Ticking a Different Box

Got married.

Am already tired of smiling for the camera.

Keep myself occupied with trying to remember new names and faces (in the right combination preferrably).

Find myself admiring the mehndi on my hands whenever i have nothing to do (or when the fellow isnt within sight! :P)

Have to exercise great control over my exceedingly boisterous behaviour so as not to scandalise the new family (there is enough time for that later na).

Am missing my jeans and over sized tee shirts. Sigh.

Keep thinking this is all so surreal and i really cant be married. Im dont feel grown up and responsible.

Try to sneak in a few minutes during which to sit quietly with the fellow and try and feel married (various accessories etc not withstanding).

Also try to get some time with my laptop to get my fix of the internet.

Oh and i also get to tick the 'married' box on forms.

The Great Divide

Now that the terrorists are dealt with, it's time for the usual routine of expert panels, protest marches, candle lighting, political faffing, monetary compensations, zero sensitivity, big words and little action.

Of course there is one important difference here. The anger, outrage, feeling of terror and utter disbelief and shock is simply due to the fact that even the rich are vulnerable. Had 2 smaller and little known hotels in a northern suburb of Mumbai been attacked, not one candle holding protester would be found on the streets.

Yes i agree that the hotels the terrorists chose were iconic in nature, and ensured international attention. But the aftermath is only emphasising the underlying discrimination and the great divide that exists in our city. All peace walks and protest marches lead to the Taj. Everyone talks about how innocent people were killed in the hotels when all they had come for was an evening out. Everyone is shocked at how easily 2 top hotels were attacked.

But what about CST? Isnt the erstwhile Victoria Terminus an equally important landmark (and a place that definitely sees more people passing by than the hotels)? What about those innocent citizens who were at CST? What about those who were simply looking to go back home after a long day at work or return to their village after a holiday in Bombay? What about those women and men who were caught in open fire with nowhere to run or hide? What about the man in the control tower, who, on seeing the gunmen, made announcements for people to get away to another platform, thereby saving their lives? Why is no one saluting his alertness and quick thinking? Why isnt he being interviewed for what happened? Why is no one talking about the people who were killed as part of what was probably a diversionary tactic?

So while i empathise and am equally outraged at what my city is going through, im also saddened by the inequality that the common man faces even in death.

Aaagghh. Someone please shoot the newsreaders and reporters. And politicians while you're at it.

As macabre as this sounds given the current scenario, we want leadership not puppets, facts not opinions. We want news reporting and not manipulation. We want someone who isnt looking only to garner brownie points for herself and her news channel but is sensitive to the plight of relatives and friends.

Why dont we have reporters who talk like normal people instead of sounding like they're on an Infomercial?! What is with the booming dramatic voice? What happened to being calm and composed on air instead of transfering panic and fear through the television screens?

Whatever happened to responsible journalism? Lalit Modi talking about the terror attacks? The only thing worse than that is him seemingly lounging about on a couch while expressing his opinions. Why is the media interested in what will happen to cricket in the country? People are effing dying here you morons!

And our politicians need to be locked up in one room and kept out of the way. A visibly pissed off Shobha De talking to Barkha Dutt rightly said that our law and order personnel need to protect the city and its people and not have to worry about the safety and protection of doddering old fools (ok this last bit is mine and not De's).

And all the supremely annoying Dutt could ask her was if it wasnt a good sign that the leader of the opposition and the PM were travelling together!! WTF! Like now would be a good time to demand seperate travelling arrangements. If they cant travel together, they're definitely not going to work together towards solving whatever is happening in this city (and lets not talk about the country).

Oh and, btw, they didnt travel together. Mr. Advani said he came, even though he had to be in Rajasthan tomorrow, to get a feel of the situation and see how the people and officials were handling the situation. Oh my. What an honour for the city. What would we have done without him?. And he came alone because it wasnt sure whether the PM would even be coming in to the city today. What no permission from Madam? Well, after his lame ass excuse for a speech on national television, we're better off with him not coming.

All over our news channels the same video loop has been playing. Clips from yesterday night and all through today are being repeated with increasing graphics and dramatic headlines. And the one thing that stands out for me is the horde of media persons surrounding the hotels while the police is constantly pushing them behind a cordone. It seems to me that they're in the way. Where is the sensitivity? Ambulances come in to collect the injured and dead and all we can do is watch the camera person angling to get a better shot of the bodies!

So while we're all hoping for someone (most probably the very calm and methodical army, navy and RAF) to stop the madness, someone needs to also control the media and their sickening ability to convert reality into reality television.

Until Now

Living in Mumbai has never been simple. Terrorist threats, riots, attacks on shops, taxis and offices, disrupted train servies, we live with all of this on a daily basis. Mumbaikars have learnt to take it all in their stride and move on with life. This indomitable spirit is what has made the city what it is. Bombs have not reduced the crowds in local trains, they have not stopped people from flocking to market places and they have definitely not made anyone stay cooped inside their houses.

Until now.

Until now Mumbai has never been faced with an act of terrorism that did not stop with one or several blasts.

Until now we have never had to face indiscriminate firing at railway stations, cafes and hotels.

Until now we thought only local trains and market places could be targeted. We were wrong.

Until now only the middle class was affected. The balance has changed and now the rich are hostage.

Until now we never heard of several top cops being shot dead a couple of hours into the attack.

Until now the terrorists never came foward in such large numbers together.

Until now terrorism in India never grabbed international attention of this magnitude.

Until now we never had a situation which lasted nearly 18 hours.

Until now Mumbai had never had the army step in.

Until now we have never felt the panic and fear we are now.

Unfortunately, until now no one took terrorism in this city seriously. It was just another of those things you get innured too. But now someone has to be accountable for the supreme lack of respect for human life and the blatant spread of terror. Someone has to have the answers.

Until now the common man accepted the apathy of the government towards their plight. But not anymore. Now we demand action.

Until now we demanded a solution.

Now we demand justice.

Addicted and Clueless

You never know how much you're going to miss something till it's gone. And i wish this was about something deep and meaningful (and maybe, just maybe it is). Unfortunately it happens to be about my broadband internet connection.

So i come home one evening and find my internet connection gone poof. At first i thought my computer was being cranky. But restarting it (twice) didnt help, neither did talking to it lovingly. So i took to unplugging the modem and the wi-fi transmitter and replugging them (more than twice). When that didnt work either, i gave the MTNL guys the benefit of doubt and figured the sever was down and would be up and running in time for my daily quota of facebook, gmail, wikipedia, google news, gtalk and all the tv shows downloading.

But my faith was misplaced. All night (while i wondered what to do with my laptop now that i couldnt get onto the world wide web) i kept checking to see if all the lights were blinking on my modem. I alternately stood looking at the box willing the lights to come on and checking my computer to see if the small blue dot appeared on the screen. I even organised the files and folders on my computer since there was nothing else i could do.

I stopped doing it after a day and a half.

3 days later i didnt even bother switching on my computer.

Today evening the lights all came on again and i rushed here to clatter this out.

Im back to walking with a bounce in my step and a smile on my face.

Avantika Inked. Again

My first tattoo hadn’t fully healed when I started planning another one. That was October 2007. After months of not getting the time and then the time not being right, I finally went and got inked again yesterday. And it was as exhilarating an experience as I remembered it.

My first piece was quite small and something I got done on a whim. Luckily for me it turned out nice and I still like looking at it. This new one I’ve been thinking about for quite some time, and have spent hours looking for designs and checking with the few people I know who have some aesthetic sense, and will not hesitate to tell me if I’m about to get a disaster permanently marked on my skin.

(Later Observation: Thats a seriously terrible picture of my foot. I need to practice foot angles now i think!)

My friends of course all think I’m crazy to volunteer for the pain. I think the pain is quite therapeutic. Of course it helps that they (on request) apply some numbing gel (which I think is more of a placebo than anything else). But the fact of the matter is that I quite enjoyed the noise and movement of the needle as it went about inserting ink into my skin. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not denying the pain. Nor am I masochistic. All I’m saying is that the dull (and at times sharp) throbbing pain was quite tolerable. And once you’re through you really don’t think of the pain in all the post-tattoo excitement.

So after an hour’s wait, another hour under the needle (a new one, fresh from a sealed packet) and a quick squirt of dettol-water to wipe away the extra colour and blood, I was the proud owner of a brand new tattoo.

I knew where I wanted my third piece even before I left the studio.

My poor (needle phobic) fellow says we shall discuss it.

I Dream of Hot Buttered Toast

I don’t know if it’s age (I’m young enough to admit to how old I am) or if it’s just stress (which I’m stressed enough to admit to), but I find myself increasingly thinking about food. There seems to be no pattern that I can make out in my day dreams, except that they’re all about food. And once a craving hits (yes, the dreams then go onto trick my brain into annoying me enough to go in search of the food) nothing satisfies it except the object of my fantasies.

Now if I was fantasizing about gourmet, fancy stuff, I could blame it on good taste and discerning taste buds. But no. My unconscious insists on bringing up memories and images (and smells) of hot buttered toast (that I can gratify immediately with a holler to the maid), steaming hot wanton soup at my favourite Chinese eatery (which, since the place has shut down, I continue to dream about), mum’s rajma chawal (isn’t it the best always), the bhel I get just down the road (oh ya that’s the real thing, not the sterilised, hygienic stuff mum makes at home), my aunt’s fried potato sabzi and baked vegetables (anything fried and anything layered with cheese has to taste good), dosa at my friend’s home (us north Indians just don’t know how to do a good dosa), nani’s besan ke laddoo (as clichéd as it sounds, my nani made killer laddoos till she went all healthy on us), Gooey chocolate torte with a friend at a place i can never get to on my own, caramel popcorn at….oh well you get the picture.

My sister is quite fed up with my cravings. She tells me to save it for when I’m pregnant. After all why should she be the one to have to listen to me talking (almost reverently) about hot vada pav and masala dosa (with a mangola) at the udipi next to my college? Let that poor unfortunate fellow of mine struggle to get me a choco-bar at 2 in the morning.

Ooh. Time to check the freezer.