so he can get rid of his pot belly. Make him do things around the house rather than vegetating on the couch with the remote in his hand all evening. Have sex more often - it's good for your health and your marriage! And if you're still insistent on celebrating this day, do it in a different way - round up a gang of girlfriends and have a day of fun. Watch a chick flick, gossip, bitch, eat good food, shop, go to the spa together...because women tend to forget to care for themselves once they get married.

Masterchef India : The Verdict

2010-10-25T14:39:00.007+05:30

Masterchef is a one of its kind cookery-based reality show where amateur cooks who have no food industry experience but a passion for cooking, fight for the title of ‘the best cook of the country’, a.k.a. Masterchef. The show has been running super successfully in the U.K. and Australia and has now started airing in India.

The format has been adapted to the Indian market which means that the show is going to have liberal doses of emotions and melodrama. Because, you know, India is a land of excessively emotional people who need melodrama in everything. Drama constitutes a large part of our daily diet. Or so the channel airing the show and the show's producers would like us to believe. So, if you're expecting Masterchef India to be anything like Masterchef Australia, which is currently being aired on Star World, you're in for a major disappointment. As I was :(

For one, India is the only country in the world where Masterchef is hosted by a Bollywood actor. Now, by no means is AK a food connoissuer. He may have worked briefly as a chef in Thailand (that too was decades ago, mind you) but he would not have the kind of culinary expertise that continuing professional chefs would have. The two chefs on the show - Ajay Chopra of Goa Marriott & Kunal Kapoor of Leela Gurgaon - are merely there to save face, so the show can "legally" claim to have stuck to the Masterchef format if ever taken to court by the owners of the format. The chefs are completely sidelined - most of the challenges are thrown and judged by AK. In fact, in one of the episodes AK was even described as "the most talented chef in India". What a joke!

There is a lot of emotion, drama and religion on the show because, you know, this is India. Participants on MC Australia rarely shed tears except when they've been eliminated. The judges don't kiss or hug them either when they make something delicious. Neither do they run to the pantry with contestants.

While the judges of MC Australia criticize each dish specifically mentioning it's flaws/strengths, all AK does is mouth cheesy lines such as 'meri kamiyabi ki buniyad cooking hai' (really now?), 'khana nahi, jeena aur marna ban jayega', 'jung maidan mein ho ya kitchen mein, chahiye himmat', 'aapke husband show dekh rahe honge, aap unse kuch kehna chahengi?' Puke.

Then there is the compulsory dose of religion that must feature in every Indian reality show. A lot of “wahe guru” happened on the first weekend, and one aspirant put a napkin over her head and prayed when she arrived before the jury. Tons of punjabi bonding happens as well. Aunties say things like 'yeh apron meri izzat hai'. More gag.

The participants on MC India 'ooh' and 'aah' every time AK appears, as if he and not cooking is the reason they are there. Thank God AK sticks to the script, rather than obliging fawning star-struck fans.

Finally, given the quality and background of contestants on the show, I seriously doubt we'll be seeing any world/international cuisine being cooked. Unlike in MC Australia where invention tests often revolve around Japanese, Indian, Spanish, American, British, Mexican, Asian or French cuisine, I have a feeling MC India will revolve around Indian cuisine only.

Clearly, the makers of Masterchef India are confused as to which direction they want to steer the show in. Or are they? Read this quote by Anupam Vasudev, executive vice-president, STAR Plus, "MasterChef India is not a cookery show. It is a competitive game show with cookery happening in the background." (Source: http://www.afaqs.com/)

That says it all about MC India. It kind of seals the fate of the show, at least as far as I am concerned.

As far as I know, Masterchef Australia never claims to be anything but a cookery show, and it definitely doesn't attempt to put cooking in the background. Cooking and chefs are the mainstay as well as the backbone of the show. Kind of goes to prove how Indian channel heads misuse the right to "adapt" a show to the Indian context.

A Serious Post After a Long Time

2010-10-25T13:10:00.004+05:30

That's b/c I recently encountered two serious issues and I must write about them.

Someone I know recently got married and moved countries to live with her husband. They had been dating for 4-5 years before they got married. The guy used to mistreat her even before marriage - he would always talk down to her, wave her off whenever she tried to say something, and would make it abundantly clear that her opinions or what she thought about an issue didn't count. He did it in public frequently, so I'm assuming he did it in private as well.

I hear this has gotten worse after marriage, with him going to the extent of saying that things will happen the way he wants since he's the one bringing home the bacon (she has recently moved on a dependant visa and hasn't been able to find a job there yet).

Given, the guy is a jerk. He's an egotist and is used to being the center of attention in his family. His parents have lovingly overlooked his mistakes and issues, even as serious as drug addiction. His friends, more often than not, indulge him when he throws tantrums. He wants the universe to revolve around him. But I think a large part of the blame lies with the girl. It's not like her husband started mistreating her after marriage. That's how he's been speaking to her since the 2 years I've seen them together. More often than not, she'd accept it without a whimper. Sometimes she would object and they'd have a fight but things would go back to how they were. She got married to him knowing this was a serious issue in their lives - and it is an issue given that she cribs about it to people and has called mutual friends to help sort out the fights quite a few times. So my question is - shouldn't she have thought long and hard about whether he was the guy she wanted to marry? And made it abundantly clear to him right at the beginning of the relationship that she wouldn't be treated like a rag?

I think in situations where the man doesn't know how to treat his partner, it's up to the woman to make it clear how she expects to be treated. If she's taken shit lying down all her life, she has no right to complain later.

Many times, we end up marrying someone inspite of obvious issues in the relationship b/c we don't want to rock the boat, we dread being single, we think we won't find anyone ever again and we think it's too much of an effort to have to start from scratch with another person. What we don't realize is that the boat will get rocked sooner or later, and it will be that much more difficult to get off.

The second issue I want to talk about stems from something I saw at a doctor's clinic recently. A couple walked in with a severely asthmatic 8 year old child. The child had a terrible asthma attack and the parents had no clue how to give her first aid or stabilize her till the doctor saw her. According to them, she had been asthmatic since she was 1 year old, so it was shocking for me to see how clueless they were.

Asthma is a debilitating condition. There can be many triggers and medical aid may not always be available - for instance when you're traveling. It is imperative that parents of asthmatic children know how to administer first aid to their child to stabilize him/her a little bit at least till help arrives.

I'm not a doctor but one of the first things I've seen people do to asthmatics is to ask him/her to relax. When breathing problems start, we start panicking. Panic worsens the condition. Calming down will help alleviate it a little bit. If the doctor has prescribed an inhaler, carry it with you at all times (or put it in the child's bag is he/she is unaccompanied) and administer it as soon as you can. And please for Christ's sake know how to administer an inhaler correctly! The mouth has to be closed around the inhaler, not open. The parents of the child I saw at the clinic were pumping in the inhaler into the child's open mouth. Doesn't help. Inhalers come with a leaflet with pictorial instructions on how to use them. Read it. Or ask your doctor to demonstrate how to inhale correctly.

If you are a parent of an asthmatic child or know someone who is, please ensure that you/they can administer first aid to your/their child in case of an asthma attack. Shedding tears saying you don't know what to do is not going to help.

Foreboding

2010-10-21T17:24:00.002+05:30

Of course, just when you're at the verge of a long weekend you must feel the sniffles coming on. The throat scratching. The head getting heavy. The body aching and begging to be left alone curled up in one corner of the bed.

You can feel the mercury rising within you.

You go down to the tea shop below your office for a steaming cup of ginger tea (because office serves gruel in the name of coffee). You can imagine the ginger in the tea soothing your itchy-scratchy throat and infusing some life into you. But the shop lady is out of tea!

You ask her for a slice of bread with butter & sugar sprinkled on top and guess what...she didn't get her supply of bread today!

You ask her if she has a pack of spicy potato chips. She has one left. You open it and the chips are all soggy.

You take your money back and walk back to office morosely. You can see your plans of getting a head massage, pedicure and foot reflexology over the weekend melt away. All you want to do is crawl into bed and go off to sleep. And you have a dirty feeling that's all you're gonna be doing throughout the long weekend.

So long my long weekend. You COULD have been. Alas, the universe has a sad sense of humor.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy...Na Ja Na Ja Na Ja

2010-10-20T12:33:00.005+05:30

I just had to have some fun with the title. But more on that in a little bit :)

I'm back to base after an almost two week vacation in which I went to the hills, saw wild elephants, stayed in British era cottages with a functioning fireplace (please be jealous :), met a dear friend after two & a half years, lusted over the wooden flooring in her house, visited my parents, had yummy food and did the only thing I wish I wouldn't have had to do - participate in the Durga Puja at home. But then it's all about respecting your parents' sentiments, isn't it?

The highlight of the trip was that I got the opportunity to do what I thought could only have been done in the world of Jane Austen and Emily Bronte - sitting in front of a burning fireplace with a book and a mug of hot chocolate. BLISSSSS! :)

Talking of Durga Puja, no one celebrates the festival quite the way Calcutta does. I've come to realize that I share a love-hate relationship with Calcutta. The city is dirty and mindblowingly polluted, yet it exudes an old-world charm. At times I love the fact that Calcuttans have held on tightly to their culture be it music, literature, language, cinema or food. At other times, I detest the same thing - they can get so possessive about their culture/language that they look down upon other cultures and languages. They're also not very open to new cuisines and experiences.

I love that life in Calcutta is not as hectic as in Bombay (though I do like the pace and vibe of Bombay), but it's also extremely laidback. There's no initiative to get things done. Two & a half years later, it still bothers me.

Then there are some things I'm grateful for - life is very convenient in this city and more importantly, Calcutta is safe for women.

Anyway, coming back to the title of the post and to Jimmy. Jimmy was a Parsi contestant on Masterchef Australia, my current favorite show on TV. But before I talk about Jimmy, I want to say that I absolutely love the hosts of the show - George Canalis, Gary Mehigan & Matt Preston. George is a cutie pie, Gary is suave and fatherly at the same time, and Matt is hilarious in his sometimes-yellow-sometimes-red pants. And though they are not experts in Indian cuisine, they can jolly well tell the difference between Mangalorean and Chettinad style of cooking! R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

So, yesterday Jimmy got eliminated after a very tough challenge where they had to replicate a celebrity chef's seafood platter within 2 hours. A number of sea animals (is that what they're called?) had to be cooked simultaneously, including something called 'sea urchins' that I saw for the first time and whose roe is ironically a delicacy is Japanese cuisine. None of the fish could be under/over cooked.

To be honest, Jimmy wasn't Masterchef material though he did come quite far in the competition. He was good with Indian food but often stumbled in invention tests that revolved around cuisines of other countries. In fact, though he was the only Indian-born of the lot, he was beaten by an Australian (Jonathan) in the Indian invention test!

Yet, there was something endearing about Jimmy. He was always smiling and though he'd get stressed easily, I never saw him break down, unlike a lot of other contestants.

My assessment of him aside, the fact that he got so far on the show (he was among the last 13 or so) and got in to an elimination challenge only twice must mean that he is a good cook. But then, elimination challenges in MC Australia are totally unpredictable - it's about that one invention test/team challenge day. It's about whether you're having a good day. Some of the best cooks in there have found themselves staring at an elimination challenge multiple times.

It was sad to see Jimmy leave but I thought he got the best advice he could get from the judges of the show. They asked him to focus on this strength - spices. I guess he took the advice to heart as he's now developing his own range of simmering sauces and marinades. I bet they're going to be Indian influenced. Good on you, Jimmy.

'Dork' and My Upcoming Vacation

2010-09-26T19:46:00.004+05:30

'Dork' by Sidin Vadukut is one of those really funny books that are so hard to come by. It's laugh-out-loud funny. It's the story of a guy who has just started working at a management consultancy and the blunders he makes during his first year.

The setting is very familiar - the corporate world. All of us who've held some kind of a corporate job will identify with the story and the things that happen. We all know/have known guys who think they're the best thing to have happened to the corporate world but in reality they're crap. The guy who gets drunk at office parties and makes a fool of himself. The guy who goofs up big time in important client meetings/presentations. Office politics. Colleagues who pretend to be our friends but backstab us at any given opportunity. The book will have you in splits. I would highly recommend it! More so if you're going to be on vacation like I'm soon going to be (BIG smile :D) and are looking for a light, fun read.

Let's now talk about my impending vacation, shall we? :)

I'm going to the hills! Far from the heat, humidity and psychotic weather of Calcutta. To a place I've never been before. Hopefully it'll be misty and cool. And my hotel has a fireplace! A functioning fireplace. How charming is that! Apparently they give you logs at night to keep the fire burning as the temperature dips.

There are two reasons why I'm so excited about this vacation. For one, I'll be spending 5 days with Moonshine & her adorable husband. They are two of my absolutely favorite people in this world. Moonshine is fun, she's very similar to me and I haven't met her in two & a half years now! We've become really good friends during this time, or so I like to believe :P

Besides, we have a lot of gossipping and catching up to do. It's going to be 5 days of unadulterated girly fun.

The second reason I'm really looking forward to this vacation is that I haven't been on one in the last 4 years. Can you imagine? That's an excruciatingly long time to not have taken a vacation (and by vacation I mean more than a couple of days off).

I've always had a reason or another to not take a vacation and it's mostly been work-related. In the past 4 years that is. Before that, it was always a shortage of money. I had just started working and was living in Bandra and paying enormous rent, so I never had the money to go on vacation. And in my first few years of working I didn't mind it so much either.

Over the past 4 years though it's always been an issue of too much work. In my mind at least. So while colleagues trooped off on weeks long vacations, I always felt I had too much work. So how could I have gone on vacations? But one of the many things I've decided to do for myself since turning 30 is that I'll take at least one long vacation every year. Maybe two. Maybe one long & one short. Because...I'm worth it! And because there IS such a thing as 'burn-out'.

On Nudity

2010-09-24T22:16:00.004+05:30

At the ongoing London Fashion Week, the show by French-born designer Charlie Le Mindu, the favourite wigmaker of Lady Gaga, featured naked models walking down the catwalk clad in hot pink high-heeled boots, hats, bags and...wigs of course. No clothes.

His show generated quite a bit of comment in the British media with questions being asked as to whether creativity needs censorship, do we need to draw the line somewhere ya di ya da.

Without discussing the quirkiness of the designer and his penchant for designing wigs made of real mice and rat carcasses, and wigs shaped as teddy bears and the Eiffel Tower (he is Lady Gaga's favorite wig designer after all), let's talk about the issue of nudity in public.

Why do we make such a big deal about nudity? Or let me re-phrase that...why do the Brits make such a big deal about nudity? Their cousins across the Channel don't. Nude beaches are extremely common in Europe, particularly France & Spain. People amble around the beach wearing nothing, not even underwear, and no one gives a damn. There are parks in Germany - such as the Englische Garten in Munich & Tiergarten in Berlin - where people are allowed to sun-bathe in the nude. Where as you can get arrested for "indecent exposure" if you tried to do the same in America. Unless you're at Mardi Gras, of course.

I think it's time we get over our Victorian hangover and realize that nudity is really not a big deal. We don't think twice before letting kids run around naked, do we? Why should it be any different for adults? Tolerance towards things such as nudity & sex is one of the indicators of how mentally evolved people of a country are. And let's not even talk about censorship.

New Delhi 2010

2010-09-24T12:37:00.008+05:30

I don't even know where to start on the mess that is the Commonwealth Games. After missed deadlines, allegations of inefficiency and corruption against the organisers of the Games, the collapsing foot bridge at the Games venue (which the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit unbelievably says was not for the use of athletes....HUH??), the collapsed ceiling of the boxing venue, and statements from the CWG committes of participating countries saying that "the Games Village is filthy and unsuitable for human inhabitation", come the shocking photographs of the Games Village.

These embarassing & shameful photographs were released by the BBC and were subsequently lapped up the global media, which means that the entire world has seen these photographs by now.

These are photographs of the facility where athletes from 53 countries were supposed to stay for the duration of the Games. They are photographs of the place that the tax payers have been forced to pay Rs 70,000 crores for. Dirty rooms & bathrooms, stained toilets & sinks, dog shit all over the room, dog paw prints all over the bed spread, laborers defecating where they shouldn't be, water-logged buildings. To justify these pictures, the Secretary of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee, Lalit Bhanot, says that "Western hygiene standards are different from ours".

Excuse me?? Does he mean to say that Indians like to live as filthily as the pictures above indicate? That we like to have stained, leaking toilets and sleep on bed sheets with dog paw marks all over them? Maybe he was refering to his own hygiene standards while making that comment.

As if these pictures weren't embarassing enough for the country, there is a report that says that India bribed 72 Commonwealth countries USD 100,000 each to win the hosting rights for the CWG.

Oh man...how much more shame are we going to have to endure infront of the entire world? Countries such as Australia have already made an official statement that India should not have been awarded the rights to host the CWG. And you know what....I completely agree. We should not be awarded hosting rights of any such event until we learn to be honest, until we can offer our guests clean toilets and bed sheets, unless our security guards can provide enough protection to the athletes, unless our policemen can guard the female athletes rather than leching at their white skin, until we can have proper ambulances in place (rather than hired jeeps) to carry athletes to the hospital in case of injury, until we can learn to construct apartments that are suitable for human inhabitation. But now that we've been awarded the hosting rights of one such event and landed ourselves in a royal mess - not to mention embarassed ourselves infront of the entire world - the only way to salvage some of our lost pride is to cancel the Games.

Yes, all participating countries should cancel their participation. The Games should be called off. Only then is there a chance that the men behind this mess will be taken to court. Else, like every other time before, they will walk off scot-free claiming that the Games went off just fine, and all's well that ends well. And the hapless tax payers will be able to do nothing about it.

The Immortals of Meluha

2010-09-15T14:25:00.007+05:30

'The Immortals of Meluha' is an "action-drama" based on Hindu mythology. It's the first book of the Shiva trilogy by Amish.

Frankly, it's not a book I would've picked up under normal circumstances, but the jacket caught my eye. Then I read the blurb at the back, which seemed different and interesting. I was also intrigued by the name of the author. 'Amish' sounded very mystical. It's an entirely different story that he turned out to be some Amish Trivedi!!

Anyway, the story is set in 1900 B.C. in what is now known as the Indus Valley Civilization (called Meluha by the people living in that period). Meluha is an utopian empire created many centuries earlier by Lord Ram and inhabited by the Suryavanshis. However, they face annihilation as their life-giving river - the Saraswati - is gradually dying. At the same time, they face terrorist attacks from the Chandravanshis, who are corrupt, immoral and unethical - basically the anti-thesis of the Suryavanshis. To make matters worse, the Chandravanshis have allied with the Nagas - a sinister race of deformed humans with astonishing martial skills. The only hope for the Suryavanshis is an ancient legend which says that ‘when evil reaches epic proportions, when all seems lost, when it appears that your enemies have triumphed, a hero will emerge’.

I really liked the book. It seems to be vey well researched. The story is fantastic. It's based on the premise that all Gods, including Shiva, started out as regular human beings. It was their deeds - their karma - due to which they came to be considered Gods.

Even though the story is based really back in time and there's a certain amount of awe and reverence attached to gods among Indians, the characterization of Shiva, the protagonist, is such that you really connect with him. Also, the author has woven certain incidents - such as why Shiva came to be called the 'Neelkanth', how the slogan of 'har har mahadev' came about, how the 'trishul' came into existence etc. - very beautifully into the narrative. There's even a cute love story in there, with just the right amount of mush!

My only issue was with the language, especially during conversations between the characters. The language is very American. It feels really out of place considering we're talking ancient India (1900 B.C.) and sort of takes away from the book. "What's wrong with you, woman?", "Oh come on, man!" and "It's a deal!" don't quite sit well on the lips of Gods & Goddesses, do they?

However, inspite of the language the book is very engaging. It'll have you hooked. A word of caution though : this book is part of a trilogy, so obviously it ends at a point that will make you buy the next book in the series as well. Now, we all know how sequels go, so we can only hope the subsequent books are not a let down.

Dabangg...and Other Things

2010-09-13T15:33:00.005+05:30

The 'Dabangg' frenzy has reached hysterical levels. Some guys at work have already watched the movie twice and they're planning to watch it again this weekend! I’m missing my beloved Gaiety-Galaxy :(

Seriously, the movie is insane. It's too crazy to be reviewed, so I'll just say go watch it if you like or can at least tolerate Salman Khan.

'Dabangg' plays straight to the gallery and makes no bones about it. The movie is ludicrous - Rajnikant style action, dialogues riddled with sexual innuendos & toilet humor, a script straight from the 70s (step-brothers who grow up hating each other but reconcile in the end, sons avenging their mother's death etc.), a rebel hero and a demure heroine, straight lifts from Sherlock Holmes & The Matrix, raunchy item song - it's got it all. And yet, you'll clap and whistle your way throughout. I think the last movie to have generated such hysteria was Rajnikant’s ‘Sivaji’!!

‘Dabangg’ works because of one man alone - Salman Khan. He's THE dude. No one can play a character as quirky as Chulbul 'Robinhood' Pandey like Salman Khan can. He doesn’t try to “act” in this movie - just does the usual shit we’ve come to associate with him, and you have a blast watching him at it. Frankly, I can't see ANY other actor being able to do this role.

I'll say a word for Sonakshi Sinha too - I liked her. She doesn't have much of a role in the movie, and can't say she's a great actress based on what little I saw of her, but she's pretty, has screen presence and holds her own next to Salman Khan. And more importantly, she's a refreshing change from the waif-thin anorexic women we see all around these days. She looks healthy. And I have a feeling that she'll be a better actress as compared to Sonam Kapoor or Deepika Padukone.

I liked the music too - the title song 'Hur Hur Dabangg', 'Tere Mast Mast Do Nain' and 'Munni' are quite catchy. I don't generally like Malaika Arora but she's so raunchy in 'Munni badnaam hui', she's done full justice to the song.

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I’m bored of Khatron Ke Khiladi 3 already. Is it the stunts or Priyanka Chopra as the host? I think it's a bit of both. The stunts this year aren’t as exciting as the previous years. Or it may be that the last two seasons appeared more exciting b/c there were women trying to perform stunts. The men this year are really thanda – they’re quiet, composed and show no emotions or fear.

I also find PC very boring as a host. She speaks in a monotone, shows no excitement or enthusiasm and squirms while watching people perform the stunts! What’s she doing hosting KKK then? And really, I’m more interested in watching an action-oriented show filled with adrenaline rather than Priyanka Chopra's perfectly toned butt & thighs in her micro minis.

Akshay Kumar was so much better.

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I loved what Alyque Padamsee said about Indian culture & sexuality in one of his recent interviews.

“Indian culture is the most open when it comes to sexuality. All the moral policing is a result of the Victorian hangover. It was a time when women would be made to wear long gowns and hemlines above the ankle were thought scandalous. Why just women? Piano legs that were thought to be too curvy were also covered! In our culture, on the other hand, women were at par with men, where demonstration of sexuality was concerned.”

This is SO true! The English have always been infamous for being conservative. Even today, English society is way more conservative as compared to, say, the Americans. Indians on the other hand, were very sexually liberated. I’ve read a couple of books on Indian mythology and ancient Indian civilizations, and they frequently mention women dressing in a way that celebrated their sexuality & enhanced their sex appeal. Prostitution was common and not a big deal. And then there are the famous sculptures of Khajuraho & other similar temples. For a society that was so liberal and tolerant, how did we become so conservative?

Blame the Limeys!

Is Milind Soman Losing his Mo-Jo?

2010-09-07T18:59:00.005+05:30

Khatron Ke Khiladi - the Indian version of Fear Factor - is back for its third season with Priyanka Chopra as the host. I like the show - it's adventurous, racy and engaging. The last two seasons were hosted by Akshay Kumar and had women as contestants. This time around, the contestants are men - a mix of television & Bollywood actors, models & sportsmen. And Cyrus Broacha.

Sportsmen would be at an advantage in this show - their endurace levels are high and they're mentally tough. Both qualities are integral to succeed in this show. Still, it came as a big surprise to me when Milind Soman got eliminated in the first week itself! He's a national level swimmer and regularly runs the Mumbai Marathon. I did not expect him to go so soon. The challenge he got eliminated in was water based. He had a disadvantage - he was made to go first - but hey, someone's got to go first! He got eliminated b/c he didn't try hard enough. He gave up too easily. I hope he makes it back on a wild card. I've met the man - during his I-love-facial-hair phase, no less - and he is HOT. Even with all that facial hair. They just don't make them like him anymore. Sigh!

Coming to PC, she looks uncomfortable hosting the show. She's fidgety and her voice lacks modulation. I hope she improves, and I also hope she stops wearing frocks and gets rid of her horrible hair extensions!!

On a different note, I have revived one of my discarded blogs! It's got a new name and a new theme - movies! All my movie reviews go there now onwards. For the time being, I've copied reviews that were originally on this blog. I hope to keep adding to it, and hope I sustain it this time! Fingers crossed.

One For My Sanity

2010-09-06T14:46:00.008+05:30

I've been thinking about the dangers of social networking for some time now. The apprehensions were triggered by an episode of 'Criminal Minds' that I watched lately. In that episode, a man was using social networking sites to befriend women, stalk them (thanks to their constant updates on where they were, what they were doing etc.) & finally kill them!

Then I read about the funny episode when Paris Hilton got done in by her own tweet. Just a few days ago she was arrested for possession of cocaine (it was found in her purse). She claimed the purse did not belong to her and that she had borrowed it from her friend, completely forgetting that just days ago she had tweeted about how excited she was after purchasing the same purse! The attorneys dug that tweet out and used it to rubbish her claim that the purse didn't belong to her.

And we all know the number of times Shashi Tharoor has been done in by his tweets.

Now, overall I think social media is a good thing. I'll even agree that it's a brilliant invention, for obvious reasons. But I'm not quite sure we know how to use it safely. We all know people who indiscriminately add "friends" on Facebook, usually just to seem popular. There are people whose profile, photos, message board etc. are open for public view. And then there are people who post minute-by-minute updates of where they are & what they're doing.

What we don't think about is this - there are a number of psychos on the internet, and by doing the above we may be making ourselves vulnerable to stalkers & putting ourselves in danger. There are more bored, lonely people in this world than we care to imagine who live their entire lives on chat rooms & social networking sites. The stuff we put on the internet is out there forever!

I have a Facebook account but I'm not a Facebook addict by a long shot - I spend probably 10 minutes a day on FB. I don't add people to my Friend's list unless I know them. I don't even add 'Friends of Friends' unless I know them - who has access to my information & photos is more important to me than the possibility of pissing a couple of people off. I don't put minute-by-minute updates of what I'm doing (I don't live under any illusions about the importance of my life to other people). My privacy settings are such that only my friends can access my profile. I rarely log on to Facebook through my cell phone. This last one is mainly b/c I want to retain my sanity.

I'm not active on Twitter either - never was. I created an account but found tweeting to be too boring. I haven't logged on in months!

To be honest, I feel I have way better things to do than to compulsively obsessively check the web all day. There is simply no time for that. I have a life! I'd rather read, watch movies, meet friends, work out than spend my day logged on to a website to see which of my friends is flossing his teeth and who ran out of toilet paper! And I think it's healthy to be able to make that distinction between what's a great tool to help you stay in touch w/ friends & what completely takes over your life. I don't want to be one of those people who spend more time on Facebook than living their life. Not to mention, I can do without the psychos crawling over the world wide web.

Alejandro

2010-09-01T19:43:00.003+05:30

The ubiquitous Lady Gaga, she just won't leave us alone, will she?

So, the tussle is between continuing with French and learning a brand new language - Spanish!

Here's the deal. I can speak French. Un petit peu. Enough to make basic conversation with someone. But I need fluency. It's also been about 8 years since I had a conversation with someone in French, so there are a lot of words I've forgotten. Recently though, I've been brushing up my French by tuning into Air Canada on my way back home from work - they have a program on everyday French lessons. And I've been reminded once again about how I'd love to be fluent in it.

Then there's also the interest in Spanish. I find it to be a very beautiful language. It's also slightly easier to learn as compared to French b/c unlike their neighbors, the Spaniards believe in pronouncing every alphabet of the word. There are no alphabets just hangin' around havin' a good time, which does make life much easier. Then there's also a very high possibility that when I'm traveling the world and lost, or in trouble, it's more likely that a Spanish speaking person will save my ass rather than a Frenchman!

I do want to learn some language. Help!

And no, don't say German. I went through that phase when I was fourteen. I used to idolize Steffi Graf, you see.

It's Official!

2010-08-30T17:21:00.004+05:30

Marriage is bad for your sex life.

As I'd suspected all along.

According to a poll conducted on 3000 married people by a UK based dating service - Extra-Marital dating service, no less - marriage takes a toll on people's sex lives.

One-third of the people suyveyed admitted to no longer fancying their partner as much as they did in the early days, while more than 40% claimed that their partner had let themselves go!

The research also found that before marriage, couples have sex more than 4 times a week but after 3 years of marriage, they are likely to have sex less than once a week. 60% of couples even believed that marriage has completely ruined the excitement of having sex!

And here's a funny piece of statistic - almost 80% of married people prefer getting a good night's sleep to making the effort to have spontaneous sex in the middle of the night!

Hmmm...this survey isn't inspiring much confidence in me as far as marriage is concerned :)

One-fifth of the people polled also said that they would understand if their partner confessed to sleeping with someone else, so the more important question is - are we finally seeing marriages mature?

What's your take on this?

Food Fiesta

2010-08-25T11:33:00.011+05:30

I'm addicted to cookery shows, which is ironic because I dislike cooking. I'm more accepting of the idea now than I was a couple of years ago - at times I even feel like cooking. But that's generally on weekends and I'm usually tired after making one dish. I could never whip up a meal!

So this fascination with cookery shows is strange. Why then do I like to watch them?

Well, I think there's something about food that comforts you and makes you happy. It's a combination of the various colors and textures coming together. The pink of the meat...the red, green, yellow of the peppers...the white of the garlic...the green of the chillies...the red of tomatoes...the translucence of onions. And then all these colors and textures come together in what you can imagine to be a heady concoction of subtle tastes and heavenly aromas. That is when professionals chefs or domestic goddesses are cooking. I am neither. So I just sit & watch.

Here's a list of my favorite cookery shows on TV:

1. Nigella Bites / Nigella Express / Forever Summer With Nigella - The first to be mentioned has got to be Nigella. Like there were two ways about it!

Nigella has three shows on Travel & Living - Nigella Bites where she cooks lunch, dinner, desserts...the whole hog, Nigella Express where she generally makes quick-bites that are even quicker to prepare, and Forever Summer With Nigella where she prepares light dishes that would be ideal for the summer.

Nigella's shows are visually very appealing, and no, I'm not referring to her assets. Enough and more men drool over her assets. As Rahul Khanna's famous tweet goes, "Nigella Lawson's cooking show is mouthwatering. And the food looks delicious too."

I'm referring to her pretty kitchen, the soft lighting, the crockery/utensils she uses, the colorful vegetables splayed on her cooking table, including the gorgeous huge bright yellow lemons, her impeccable make-up....everything. All very aesthetic and very easy on the eye.

The other reason I like her show so much is that she doesn't skimp on the fat or carbs while cooking! She'll use a generous amount of oil, won't separate the fat from the meat, won't skimp on the butter or the bread. And she eats what she prepares. It's very comforting to watch her dig into a huge slice of cheesecake or chocolate pavlova slathered with whipped cream or a bowl of chocolate pudding, in the middle of the night, without feeling guilty about it.

2. Top Chef - Top Chef is an American reality show in which chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges. They are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other accomplished people from the food industry and one contestant gets eliminated every week.

Top Chef is all about gourmet dining. The dishes - even the soups - are almost always exotic because there are professional chefs competing against each other and each chef would like to outdo the other. I envy the judges who get to sample all the dishes, but yes, one needs to be a seafood lover to be a judge on this show because some of the most exotic dishes are seafood based.

3. Masterchef Australia - I'm absolutely completely hooked on to Masterchef Australia! It's an Australian reality show - obviously - but unlike Top Chef, this show has amateurs competing to become Australia's Masterchef.

Some of the challenges include a face-off against some of Australia's biggest celebrity chefs. Masterchef Australia is a cookery show but it's no less gripping than a thriller. These three men are scary, believe me!

You also tend to get more emotionally involved with this show as compared to say, Top Chef, because the contestants are regular people with day jobs but with a passion for food. Many of them even want to give up their present jobs for a career in the food industry, so the show is kind of a means for them to make their dream come true.

4. Rachel Allen : Bake! - I once tried to convince The Knife to start watching Rachel Allen : Bake! She's got the goods, you know...pretty face, soft blond curls, blue (or is it green?) eyes. But he's a Nigella loyalist.

Anyway, Rachel Allen is an Irish baker. Dessert Goddess, rather. If you like baking this show is right up your alley. The focus is on desserts, but she also bakes breads, pizzas and other savouries. Her recipes are usually simple and not very labour-intensive. She even holds classes for people interested in baking, on the show, so you can jot the recipes down as she instructs the class. She also meets other bakers across the UK and gets recipes from them.

5. Tony Bourdain - Enough said.

Which are your favorite cookery shows?

A Venting Post

2010-08-24T12:22:00.004+05:30

This is a venting post about people and their stupid and/or irresponsible behavior. About some people that I know and some that I'd like to know so I can shake the daylights out of them!

There are times when people completely befuddle me. I was reading an interview of Amrita Puri this morning. For those who don't know who she is, she plays the character of Shefali in Aisha. She also happens to be the daughter of Aditya Puri, the Managing Director of HDFC Bank, one of the largest private banks in India. She's grown up in Mumbai, I believe, and worked as a freelance journalist & copywriter at an advertizing agency in India before joining films.

There are two things about her interview that bugged me. First, she very proudly declared that she couldn't speak Hindi properly before she started working in the movie. This from a girl who belongs to a North Indian family and has grown up in Mumbai.

This is something that, as an Indian, I have a major issue with. I just don't understand how someone whose mother tongue is Hindi cannot speak the language properly. I hear it all the time from people who've grown up in North India, or any other part of India where Hindi is the most widely spoken language and the language spoken the most at homes.

It's such a shame! You'll never hear a European deride his/her national language. They take pride in speaking it. Why then do we look down on our national language? I can understand if you choose to speak in English but to not be able to speak your mother tongue is a matter of great shame. It makes you a sad wannabe and nothing more.

What's your perspective on this?

The other thing about her interview that bothered me was how she went to great lengths to emphasize that unlike her character in Aisha, she's not a behenji, i.e. the "salwar kameez wearing types".

Now, to start with, I don't like the word 'behenji'. It's a word used to slot women, almost always in a derogatory manner, going solely by the type of clothes they wear. We are so quick to typecast women who prefer Indian clothes to Western wear as behenji, which also connotes things such as "small town", "uncool" and unfit to socialize with the denim wearing types who are supposedly more modern, hip and cool. For all you know, the so called behenji could be cooler, smarter and a more interesting person than a hundred jeans/shorts wearing women put together!

I see it around me all the time. Just yesterday I went to a new coffee shop that's opened in town, with a bunch of colleagues. Coincidentally, all of us were dressed in Indian attire. The owner of the cafe - a guy in his early 20s who looked like he was desperate to be picked up by a modeling agency - was going around the cafe taking feedback from people at different tables. He went to all the tables except ours. I was trying to figure out the reason he didn't come to us - there were quite a handful of us, we were ordering generously, so why was he not interested in our opinion? And then it hit me!

Everyone else at the coffee shop was dressed in Western wear! We were the only ones in salwar kameez. He would have easily classified us as 'behenjis', people who've strayed into his store and are not his target consumers anyway. Therefore, our opinion didn't mean much to him. If that was indeed the case, he didn't realize that he was actually alienating a section of his customers. A couple of people I went with decided not to go back to the cafe because they felt unwelcomed. And these people are coffee shop regulars. Lost business right there for our wannabe model friend.

Another thing that confounds me is how, in case of a problem/disagreement between a man & a woman, people (other women included) are quick to blame the woman, without even bothering to understand how much of the problem is caused by the man.

A relative of mine is in the process of getting a divorce, and all the women in my family, my dearest mother included, are busy pinning the blame on the poor girl. She never tried to adjust to her husband's family, she was too demanding of him in terms of helping out with the household chores, she was always very weird & uncooperative....on goes the list. Most of these people hardly even know the girl, yet they're quick to blame her for the disintegration of her marriage. It doesn't matter in the least that some of the issues they broke up over had been created by the guy, or that he was unwilling to compromise on certain things that were really important to the girl, or that his parents had unrealistic expectations from their daughter-in-law and were always interfering in the couple's lives and the way they managed their household.

Now, the in-laws - even though they are related to me I have no qualms admitting it - are very old-fashioned people. They don't expect her to be a slave to their son (thankfully!) but they cannot accept her as an equal partner in the marriage either. According to them, she should still be the one doing the cooking & other household chores, never mind the fact that she has an equally demanding career as her husband. She should not have an opinion on things, and even if she does, she should finally give in to her husband's choices & decisions.

These people (the in-laws), they haven't moved on with the times. They make no effort to understand that there are many more demands on people now than there were a couple of decades ago - both personally and professionally - and that people need to adjust their expectations from each other accordingly.

They still expect their daughter-in-law to take time off work and baby sit them when they're visiting, which is for two weeks at a time at least. They expect her to cook 3 meals a day for them everyday. If she suggests hiring a cook or going out for dinner/ordering in, she just doesn't care about them. If her husband helps her out with household chores - which is how it should be if both partners are working - she's making their darling son do all the housework. If they've moved to a bigger house or a better neighborhood, it's because she likes to waste money. Never mind that it was a mutual decision or that they're both splitting the rent.

Which brings me to the point - why do people behave so irresponsibly? Why bitch about someone you don't even know? You don't know anything about the relationship between the two people involved or the issues they're facing in their marriage, except the version you've heard from the boy's mother, which knowing her is positively biased, why blame the girl for everything?

Yes, sometimes people do need the daylights shaken out of them.

Love Lost 'N Found : Pali Village Cafe (Mumbai) to Casa Toscana (Calcutta)

2010-08-17T17:23:00.005+05:30

A couple of months ago I had the most nightmarish dining experience at Pali Village Cafe in Bandra (Mumbai).

PVC is "the new place to be" in Mumbai. We took the pain of making a reservation 24 hours in advance and were even threatened that the table wouldn't be held for us if we were more than 15 minutes late. We should've seen the signs and run towards another restaurant, but we didn't and ended up having one of the worst dining experiences of our lives.

We were hustled through our dinner on an evening that was meant for catching up with friends over a leisurely meal. The waiters were rude, asking us every few minutes if they could bring out our next order, and when we could finally take it no more and asked for the bill, the waiter made a very obvious 'finito' like gesture to the restaurant manager, right in front of our eyes!!

One definitely doesn't expect such blatant rudeness and lack of customer service at a fairly high priced restaurant at Bandra, of all places. We were at the supposedly trendy Pali Village Cafe, not the neighboring Janta after all. Even the folks at Janta let you be. For a detailed narration of the horror that PVC was, you can read The Knife's account here.

Cut to August. There's a cozy Italian restaurant on Chowringhee in Calcutta called Casa Toscana that I'd been wanting to visit for a long time. Finally went there last weekend. It's a restaurant I fell in love with the moment I entered it.

The owners have leased out part of an old bungalow and converted it into a restaurant. The concept is that of an Italian trattoria offering alfresco as well as indoor dining. The ambience is cozy - the indoor section has wooden chairs & tables, stone flooring that will give you a feel of the cobbled streets/piazzas of Italy & yellow lighting, while the outdoor seating area has wrought iron furniture, candle-lit tables and is laid out like a patio. The menu includes starters, soups, salads, pizzas, pastas & desserts.

The reason I compare Pali Village Cafe and Casa Toscana is that the restaurants are very similar in terms of ambience...

Pali Village Cafe, Bandra (Mumbai)

Casa Toscana, Chowringhee (Calcutta)

...yet there's a world of a difference between them in terms of the service and dining experience. I would definitely recommend Casa Toscana to someone looking for a nice Continental restaurant in Calcutta. Not sure I would recommend Pali Village Cafe to anyone.

The food at Casa Toscana is awesome, definitely the best Italian food I've had in Calcutta outside of 5-star restaurants. (You see, there are a lot of restaurants in Calcutta that claim to serve Continental food but haven't a clue what authentic Continental food tastes like!) The menu is a little limited though and service is a tad slow but that doesn't seem to deter people from patronizing the restaurant as was visible from the crowd. Some people might argue the restaurant is a little expensive by Calcutta standards - a (non-vegetarian) starter would cost you between Rs 180-Rs 220, an entree (non-vegetarian again) between Rs 240 - 340 and a dessert around Rs 180. We paid around Rs 1400 including taxes for a meal for two that included 2 starters, 2 entrees, 2 desserts, a beer & a Breezer, so I'm inclined to believe it's a moderately priced restaurant. Cheap even, by Mumbai standards.

Casa Toscana is not a lounge-around kind of place. It's a place you'd like to visit with your spouse/partner/family for a nice dinner on a weekend, or on a date. And get lost in the aromas of Italy.

The Mega Movie Review

2010-08-10T11:36:00.006+05:30

I’ve had a good run at the movies of late. Watched 4 movies over the past couple of weekends. Yes, we seem to be getting our groove back! :)

I’ve already written about Eclipse which I enjoyed in the most carnal way (seriously, there's no other way to enjoy that movie). Let’s talk about the other 3…

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai is the story of Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn), a smuggler with principles, and Shoaib (Emraan Hashemi), his over-ambitious protégé. But more than them it's the story of the betrayal of Mumbai by the "underworld".

Sultan Mirza is a Robinhood like character in some ways. He's a criminal but he helps the poor, and he won't smuggle stuff (such as drugs) that his conscience doesn't permit him to. The one big mistake of his smuggling career is to recruit Shoaib who can go to any lengths to control Mumbai. Kangana Ranaut plays a super star who is in love with Sultan Mirza while Prachi Desai is a middle class conservative girl in love with Shoaib.

The movie has enough drama to keep you at the edge of your seat, and in spite of being based on the underworld it stays away from blood & gore. The characters are well etched out and the performances, superlative.

Ajay Devgn oozes style and character throughout the movie, Kangana Ranaut plays an unapologetic gangster’s moll with élan, Emraan Hashmi essays the character of an unscrupulous don very convincingly (I love how they've built up his character right from a defiant teenager to a ruthless criminal), and Prachi Desai as the hapless girl in love with a bad guy is good though not memorable.

However, I was a little let down by the way the movie ended - it was not only abrupt, it was also a little unjustified maybe.

The dialogues are an entirely different story though - they were really cheesy! Straight out of a 70s Hindi movie. I'm not sure whether that was intentional given the retro theme of the movie, but saner dialogues would've definitely helped. Overall though, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai is definitely worth a watch.

Aisha

Aisha is an adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. That's the biggest thing the director had going for her - a story with immense potential. Yet, she screwed it up and how!

19th century rural England is replaced by South Delhi's high society. Sonam Kapoor plays the role of Aisha, a fashionable brat who lives in a bubble and spends her life match-making. She sees it as helping people and "doesn't even charge any money for it". Every single woman is a new "project" for her. She has spunky Pinky Bose for a best friend and a dishy Arjun for childhood friend (supposedly).

Enter Shefali, a small town girl whom Aisha must hook up with eligible bachelor Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar). But before that, she needs to convert Shefali into a diva. Only if Arjun stayed out of the way!

The story itself is great material for a blockbuster chick flick - it's got romance along with dollops of humor and huge doses of fashion - but the execution is quite poor.

For one, Aisha & Arjun are supposed to be childhood friends but they're hardly shown to share a bond. You'll never see them hanging out, there are no "moments" between them. So you never find yourself wishing that the girl ends up with the guy - something very essential to a chick flick. And when they finally profess their love for each other, you're left with a WTF feeling.

Secondly, people keep hooking up randomly throughout the movie, without any background or context. People who couldn't stand each other end up together after sharing a single car ride. People who meet each other at a party for the first time end up making out and in the next scene, they're getting married! It's completely random...more WTF moments.

And I didn't understand why everyone was showing up everywhere! Aisha goes to Mumbai to visit her sister who's about to deliver. There she runs into Arjun, who is Aisha's brother-in-law's brother. So far so good. But why is Aarti (Arjun's business partner) also in the house? Go figure!

Abhay Deol was perfect for the role of Knightly - suave, sexy, smart & sassy. Yet, he's completely over-shadowed by Sonam Kapoor in terms of screen time. What a waste! And he's so unconvincing in the last scene where he tells Aisha how much he loves her. Rightly so...he too probably would've realized that it made no sense at all!

Sonam Kapoor is good as the self-centered, ditzy, bratty Aisha. I loved her wardrobe. Ira Dubey is great as the bitchy Pinky Bose, and I loved her Manish Arora outfits! Amrita Puri is cute as the impressionable small town simpleton who looks up to Aisha, Cyrus Sahukar is your typical Delhi guy and Lisa Haydon is better off on the ramp. And Arunoday Singh...he's so not hot. Big burly guys are not my type anyway.

I really wish Rajshree Ojha had done a better job of this movie...it had the potential to be such a fun chick flick. Overall though Aisha is worth a watch if you're in the mood for some candy floss and are willing to overlook the flaws in the script.

Udaan

You see, I'm kind of done with so called "realistic" movies. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to deride them. But they generally tend to be depressing and so much crap to deal with in life anyway, who needs to inflict more torture upon themselves

Udaan is one such movie. That apart, it's got a good story, good performances. It's the story of a boy who gets kicked out of boarding school for watching a porn movie. He's sent home to a dad who he hasn't met in 8 years. On reaching home, he learns that his dad has remarried and he has a step brother. To make things worse, the dad is a tyrant who insists on being called "sir", is abusive and is totally against the boy pursuing his dreams. The rest of the story revolves around how the boy copes with his dad and forms a bond with his step brother.

Watch it if you hold a torch for such cinema.

I Miss Hinton James

2010-08-06T23:16:00.006+05:30

Today I got an e-mail from the alumni association of the University I did my undergrad from. It had something to do with 'freshmen', a term used to refer to first year undergraduate students in college in the United States. The mail brought back memories of my freshman year, particularly of the dorm I stayed in during that year.

I lived in Hinton James, one of the 33 dorms on campus. Ho Jo as we used to call it. Ho Jo primarily housed freshmen & sophomores (2nd year students). It had 10 floors and was home to approx. 800 students. Each floor had 4 wings and each wing was divided into suites containing 4 rooms each, with 2 people to a room. It really was like living with a very large family.

There was a basketball court on one side, volleyball court on another, parking lot on the third side, and a plush green lawn on the fourth side where students would soak up some sun during spring. The ground floor had a computer lab, laundry room, lounges and an assortment of vending machines for candy, soda, chips etc. I forget if Ho Jo had a vending machine for condoms as well - there were some such vending machines at other places on campus, I remember.

The biggest disadvantage of living in Hinton James was that we had to trudge up to North Campus for classes everyday. It was a good 15-20 minute walk, most of it uphill. Of course there were buses but they would generally be packed so a lot of people preferred to walk. The biggest advanatge was during the basketball season - the stadium was right behind the dorm!

I lived in three dorms over the course of my 4 years at the University of North Carolina but the reason Hinton James will always be special is because that's where I made my first friends in America. Friends who accepted someone so different from themselves without an ounce of hesitation or apprehension. Friends I met at the water fountain on my floor, or by the vending machines, or randomly while hanging out at the common passage. Friends I ordered loads of Gumby's/Papa John's pizzas with. Friends I played Secret Santa with during Christmas every year. Friends who would take me home for Thanksgiving b/c I had nowhere to go (I couldn't possibly come back to India for a 4 day holiday). Friends who would cheer me up whenever I got homesick. Friends who are all over the globe now but I'm still in touch with.

They say that friends you make in college stay with you for life. They say that for a reason. And Hinton James is a bloody good place to find such friends!

PS: The photo above has been taken from Flickr. If there are any copyright issues, please let me know and I'll take it off.

I Want a Girl Gang!!

2010-08-05T15:47:00.006+05:30

I was watching the first Sex & The City movie on HBO last night. Every time I watch the movie or a re-run of the show I can’t help feeling envious of the women. They make such an amazing girl gang!!

There’s a reason why SATC is so popular with women across the world. It appeals to women who have a close-knit group of girl friends, as well as to those who don’t but crave one. Not to mention that most women, irrespective of the culture they come from, can identify with at least one of the four central characters of the series - the romantic, shoe-obsessed fashionista Carrie who is trapped in a long term relationship with a man who just cannot make up his mind about what he wants from a relationship or whether he wants to be in one, in the first place; Charlotte, the family types who believes she has found her "true love"; Miranda, the workaholic who likes to be in control; and Samantha, the successful, independant woman who is boy crazy but values herself more than any man in her life.

Coming back to the topic of this post, there can be few things as wonderful & comforting, and as much fun as a girl gang! The women in SATC stand by each other, look out for each other and take care of each other. They always have someone to share every secret with, go shopping with, do lunch/dinner with...someone to call up with news...someone who'll tell them which dresses to keep & which to throw out...someone who’ll spend New Year’s eve with them if they’re alone and take them on a holiday if they’re feeling low.

I so so want a girl gang like that! A small group…me & maybe two other women. Is that too much to ask for?

Talking of women, they can be really strange at times. Most of my school friends/classmates are now married with at least 1-2 kids. Whenever one of them posts pictures of her kids online, the others come pouring in with compliments as to how cute the kid is etc. Makes you feel like you’re being rude by not joining the chorus! I don’t get what the big deal is…it’s just a kid! Everyone has kids. Motherhood does strange things to people.

There are some who’ll put up pictures of themselves with their husbands and everyone will start complimenting them on how cute they look together. I wonder if people really mean what they say, or they say it just b/c they feel it's the "right" thing to do. Again, I don’t get the big deal.

And then there are women who put up pictures of their pregnant belly online!! Ugh!!! No offence to women who are expecting a baby or are mothers already, but there's really nothing pleasant or pretty or cute about a pregnant woman's belly. On the contrary, it's one of the scariest things in the world to look at, and that is just my personal opinion. I'm not interested in how big your belly has become. I mean, I'm happy you're about to pop a kid soon - if that's what really floats your boat - but it doesn't float mine, so please spare me the torture and don't put up pictures of your 8th month belly on my Facebook page!!!

Sweet, Sexy, Sassy

2010-08-03T13:33:00.005+05:30

It’s only fair that I follow up a post on my Favorite Male Literary Characters with one on my Favorite Female Literary Characters.

So here’s my list of the 10 female characters I've enjoyed reading the most:

1) Nancy Drew - She was my early teen idol. Nancy Drews were the only books I ever read in school. Young, smart and glamorous, Nancy Drew has been a formative influence on a number of girls worldwide. Nancy did not have a job or go to school. She spent her life going on vacations with her enviable girl gang comprising Bess & George, and solving mysteries. She was wealthy, attractive and talented. All of 18, she could paint, speak fluent French, drive, swim, play tennis. And she had a super hot boyfriend (Ned Nickerson) who would surprise her by visiting her when she least expected it! How could you not like someone with such an enviable life?

2) Bridget Jones - I’ve read both Bridget Jones books many times over. Often when I’m in need of a pick-me up, I open a random chapter of the book and read for a few minutes (since it’s in the form of a diary, you need not read it in sequence). The books are insanely funny and instant pick-me ups.

Bridget’s is a character women from all cultures can identify with. She constantly frets about her weight but is otherwise a happy person, and she falls for the wrong guy over & over again when the right guy is standing right in front of her! And of course, she ends up with Mr Darcy. Who wouldn’t want to be in her shoes?

3) Miranda Priestly - Bitchy, cruel, tantrumy, Miranda Priestly is every working woman's nightmare. I've read the book (The Devil Wears Prada) as well as watched the movie, and I must confess it's Meryl Streep who's made the character one of the most memorable ones for me. In the book, Miranda Priestly is a Size 0 and far bitchier than what she is in the movie. Yet, I don't think anyone could've played her better than Meryl Streep. She's brought the character to life with so much style and elegance, it's difficult to forget her.

4) Rebecca Bloomwood - She's hilarious, what more can I say! The kind of excuses she comes up with to buy things she doesn't need and not pay her credit card bills, cannot be matched. She's not dumb, she just has a very strong weakness....don't we all?

5) Hermione Granger - Let's face it, Harry Potter would not have got out of half his troubles without help from Hermione Granger. She's the intelligent one, has the answers to all questions and the unmatched ability to exasperate Ron. She's also the only one who dared to punch Malfoy in the face. Though she's a nerd on the face of it, deep down she's very much a girly girl. She's principled, yet willing to make concessions for friends; cautious, yet reckless. She's a dichotomy...just like all other women :)

6) Portia - I don't like Shakespeare but I do like intelligent women, and Portia was one of the most intelligent characters that Shakespeare ever created. "Only a pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood". Heard anything smarter than that?

7) Jo March - The second eldest of the March sisters (Little Women), Jo March is smart, independent and vivacious. She's also quite tempestuous. She'd rather read or play than primp & gossip with the girls. Just the kind of girl I'd get along with :)

8) Elizabeth Bennett - Playful, good natured and quick thinking, Elizabeth Bennett is the most popular of Jane Austen's heroines. She has the guts to reject a wealthy but foolish suitor (Collins) - something not many women of that era would've been able to bring themselves to do. And she gets Mr Darcy. That's reason enough to like her, I think.

9) Scarlett O'Hara - It's difficult to like Scarlett O'Hara per se. She's spoilt, selfish, shrewd and vain. But she's also strong willed and challenges the gender stereotypes of her time. And that makes it difficult not to admire her.

10) Madame Bovary/Anna Karenina - Okay, so they may not be the most likeable women in English literature but this list isn't about the most likeabile women either. It's about the women I've enjoyed reading the most, and both Emma Bovary & Anna Karenina fit right in. These two characters probably changed the way the "heroine" was portrayed in English literature until that time. They may not have been as strong and morally upright as Jane Austen's heroines maybe, but they were "real" women - they had their faults, they could be unsympathetic & self-centered, they made mistakes and they paid the price for it too! These characters freed women from the bonds of morality and the arguably stifling social fabric of that time, and let them loose to carve out their own path in life.

Do tell me your favorites...