Give me the tropics any day.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
And In Other News Tonight...
Shubho Bijoya (a trifle late, but I'm not fond enough of worms to be the early bird).
The spammers have found me. Apologies, but this blog has no option. Spam-protection in the form of word verification is now enabled here.
A wonderful, restful week at home, with home food and dogs and peaceful afternoons and my room filled with green leaf sunshine. That particular shade of sunshine. This is what I know, I kept thinking, a city I can negotiate in my sleep, old hangouts and friends and conversation that range over the impossibly important and to the completely inane. Cups and cups of coffee and tea; phuchka (distinct from and far superior to both gol gappas and pani puris) from the phuchka-walla outside my house who greets me fondly each time I return. Pujor abhawa - a sense of mild festivity and goodwill towards all in the air, and children in spanking new clothes walking down the road, foodstalls selling fish fry and kochuri and radhabollobi and ghugni on street corners and in parks, ferris wheels and hurdy-gurdies and Chicken a la Kiev at Mocambo with catching-up conversation glinting in the lamplight, and warm doggie fur against my leg as I sleep, and warm breath on my face as one of the doggies tries to stare me into waking at 5 in the morning.
No wonder, then, that email and blogging were ignored and put aside for later while I wallowed in peace.
But we're back now, and making resolutions and doing things. This blog will come to those, in due time. For now, though, the rutted roads and darn traffic of Bangalore are already driving this blog to road rage. And this blog has some paperwork to do as well.
Ah'll be beck.
The spammers have found me. Apologies, but this blog has no option. Spam-protection in the form of word verification is now enabled here.
A wonderful, restful week at home, with home food and dogs and peaceful afternoons and my room filled with green leaf sunshine. That particular shade of sunshine. This is what I know, I kept thinking, a city I can negotiate in my sleep, old hangouts and friends and conversation that range over the impossibly important and to the completely inane. Cups and cups of coffee and tea; phuchka (distinct from and far superior to both gol gappas and pani puris) from the phuchka-walla outside my house who greets me fondly each time I return. Pujor abhawa - a sense of mild festivity and goodwill towards all in the air, and children in spanking new clothes walking down the road, foodstalls selling fish fry and kochuri and radhabollobi and ghugni on street corners and in parks, ferris wheels and hurdy-gurdies and Chicken a la Kiev at Mocambo with catching-up conversation glinting in the lamplight, and warm doggie fur against my leg as I sleep, and warm breath on my face as one of the doggies tries to stare me into waking at 5 in the morning.
No wonder, then, that email and blogging were ignored and put aside for later while I wallowed in peace.
But we're back now, and making resolutions and doing things. This blog will come to those, in due time. For now, though, the rutted roads and darn traffic of Bangalore are already driving this blog to road rage. And this blog has some paperwork to do as well.
Ah'll be beck.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Life, or Something Very Like It
Conversation 1
B: (to friends at large) Why don't you come over for lunch on Sunday? My cousin (that's me) will cook something.
F-a-L: Sure. We'll be there.
Conversation 2
B: (to other friends at large) Why don't you come over for lunch on Saturday? My cousin (me again) will cook.
F-a-L: Sounds good.
Conversation 3
B: (to her friends-at-large - people I barely know) Have dinner with us on Saturday night. My cousin (by now you know who this is) will cook.
F-a-L: Great.
There's a pattern emerging here, I just know it.
B: (to friends at large) Why don't you come over for lunch on Sunday? My cousin (that's me) will cook something.
F-a-L: Sure. We'll be there.
Conversation 2
B: (to other friends at large) Why don't you come over for lunch on Saturday? My cousin (me again) will cook.
F-a-L: Sounds good.
Conversation 3
B: (to her friends-at-large - people I barely know) Have dinner with us on Saturday night. My cousin (by now you know who this is) will cook.
F-a-L: Great.
There's a pattern emerging here, I just know it.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Update
Packing my stuff - to leave behind, to carry back home and bring back again - takes a few hours. As I'm sorting through stuff and trying to fit it into bags, I'm suddenly tired. I feel as though I've been packing all my life, all my life, packing, packing, fitting things into bags, getting on trains and planes and buses and into cars, leaving. Suddenly, I can't face packing any more. Instead, I go downstairs and stand outside the hotel and look up into the night sky. No Mars, but some stars and a sickle moon and clear air flood my head with my earliest star-gazing memories - on trips and treks, sitting outside in the cold cold air and breathing in the calm fullness of the place.
******************************************************************
My Air India flight to Bombay via Paris takes off 1 whole hour late - apparently all systems at Newark have shut down. I imagine skynet or whatever it was in the Terminator movies, or the whole Matrix phenomenon. Machines taking over the planet and deciding to shut down un unison. Incoming flights frozen in the void, temporarily bullied out of existence by Newark's IT failure... else reduced to circling the airport endlessly.
By the time we lift off, passengers' stomachs are growling so loudly that they could be doing sound effects for a whole other airplane. To prevent us from eating them, the crew hastily throws packets of chips at us. As they put dinner together, the smell of fragrantly spiced mutton curry almost drives me crazy.
After dinner, I try to sleep. But a stewardess has other ideas. Each time I start nodding off, she jumps to my window and snaps the shade shut. The sound wakes me. I open the shade again, send unpleasant thoughts and quelling looks-that-kill in her direction and try to drift off into dreamland again. (Repeat from beginning of paragraph for 4 hours to understand the true meaning of endless night.)
We're flying into daylight and into timezones ahead of ours, so dinner, breakfast and lunch all take place in the span of 9 hours. Part of the time, I read Tears of the Giraffe - the second book in Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series - set in Botswana, and highly recommended. But mostly, I'm just jumping in my seat with anticipation, can't wait to land in Bombay.
And when we finally do, I can see rain beating against the sides of the plane, and I think, "shit." So much for the anticipation, the anxiousness to be back.
Immigration, baggage claim, and out the door. The humidity hits me like a solid wall. The rain is a snivelling drizzle - the type I hate most. A is nowhere to be seen (turns out later he's waiting at the wrong terminal). I've lost my phone and can't call or message. Welcome home.
******************************************************************
After a warm, cozy weekend, I leave Bombay on a sticky grey Monday morning. A sees me off at the airport and a grey sheen hangs over the city and our goodbye. My flight breaks through the cloud cover and Bombay suddenly vanishes, just like that. No long last looks over one's shoulder. Perhaps that's as it should be.
******************************************************************
Bangalore sucks.
******************************************************************
My Air India flight to Bombay via Paris takes off 1 whole hour late - apparently all systems at Newark have shut down. I imagine skynet or whatever it was in the Terminator movies, or the whole Matrix phenomenon. Machines taking over the planet and deciding to shut down un unison. Incoming flights frozen in the void, temporarily bullied out of existence by Newark's IT failure... else reduced to circling the airport endlessly.
By the time we lift off, passengers' stomachs are growling so loudly that they could be doing sound effects for a whole other airplane. To prevent us from eating them, the crew hastily throws packets of chips at us. As they put dinner together, the smell of fragrantly spiced mutton curry almost drives me crazy.
After dinner, I try to sleep. But a stewardess has other ideas. Each time I start nodding off, she jumps to my window and snaps the shade shut. The sound wakes me. I open the shade again, send unpleasant thoughts and quelling looks-that-kill in her direction and try to drift off into dreamland again. (Repeat from beginning of paragraph for 4 hours to understand the true meaning of endless night.)
We're flying into daylight and into timezones ahead of ours, so dinner, breakfast and lunch all take place in the span of 9 hours. Part of the time, I read Tears of the Giraffe - the second book in Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series - set in Botswana, and highly recommended. But mostly, I'm just jumping in my seat with anticipation, can't wait to land in Bombay.
And when we finally do, I can see rain beating against the sides of the plane, and I think, "shit." So much for the anticipation, the anxiousness to be back.
Immigration, baggage claim, and out the door. The humidity hits me like a solid wall. The rain is a snivelling drizzle - the type I hate most. A is nowhere to be seen (turns out later he's waiting at the wrong terminal). I've lost my phone and can't call or message. Welcome home.
******************************************************************
After a warm, cozy weekend, I leave Bombay on a sticky grey Monday morning. A sees me off at the airport and a grey sheen hangs over the city and our goodbye. My flight breaks through the cloud cover and Bombay suddenly vanishes, just like that. No long last looks over one's shoulder. Perhaps that's as it should be.
******************************************************************
Bangalore sucks.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Learnings
1. Toilet paper can scratch your ass raw.
2. Seasons change real quick. One day there's bright sunlight, the next, you remember old geography lessons as you watch the morning light slant across the park.
3. It's dangerous to go within a 1 mile radius of Cheesecake Factory.
4. It's even more dangerous to get caught in a corridor with Cheesecake Factory on one side and Cold Stone Creamery on the other.
5. If you can survive the temptations of the corridor, you will, inevitably, reward yourself by giving in to temptation at the Barnes & Noble at the end of the corridor.
6. Hotel rooms are difficult to keep clean. It's not your's, so you don't care.
7. It's eminently possible to live like a slob for 2 months, washing dishes only when the fungus starts to creep out of the sink and attack books on the counter.
8. American ads really suck.
9. Speaking of which, there seem to be, broadly, 4 categories of products advertised on TV here:
2. Seasons change real quick. One day there's bright sunlight, the next, you remember old geography lessons as you watch the morning light slant across the park.
3. It's dangerous to go within a 1 mile radius of Cheesecake Factory.
4. It's even more dangerous to get caught in a corridor with Cheesecake Factory on one side and Cold Stone Creamery on the other.
5. If you can survive the temptations of the corridor, you will, inevitably, reward yourself by giving in to temptation at the Barnes & Noble at the end of the corridor.
6. Hotel rooms are difficult to keep clean. It's not your's, so you don't care.
7. It's eminently possible to live like a slob for 2 months, washing dishes only when the fungus starts to creep out of the sink and attack books on the counter.
8. American ads really suck.
9. Speaking of which, there seem to be, broadly, 4 categories of products advertised on TV here:
- Automobiles
- Telephone network providers
- Medication (mostly for penile dysfunction and post-partum depression - and you have to wonder about cause-and-effect here)
- Insurance
What Was I Thinking?
Spring Fest, 1996
Perhaps it was the effect of all the un-imbibed dope lingering in the air...
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