Merry Christmas!!!!

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!

The 500th Post

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? ;-)

It's Diwali Week!

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 :)

Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé...

Yes, you know what this is about :D


I'll be back once I'm done celebrating. You go and make yourselves a couple of sangrias too, and be back in some time for the Hottest Player of the World Cup poll ;)

A Big Shout Out

To one of my dearest friends, super fun blogger, and a wonderful manager to work with - Happy Birthday Moonshine!!

Wishin you a lot more readers through my blog :D

This Is It

THE day is here. It seems like just another day. It seems the coming year will be like any other year. But my mind tells me that today is a really BIG day, and life SHOULD be different here onwards, or it will be one colossal waste. I’m confused. I don’t know who to listen to.

Yes, it’s scary being where I am. I know this is when ‘gravity’ starts hitting you and the only way to go is downhill. All of a sudden, I’m paranoid about dark spots, fine-lines & wrinkles…about the first grey hair…about the slowing down of metabolism…about creaks & pains in various parts of the body…all of which will make their presence felt very soon. There's also the pressure to make this year THE year that counts, professionally.

And the saddest part is that I’m not even excited about this day as I’ve been every year till now. Parties with friends have been replaced with a quiet cutting of the cake & a nice dinner with loved ones. Excitement has been replaced with an “Oh well, I’m down one more”.

It’s no fun turning 30. And every successive birthday is going to be just another number. Now I know why birthdays are no big deal for our parents.

Happy Birthday To Me. I want my 26 back :(

Bringing in 2010

I grew up in the 90s. (Actually I was born in the 80s but I feel “growing up” in the non physical sense of the word really happens once you’ve crossed the 10-year mark. Besides, I recently heard someone in his mid-thirties describe himself as a child of the 80s, so that must surely make me a child of the 90s? :)

So anyway, to compound the fact that I grew up in the 90s was that I grew up in a small town. There were no New Year’s Eve parties that you could buy passes to. Besides, mum & dad didn’t believe in staying awake for the clock to strike 12, so New Year’s Eves generally meant sitting at home and watching the crappy New Year countdown shows on television with my sister. You know the ones where they’d get Bollywood starlets to perform and you’d really look forward to them as you'd have nothing better to look forward to?

Then came the US where there was no concept of exorbitantly priced New Year’s parties. (Thankfully, some countries in the world still believe in the right of every human to enjoy life irrespective of how much $$$ he makes!)

So New Years would be ushered in with friends, alcohol and loads of laughter & hugging each other.

And then came Bombay and it's New Year party culture that could set you back by a few grand easily, for a couple of hours of what was supposed to be fun but inevitably ended up being a disaster - the organizers would run out of food way early, there’d be drunken people all around you, falling over you, stepping on your toes, even throwing up all over you if they really loved your outfit or shoes!

Within a couple of such parties I realized that private parties at friends' places, or having a house party of your own if you were up for the organizing would be a much better way to bring in the New Year. And if hosting a party was way too much, you could always call a few close friends over, order in, curl up on your couch in your pajamas and bringing in the New Year with good food, good wine (or whatever the alcoholic beverage of choice), a great DVD, and loads of laughter & hugging each other.

And guess what, as long as there are friends, food, love, laughter & hugs who cares for exclusive New Year parties!!

How are you bringing in 2010?

Avatar and on to Christmas with Family

The reason I’m not doing a full-fledged post on Avatar is because I didn’t like it. It was painfully long, boring, and the last 45 minutes or so were very Bollywoodish – one man taking on & defeating an entire army of villains, a miniscule clan armed with bows & arrows taking on the might of a humungous army with the most sophisticated weapons at its disposal & winning, and all that. I feel the movie is way over-hyped, and if rumors that James Cameron spent ten years making this movie are true, then well, I think those ten years were a waste for a good part. Because the special effects were all that the movie had to offer, to me at least.

Christmas was spent with family. It was a last minute decision to travel home, and I’m so glad I did. It had been more than a year since I last visited my parents (though they kept visiting me every 2-3 months, individually if not always together) and this trip made me feel terrible about being such an inattentive daughter to my parents. The three days that I was home, their entire lives revolved around me. Feeding me to the gills with all my favorite food (so what’s new with Indian moms?), making sure my every need was taken care of without me having to move an inch, making sure I was warm and my throat protected at all times, given that the temperature dipped to 6-7 degrees at night & hovered around 15-16 degrees at mid-day and my throat being exceptionally vulnerable to the cold.

Sometimes, it’s only when you spend time with your parents that you realize how much you mean to them, that they’re possibly the only people in the whole world who love you unconditionally and without expectations of being loved the same amount in return, how it’s always OK that you couldn’t do something that they’d requested you to do for them, and how even a short periodic visit by you can light up their lives. Parents really are mind-blowing people and mine never get their due from me, I know, because of the sheer fact that I must live in a different city than them. They want me to be back for Holi and I’m already scouting for tickets.

In the meantime, thanks Mum for the amazing gajar ka halwa (made with full cream milk, condensed milk, ghee, cashews & raisins :) and the plum cake. And thanks Dad for taking the trouble to dress up, complete with a blazer, to come pick me up from the airport.

So I've Been Gorging on Plum Cakes

Between Friday & yesterday (Monday), I finished half a kg of plum cake all by myself. “Rich” plum cake to be precise. And promptly went and bought another half kg to tide me over till Christmas!!

Did I mention I’m trying to lose weight?

Oh well, I’m having myself a merry little Christmas right now.

Birthday Wishes

To my rock. My own personal Superman! My big bottle of happiness. The brightest star in my sky. The most caring person ever.

And my rockstar girlfriend. My sister. My partner in crime (think brownies, cheesecakes & all things sinful). My home away from home. The most loving woman ever.

Happy Birthday to you both.

Happy Diwali

Be safe, be happy, light some diyas...and have a wonderful Diwali.

The One Thing I'm Not Destined To Do...

...is to cook. And I say that with my hand on my heart.

I'm a miserable cook. I can NEVER EVER boil milk without spilling it. When I make rice, it either sticks to the bottom of the pan & gets burnt, or gets wet & sticky. Rotis? I can make them round but they turn out to be partly burnt & partly half-baked.

With Durga Puja going on, the entire city is in a celebratory mood. The smell of kosha mangsho (mutton cooked Bengali style) & luchis (Bengali puris) had been wafting through my windows, seducing my olfactory senses since morning, like a cruel joke. To make things worse, my cook didn't turn up today. Oh, the horror, the horror!!

I figured if I have to cook, I might as well make a feast out of it. I really wanted some nice mutton curry & pulao, but it seemed too much of an effort, and I didn't really have the patience to stand in endless queues to buy mutton (not that I know how to buy mutton, but I was willing to learn), so I settled for the next best thing Bongs love to eat - luchi & alur dom. Well, in case you're wondering, I'm not Bong but if it's Durga Puja and you're in Calcutta, you've got to celebrate it Bong style!

I figured I might as well go the whole hog and decide to make payesh, or kheer as it's more popularly known.

I burnt the grated onion-ginger-garlic paste that forms the base of the alur dom. The potatoes themselves were half-cooked in parts, the luchis were partially burnt, and the kheer? Oh, don't even get me started on the kheer! I burnt it. Charred, to be precise.

I started with the proportion of milk : rice my mom had instructed me to use, but the milk seemed too much for the rice. So, I added some more rice to it, and then some more. As the kheer was cooking, I realized how important it is to follow what mom tells you...the rice was eventually too much for the milk, and since I had added them in three batches, they were different degrees of 'cooked'! And the bottom layer was charred! So much for preparing a feast.

Really, for folks like me who can't cook, the smartest thing to do is to simply hire a cook and leave the feast up to her. Your families will thank you for it, trust me. And in case the cook doesn't turn up, just order in!

Durga Puja

Today is Mahashtmi, the eighth & most important day of Durga Pujo, the biggest festival for Bengalis. Durga Puja is to Calcutta what Diwali is to Bombay & Delhi, except this city believes in coming out on the streets in full force to celebrate!

It's not even funny how crazy the streets are the four days of Pujo. I, for one, can't fathom where all these people live! The roads become one way, even for walking. You can't walk down the street without sweaty arms brushing past yours, sweating buckets yourself, people pushing & shoving you and stepping on your shoes from behind (if you're wearing slip-on shoes).

No one cares for the crowds or the humidity, so strong is the love of Bengalis for their beloved Goddess. There are hordes of people out on the streets till 3-4am, pandal-hopping (phrase used by Bongs for visiting various pandals) and eating at the numerous food stalls set up near the pandals. Jaundice, typhoid, swine-flu...Are those street food? :)

By this time, the shopping is over - 'notun jama' (new clothes) for each day of the pujo, gifts for family & friends have been purchased. Some kids even manage to get their parents to buy 2-3 sets of clothes for each day!! The Bong's love for Durga Pujo is unbridled. Sample this, we have five days off work (Thursday-Monday) for Pujo, and no work happened for the one week leading upto the Pujo holidays as people were out shopping for gifts for their friends & family and clothes for themselves.

I'm not a religious person at all. I don't visit temples, don't believe in deities or idol-worship. But Durga Puja is one festival which pulls me in (I love Diwali & Christmas too, but they aren't focused so much on a deity as Durga Puja is). Maybe it's the festivities....lights, decked up streets, the euphoria, happy people all around, celebrating with food & fun without a care in the world....or maybe it's the idol of Durga which, trust me, can bring tears to your eyes. The sheer power - or 'shakti' - emanating from the idols (mindblowingly talented artisans, I tell you, I wish they got their due) is something you have to experience in Calcutta. The realization that the world always thinks of females as the weaker sex, yet they are worshipping a female God for her 'shakti' WILL bring tears to your eyes.

And oh yeah, the sound of the 'dhak' - the most beautiful "religious" sound in the world. Right up there with the Nasik dhol.

Happy Pujo everyone, especially the Bengalis - resident and probashi - reading this.

Can We Have One New Year Pliss?

Today is the Bengali New Year. The number of New Years we have in this country is truly amusing. There are as many New Years as the number of communities!

Malayalis have their own new year - Vishu. Tamils have theirs - Puthandu. Andhraites have theirs too - Ugadi. Maharashtrians have Gudi Padwa, Punjus/Sikhs have Vaisakhi etc. Every community celebrates their new year on different dates. I wonder how they decided which date to celebrate it on!!

I grew up in Bihar. I don't think Biharis fall into any ethnic community per se. Neither do UPites. We consider ourselves to be part of the 'North Indian' species. The "cow people" if you will (no offence meant to anyone, UP & Bihar ARE known as the "cow belt" of India).

I also don't think we have any festivals intrinsic to our community, the Bihari community that is. Though I must admit that I don't count myself as part of the Bihari community for the simple reason that I belong to a very non-Bihari family, and my upbringing has been very different from that of kids in typical Bihari families.

So even if there are any festivals celebrated only among Biharis, I would've seen them being celebrated in other people's homes only. Don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. Honestly, I couldn't care less. My idea of Diwali is lighting candles around my house while in my parents' house a Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja is a must on Diwali. My Holis are spent locked inside my house & Durga Pujas are spent as far from my parents' house as possible, since their house becomes a 'vegetarians only' zone for the ten days of Durga Puja. Heck, they don't even use onions & garlic for those ten days!! To be fair to them, I must admit that they were not like this before. They have become this way due to certain incidents that have happened to them.

To me, all of this is pointless really. I don't believe following all these traditions...or visiting a temple on a particular day every week...or fasting on certain days of the week/month is going to improve the quality of our life in any way....or make us more successful or rich or healthier..or make us live longer. We'll only get those things in life that we have worked towards. Our success / failure is a result of the choices we make, the decisions we take in life. How long we end up living will be a result of our genetic make-up, the environment & our lifestyle choices. We will be healthy if we give importance to our physical, mental & emotional health and take care of ourselves. No miracles / short-cuts here!

Of course, there is such a thing as destiny. I believe in it too. But destiny always presents us with a situation where we have at least two choices, and the course of our life depends on which way we decide to go.

Anyway, coming back to the point...I feel deprived of my "ethnic" New Year! No traditional New Year = No money from elders! No one gives you money on 1st January :(

But thank God for the English calender. It makes life so much simpler to know when exactly it's time to celebrate!! :D

Birthday Gifts

Fossil JR9629 - $75

Giordano 2389-11 - $99

Nine west leather patchwork hobo - $87

Carolina Herrera 212 - $67

L’Eau D’Issey for women (100ml) - $120

Post from Moonshine wishing me a Happy Birthday and admitting she found me 'frivolous' when she first met me (and which I shall forgive her for given that she & her husband are such sweethearts) : ..........

You know the drill :)

The Thing About Holi Is....

I haven’t been too fond of Holi since 12-13 years of age. That’s when I got totally turned off Holi & stopped playing it. Part of it was b/c the wet colors we used to play with just wouldn’t come out. I remember scrubbing myself to death with Rin (yes, Rin!!!!!) as I’d have school the next day, and would still end up showing up at school colored pink!!!

The other part was b/c I had a horrible Holi experience the year before I stopped playing, which I’ll spare you of. Let me just say that the part of India I grew up in believes in ‘dirty’ Holi. In fact, the dirtier the better (and no, I’m not considering having raw eggs thrown at you as ‘dirty’).

Even now I don’t understand why people like playing with wet colors. Dry colors, or gulal / abeer, as they’re known are so much better. They don’t stay on your skin or your clothes. You can still show up at work the next day looking like a normal human being than someone who’s been dyed pink!

I had an argument with a friend of mine over this last night. A bunch of friends played Holi in the morning. No, I didn’t go & thank God for that….they smashed raw eggs on each other’s heads! There’s nothing even remotely tempting about that for me.

So….this one friend had a presentation today & he requested the others not to put wet color on him. BUT….as we all know, that doesn’t really happen, so the guy has had to turn up for the presentation in all his ‘pink’ glory!

This other friend of mine kept insisting that work can’t control one’s life & what he does on a day off is strictly his business. His boss/clients have no say in it. I thought this was exaggerating it way too much. This isn’t about work dictating one’s life, it’s just about being responsible & professional.

I mean, SHOULD you show up at a client presentation colored pink when you’re the one presenting? And if do, do you really expect the clients to take you seriously?

I would definitely have a little 'discussion' with my reportee if he/she turns up for a client presentation with Holi colors still on. What about you?

The Not So Big Fat Punju Wedding

Disclaimer: If there are any Punjabis reading this post, my request is that you do not get offended by the use of the word ‘Punju’. I use it not as a slang, rather affectionately. Besides, Punjabis seem to be an integral part of my life. I’ve had three roommates during the course of my stay in Bombay and all three have been Punjabis! That too by random stroke of luck b/c I didn't know any of them before I started living with them.

I went for a Punjabi wedding this weekend, that of a colleague. The families of both the bride & the groom are loaded, if you know what I mean, so the wedding had all the chances of being a full-blown tamasha that north Indian weddings can become. But this wedding was quite classy & subtle. It was very unlike most Punjabi weddings in Delhi which are all about showmanship.

There was no DJ at the wedding. They had light instrumental music playing in the background, with intermittent smatterings of the Gayatri Mantra.

The decorations were muted & classy. There were lights strung around & hanging from the trees but lending just the right amount of festivity to the place. The color theme was cream, powder pink & mauve, with pillars & chairs decorated with cloth, ribbons & flowers of the same colors. Not one piece of decoration was over-powering to the senses.

Surprisingly, there weren’t many people at the wedding. The men were dressed mainly in grey & black suits, or cream sherwanis. No men strutting around in blue, green, orange, red heavily-embroidered kurtas & golden dupattas. And the women...they were superbly dressed! The saris were decorative but very elegant. I couldn’t spot a single woman who was dressed over-the-top. Even the colors on display were muted & elegant….white, off-white, baby pink, fuschia, onion pink, aqua blue, teal, sea green, dull magenta. There was bling alright, but strictly under control.

The piece-de-resistance though was the bride’s lehenga. She wore a Sabyasachi lehenga that cost – hold your breath – 70,000!!! It was a beautiful red, green & peacock blue lehenga with a lot of golden embroidery on it – all mixed in a way only Sabya knows how to! I don’t know if it was worth 70,000 but it was definitely exotic. And like most of Sabyasachi's creations, you probably wouldn't like it so much when you lay eyes on it first, but you would want to look at it a second time and love it for it's sheer exquisiteness, and for the fact that his stuff is so different from that of other designers.

The most amusing factor at the wedding was the priest. He was reading mantras in Sanskrit, then translating them to English. He was also giving himself too much importance & started yelling at people, mainly the kids to behave! He kept exhorting parents to keep the kids away, he even went to the extent of being rude to the bride’s brother! He had a mike to speak into so everyone could hear the wedding proceedings, and he kept yelling at people to shut up so they could hear him speak!

I love Punjabis for their joie-de-vivre & the gregarious, warm-hearted, hospitable, fun-loving people they are. And this was a wedding I would remember not for the spectacle, but for the elegant, classy affair that it was.

Slam Bang Double Century :)

This is my 208th post. Damn it, I missed celebrating the 200th mark again! But YAY!! 200+ and still loving every bit of it. Thank you Blogger :)

Happy Diwali!!!!!

So finally, it seems I’m on my way home for Diwali.

Actually, I shouldn’t really call Patna ‘home’ b/c I’ve been away from the place for soooooooo long (more than ten years now!) that I feel disconnected from the place. In fact, I used to feel more at home in Bombay & would yearn to get back as soon as I could whenever I used to travel. Except when I was going to Delhi where I have friends, friends & more friends that I have an absolute blast with!! What keeps me going back to Patna, apart from the fact that my parents live there, is the thought of being taken care of & chilling out for a few days without having a zillion things to do, places to be at etc.

Anyway, coming back to the context of this post….I had planned to take a train from Calcutta to Patna & fly on my wayback. Unfortunately, two days before my departure (tonight) students in Bihar went on a rampage to protest the violence against North Indians perpetrated by Raj Thackerey & his release from jail. For some inexplicable reason, they started burning trains en route to Patna, so all trains to & from Patna were cancelled over the past two days. Thankfully, just in time for my trip home, the trains have resumed.

The thought of not being able to make it back home for Diwali had depressed me a bit. Festivals are the times when I miss family the most. Not that we have extravagant celebrations on Diwali (the Hum Aapke Hain Kaun kinds….God, they were so over-the-top & fake!!), but I like to be with my family on the occasion. We light diyas/candles, cook good food & just generally meander about the house. Everyone around you is with family during Diwali & is so happy that it sucks if you’re not happy too!

Coming to the issue of Raj Thackerey, I cannot believe the man has caused such unrest in the country (yes, it’s not limited to Maharashtra alone anymore) and still keeps getting let-off from prison!! What I want to ask is: who gave him the right to take law in his hands & go around beating people up? Why is he such a hypocrite? Like there are no Maharashtrians living & working outside Maharashtra & outside India? Take Gujrat & Madhya Pradesh for example. These two states share their borders with Maharashtra & are teeming with Maharashtraisn. Going by his logic, they too are snatching away employment opportunities from locals & should be beaten up & sent back to Maharashtra!! How would he react then??

For one, I have always taken exception to the ‘Jai Maharashtra’ slogan that politicians & celebrities keep chanting at rallies & award functions. Since when has Maharashtra – or any state for that matter – has become bigger & more important than India? No wonder that it’s been 60+ years since independence & we’re still walking on crutches on our way to development. Development cannot and will not take place till we leave our narrow-mindedness behind and stop letting ‘self-proclaimed’ leaders divide us on the basis of ethnic lines.

Why is the government not able to keep him behind bars for good? Are they even interested? How can one individual get so much bigger than the law and the principles of democracy & freedom that this entire country is founded upon?? Even Mumbaikars are scared to go to out on the streets thinking of the rioting MNS supporters. Since when has it become acceptable that one man can cripple an entire city by fear, holding millions of people to ransom?

Hopefully, things will be better after Diwali. Not that I expect some miracle to happen…but we could all surely use some lovin’.

Happy Diwali everyone

The Face of Durga at Maddox Square Park

Will give you goose bumps if you are there.....