I understand obsessions. After all, an obsession is just the next level in passion and what is life without passions? So if you set out to taste every flavor Baskin Robbins has ever come up with, or read every book ever written by Robert Heinlein or even re-read 'Gone with the Wind' every second day, I would say, good luck fella and move along.
But this, I fail to understand. So Kate Moss in gold now. But why in this entire galactic system and all the other galactic systems would anybody want to do that?
The only bright side is Kate Moss and her size zero came to be useful for once. Imagine the amount of aurum that would have been used up if she were to be even a size zero point zero zero one.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
I am in love (yet again)! Sigh!
If you miss somebody so much that you wish you could rewind the day and change it so that you could be together again, does it mean that you are in love?
It has to be so. I decided not to bike to work today (the rain last night must have washed the road away, it is blazing today, blah blah) and hopped a ride with my flat-mate. It was alright for an hour. Then I started to squirm. After all, did that weak front tyre actually warrant that I leave the darling behind?
Another couple go by and I am actually obsessing. Sitting in front of my comp, all I can think is what a dratted fool I was not to bring it today. A heavy lunch with AR later, I know I would rot in calorie hell ( You would roast very nicely too, my my, all that fat!, a little red man seems to whisper in my head) as a reminder the next time I get such obscene impulses.
The priceless 'office day' ends, and I think I am going to die, finding an auto, telling him where I need to go to, that look on his face as he gives me the 'and you actually thought I would go there?' , my cursing and finally relenting and being robbed of my hard earned hardly any money.
I think I am going to fit an auto response device on my bike so that one press of a tiny button on a remote and my shiny red bike comes wizzing to my rescue a.k.a Bat Mobile.
PS: I think my bike would make the whistling noise that those bombs made as they were being dropped during the WW II from a B-52 (maybe? one hopes...) as it comes to my rescue.
It has to be so. I decided not to bike to work today (the rain last night must have washed the road away, it is blazing today, blah blah) and hopped a ride with my flat-mate. It was alright for an hour. Then I started to squirm. After all, did that weak front tyre actually warrant that I leave the darling behind?
Another couple go by and I am actually obsessing. Sitting in front of my comp, all I can think is what a dratted fool I was not to bring it today. A heavy lunch with AR later, I know I would rot in calorie hell ( You would roast very nicely too, my my, all that fat!, a little red man seems to whisper in my head) as a reminder the next time I get such obscene impulses.
The priceless 'office day' ends, and I think I am going to die, finding an auto, telling him where I need to go to, that look on his face as he gives me the 'and you actually thought I would go there?' , my cursing and finally relenting and being robbed of my hard earned hardly any money.
I think I am going to fit an auto response device on my bike so that one press of a tiny button on a remote and my shiny red bike comes wizzing to my rescue a.k.a Bat Mobile.
PS: I think my bike would make the whistling noise that those bombs made as they were being dropped during the WW II from a B-52 (maybe? one hopes...) as it comes to my rescue.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The 'chai' in Tchaikovsky
Beautiful things must be come across in a beautiful way to be truly appreciated, or so I thought until I was made to eat my words.
Quite literally too. My mother was making jantukulu and a seven year old me had snuck up into the kitchen when she wasn't looking and had managed to spell my name out with the dough in , what at that time, seemed to me like a display of amazing dexterity. Only, when my mother came back and saw the mess her precious kitchen was in, she was ummm, mad, to put it very lightly.
As, a punishment, I was made to eat the fried version of it as owing to the amount of dough in it, it was bound to come out of the oil, all soggy and messy (I agree, my mother never could think of suitable punishments. That was when she used to spank me).
Anyway, so there was me eating it all up and pretending to be feeling bad too when all of a sudden this beautiful sound filled the room. I watched, riveted, as Jerry, after finding himself on a table filled with food set out for a very formal dinner, gorges on it and then proceeds to dance with a little show-piece maiden.
And that was my introduction to Tchaikovsky.
Nobody in my family was the least bit musical types. True, there was the stack of cassettes of Boney M, Tina Turner, Asha Bhonsle and other assorted odd singers belonging to my Dad but that was that. Then me grew up, and also grew up with me, my tastes in music, ranging from ABBA's Dancing Queen to Metallica's Am I Evil? ( All, I have to admit, fallen in love with haphazardly, some heard in Hollywood movies and some at homes of my Dad's Russian and French colleagues).
But all that was more of rebellion than anything until that fateful day when ironically, Tom & Jerry was to give me my first peek into the bewitching sounds of a true maestro. It was years later when I was being tutored in Carnatic Music like most good South Indian Girls (SIGs), that I discovered who the maestro was. My music teacher had a showcase full of 'weird English music' and one slow day, when I randomly inserted a cassette in to the player and pressed the 'PLAY' button, there he was, finally proclaimed in his full Russian glory. Of course it took me another 10 years to get the name and the spelling right!
After that, I started my inroads into Western Classical music and discovered the beauty of Mozart, the structure of Beethoven and the melancholy tunes of Chopin ( the No.6 Prelude) but Tchaikovsky returned to haunt me again and again. So much that there finally came a time when the only way I could fall asleep in strange new hostel life during my post-graduate days, was while listening to Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, The Chinese Dance, The Waltz of the Flowers and the Arabian Dance (I have to profess my obsession for The Nutcracker here).
It became my comforter (I used to play it on my machine at Cognizant at an ultra low volume when the others around me used to complain about the noise and then immediately play jarring Bollywood numbers on their phones), my means of getting over emotional turmoils (the best way to getting over a fight with your boyfriend is to imagine glaring at him with the First movement of Symphony No.5 by Beethoven playing in the background), and generally getting lost in myself.
True, I did not know a thing about Classical Music. True I could not distinguish the Baroque from the Classical and again, the Romantic. I could not play the Piano and not even knew of anybody who could. But that did not deter me. I did occasionally come across "Oh Western Classical? Thank goodness, my mother had cultivated in me the art of appreciating it from a very early age", "Western Classical? What a snob", "Like fine wine, like a good scotch" and even " Bah! All that humbug. Too complicated" but I refused to let go.
As for me, I rallied on, perfectly happy with Tchaikovsky in the background, a good book in front and a cup of chai in hand content in soaking in the beauty first heard on Cartoon Network by a seven year old.
Quite literally too. My mother was making jantukulu and a seven year old me had snuck up into the kitchen when she wasn't looking and had managed to spell my name out with the dough in , what at that time, seemed to me like a display of amazing dexterity. Only, when my mother came back and saw the mess her precious kitchen was in, she was ummm, mad, to put it very lightly.
As, a punishment, I was made to eat the fried version of it as owing to the amount of dough in it, it was bound to come out of the oil, all soggy and messy (I agree, my mother never could think of suitable punishments. That was when she used to spank me).
Anyway, so there was me eating it all up and pretending to be feeling bad too when all of a sudden this beautiful sound filled the room. I watched, riveted, as Jerry, after finding himself on a table filled with food set out for a very formal dinner, gorges on it and then proceeds to dance with a little show-piece maiden.
And that was my introduction to Tchaikovsky.
Nobody in my family was the least bit musical types. True, there was the stack of cassettes of Boney M, Tina Turner, Asha Bhonsle and other assorted odd singers belonging to my Dad but that was that. Then me grew up, and also grew up with me, my tastes in music, ranging from ABBA's Dancing Queen to Metallica's Am I Evil? ( All, I have to admit, fallen in love with haphazardly, some heard in Hollywood movies and some at homes of my Dad's Russian and French colleagues).
But all that was more of rebellion than anything until that fateful day when ironically, Tom & Jerry was to give me my first peek into the bewitching sounds of a true maestro. It was years later when I was being tutored in Carnatic Music like most good South Indian Girls (SIGs), that I discovered who the maestro was. My music teacher had a showcase full of 'weird English music' and one slow day, when I randomly inserted a cassette in to the player and pressed the 'PLAY' button, there he was, finally proclaimed in his full Russian glory. Of course it took me another 10 years to get the name and the spelling right!
After that, I started my inroads into Western Classical music and discovered the beauty of Mozart, the structure of Beethoven and the melancholy tunes of Chopin ( the No.6 Prelude) but Tchaikovsky returned to haunt me again and again. So much that there finally came a time when the only way I could fall asleep in strange new hostel life during my post-graduate days, was while listening to Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, The Chinese Dance, The Waltz of the Flowers and the Arabian Dance (I have to profess my obsession for The Nutcracker here).
It became my comforter (I used to play it on my machine at Cognizant at an ultra low volume when the others around me used to complain about the noise and then immediately play jarring Bollywood numbers on their phones), my means of getting over emotional turmoils (the best way to getting over a fight with your boyfriend is to imagine glaring at him with the First movement of Symphony No.5 by Beethoven playing in the background), and generally getting lost in myself.
True, I did not know a thing about Classical Music. True I could not distinguish the Baroque from the Classical and again, the Romantic. I could not play the Piano and not even knew of anybody who could. But that did not deter me. I did occasionally come across "Oh Western Classical? Thank goodness, my mother had cultivated in me the art of appreciating it from a very early age", "Western Classical? What a snob", "Like fine wine, like a good scotch" and even " Bah! All that humbug. Too complicated" but I refused to let go.
As for me, I rallied on, perfectly happy with Tchaikovsky in the background, a good book in front and a cup of chai in hand content in soaking in the beauty first heard on Cartoon Network by a seven year old.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Weight(y) issues
If you thought you were too fat, think again.
How does this sound: You kill a child 'accidentally' and then not get indicted as you are too fat and instead, your sister gets the rap as she shouldn't have left the kid with you in the first place.
And if you think I am making all of this up, go check this out
How does this sound: You kill a child 'accidentally' and then not get indicted as you are too fat and instead, your sister gets the rap as she shouldn't have left the kid with you in the first place.
And if you think I am making all of this up, go check this out
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Pop goes the weasel
My bike passed air for the first time yesterday.
It happened while I was nearing the Cauvery Junction signal on MG Road. One moment I was weaving through the traffic and the next there was a loud 'pop' and my front wheel tire deflated instantly.
Since it happened when I was very close to my workplace, I walked the bike to workplace. No such luck while going back. Had to walk it 6 km back home.
Briefly contemplated loading it into an auto but considering the fact that I don't get an auto to oblige me on normal days, decided to ditch the idea on a strike day.
An hour to walk some 6 and odd km and I was home. The bike-repair guy showed me a hole in the tire the size of the back of the barrel of a ball point pen.
It happened while I was nearing the Cauvery Junction signal on MG Road. One moment I was weaving through the traffic and the next there was a loud 'pop' and my front wheel tire deflated instantly.
Since it happened when I was very close to my workplace, I walked the bike to workplace. No such luck while going back. Had to walk it 6 km back home.
Briefly contemplated loading it into an auto but considering the fact that I don't get an auto to oblige me on normal days, decided to ditch the idea on a strike day.
An hour to walk some 6 and odd km and I was home. The bike-repair guy showed me a hole in the tire the size of the back of the barrel of a ball point pen.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Mud trails and muddy weekends
Sunday was spent in slush. Not the kinds that give you brain-freeze but the kinds that give you muscle-freeze!
It all started with a motley crew of tough bikers from Bengaluru deciding that getting muddy would be fun. So they thought up a bike-race where you got to see a lot (a real lot) of mud. People were told, registration forms made on Google docs and the trail was marked.
Since the race-place was a good way off from where I stay and I had nice obliging friends who were fond of putting me up for the night (they must be, else, how come they do it all the time despite by really sound snores?), I had decided to camp out at Parul's along with my bike (Saturday night with bike and me is another story all together. Lesson learnt: Bike+Beer=Bad Combination)and started for race-place bright and early from Koramangala.
Joined a couple of dudes with bikes which looked like machines (cmon, they had gears man!) unlike a certain red shiny bike which well, looked like a bike. That should have warned me, but no, me was the type that assumed the converse of "no risk, no reward" would also be true.After biking for what seemed a long long way (it was 8 Km actually), we finally arrived at race-place and were greeted by bananas, salted peanuts and what at that seemed like a stony path leading to somewhere pretty. Waited the other brave-hearts out and finally this was (a part of) the group that was flagged off
What happened next, I am yet to take in; all I can say is that it involved arrows, exclamations (marking where you had to jump over a ditch 3ft deep-probably in reference to the "Holy Shit!" that you tend to say after you jump), recalcitrant cows, local kids jumping out at you, getting lost for a while, and acres and acres of glorious slush and other riders passing me by on my first lap and their second.
Did I say "my first" by the way? Ha! Ha! I was lying. That was my only one! 13 Km on a red shiny bike without gears and minus suspension and my lumbar support balked and refused to support me further. So it was the support station and blanching at the grin on other riders' faces each time they finished yet another lap (there were 4 in total)for me after that.
After men and their machines finally decided that they had fun, bikes were hosed, men were hosed, stories swapped, falls compared and finally people departed (few braves ones decided to bike back too; and it included me).
Reached home in a huff (quite literally) and first thing polished off food enough to feed a small Amazonian hamlet which was followed by calling up everybody and crowing about my 30 Km bike riding weekend.
Oh, btw, I was not the last to complete (or not complete) the race after all, thanks to this big guy
All in all, yet another wonderful nick in the wall of accomplishments!
It all started with a motley crew of tough bikers from Bengaluru deciding that getting muddy would be fun. So they thought up a bike-race where you got to see a lot (a real lot) of mud. People were told, registration forms made on Google docs and the trail was marked.
Since the race-place was a good way off from where I stay and I had nice obliging friends who were fond of putting me up for the night (they must be, else, how come they do it all the time despite by really sound snores?), I had decided to camp out at Parul's along with my bike (Saturday night with bike and me is another story all together. Lesson learnt: Bike+Beer=Bad Combination)and started for race-place bright and early from Koramangala.
Joined a couple of dudes with bikes which looked like machines (cmon, they had gears man!) unlike a certain red shiny bike which well, looked like a bike. That should have warned me, but no, me was the type that assumed the converse of "no risk, no reward" would also be true.After biking for what seemed a long long way (it was 8 Km actually), we finally arrived at race-place and were greeted by bananas, salted peanuts and what at that seemed like a stony path leading to somewhere pretty. Waited the other brave-hearts out and finally this was (a part of) the group that was flagged off
What happened next, I am yet to take in; all I can say is that it involved arrows, exclamations (marking where you had to jump over a ditch 3ft deep-probably in reference to the "Holy Shit!" that you tend to say after you jump), recalcitrant cows, local kids jumping out at you, getting lost for a while, and acres and acres of glorious slush and other riders passing me by on my first lap and their second.
Did I say "my first" by the way? Ha! Ha! I was lying. That was my only one! 13 Km on a red shiny bike without gears and minus suspension and my lumbar support balked and refused to support me further. So it was the support station and blanching at the grin on other riders' faces each time they finished yet another lap (there were 4 in total)for me after that.
After men and their machines finally decided that they had fun, bikes were hosed, men were hosed, stories swapped, falls compared and finally people departed (few braves ones decided to bike back too; and it included me).
Reached home in a huff (quite literally) and first thing polished off food enough to feed a small Amazonian hamlet which was followed by calling up everybody and crowing about my 30 Km bike riding weekend. Oh, btw, I was not the last to complete (or not complete) the race after all, thanks to this big guy
All in all, yet another wonderful nick in the wall of accomplishments!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Death of a post-girl (?)
I have not posted now on my blog in like a gazillion years. Why?
1. My boss probably noticed how happy I was. Decided to rectify matters at the speed of light
2. The death of my laptop (to be more precise, the death of the screen of my laptop)
3. Weekends being spent in actually doing something as opposed to generally doing nothing
4. Here is where I run out of excuses, but shall try to pass this off as yet an other one
5. Oh wait, I do have yet another one - ennui
1. My boss probably noticed how happy I was. Decided to rectify matters at the speed of light
2. The death of my laptop (to be more precise, the death of the screen of my laptop)
3. Weekends being spent in actually doing something as opposed to generally doing nothing
4. Here is where I run out of excuses, but shall try to pass this off as yet an other one
5. Oh wait, I do have yet another one - ennui
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