For the First Time...

...I’ve felt bad for people living in Bombay. Okay, maybe I feel bad for them (and myself) each time I’m stuck in a horrendous traffic jam in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, but today I felt sorry for them. An emotion I’d never thought I would feel.

I say them because I don’t live here anymore. Technically. Yes, I may spend quite a lot of time in this city and Bombay will always be home, but I’ve experienced life outside of potholes and traffic jams and muggy weather that makes you want to kill yourself every other day. And I grudgingly accept that it feels good. Sure, I miss the comforts of having everything at your doorstep, and I definitely miss the food. But I’m beginning to realise these are luxuries one can live without.

But I get ahead of myself here. What inspired such feelings was wanting to assuage the building guilt (of living on mithai for the last 2 weeks) by heading out for a walk. But as soon as I’d decided on resuming my evening ritual, I was faced with the problem of where to go. The beach was too wet and littered with plastic from the sea, the roads near home too full of open manholes, crazy traffic and crateresque (yes, it’s a word) potholes. Not to speak of the million and one construction sites that have left a permanent haze of concrete dust in the air. That left a joggers park with a round walking track of some 200 metres as my only option.

So the grandmom (forcibly taken for some exercise) and I get to the park and I realise that (a) all of the senior citizen population of the area were there and (b) most of the under 40 were there too. Walking the track was like walking on Churchgate station at 5.30 pm, dodging people right left and centre in an attempt to get ahead. Of course, most of the elderly were sitting on chairs provided in the park, content to take in some greenery and fresh air and gossip for an hour or two with friends. Some of them were brave enough to venture out for a walk, making their way around the track slowly and steadily. Then there were those who were obviously there on medical advice. There was also the category of walkers who seemed to have lost their way, standing out in their jeans and fancy kurtis. Which left the serious walkers, children and maids with babies in prams.

And this is when I felt sorry for people living in Bombay. And myself. I missed the luxury of stepping out of my house and having all the space in the world to go for a walk. I missed the fresh air, the absence of traffic, the long winding lanes I could go down without worrying about potholes and open drains. I felt sorry for the people in the park then, who had to search for a patch of green and some place to walk without worrying about getting hit by a speeding car. I felt bad for the children who couldn’t run around carefree and untroubled, restricted by the rules of the park and limited to a pair of swings. And I felt some relief that I wasn’t living in Bombay anymore.

Because I can’t imagine being bound by concrete and traffic anymore.

Cut Off

For the second time this week, the phone lines went dead, and with that, the internet. And since my cellphone has no network inside my house, i was basically communicationless, cut off from the world for all practical purposes. 

Now, under normal circumstances, such happenings are most likely to bring out extremely violent reactions in me, with lots of tantrums and tears (of anger) and cussing at the universe. But i think i've been sleepsmoking or something. Because not one moment of crankiness happened when i realised the phone was dead on Saturday evening (after having spent 9 hours at the mall - something I'd rather not talk about till i can do so with good humour) and that there was no way to get it fixed till the weekend was done with. 

And i got so much done. I started and finished reading The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattanaik all in one day. I doodled after ages and got a lot of artwork for the walls done (just need to get them framed now). I even did a simple DIY project that i'd been thinking about for weeks done. And all i needed for it was an hour that i wasn't online. I'd hoped to get some baking also done but i'm only human right?

So yeah. As much as i hate to admit it, being offline was good for me. And my to-do list. 

Musings in the Dark

For the last hour or so, every 20 minutes, we're plunged into darkness. And silence. Except for the beeping of the UPS and the crickets outside the window. Lit up only by my computer screen and the iPad in the Fellow's hands, the house seems seamless. 

And then the Fellow asks, "What would you do if we were to live without electricity?" I told him we'd light loads of candles and read. Maybe bring out the board games. But he persisted. "Not for a few minutes or hours, but starting now, if you had to go without electricity then what?" 

I told him we would adapt. Like generations before us. Only this time, we'd be adapting to living without electricity as opposed to getting used to it. Adapting to changing times (and technology) is the only reason humans are still around. Otherwise there wouldn't even be a stone age man right? And i'm pretty certain that when electricity  was first brought into the house for things as innocuous as light bulbs, it wasn't received with open, welcoming arms. I'm pretty sure people clung on to their natural light sources as long as they could. 

If today, we're plunged into a world without electricity, I'm quite sure that a lot of us will  cling on to the last vestiges of the battery life on all of our gadgets with as much emotion as Nirupa Roy held her dying sons to her bosom. And then will begin the withdrawal symptoms. But eventually, and i'm guessing it won't take too long, we'll get used to it. We'll adapt. Our grandmoms didn't need a mixer grinder to make the most awesome food ever. We'll learn. We might even start talking to each other over dinner. And trusting the other when a time and place are decided to meet up at, instead of making 15 phone calls in 7 minutes asking where the other person is. 

And then there is all the quiet we'll have. Do you know how much noise all our electrical gadgets make? You realise this only when you have a power cut and you can suddenly hear nature in all it's glory. Yes, even in a city like Bombay. 

But this is all hypothetical. And thought of only because the Fellow was thinking aloud. What do you think? Would you be able to live in a world without electricity?

Not To Jinx It, But...

...life is good right now. And i'm quite surprised by how content i'm feeling. Maybe it's something to do with putting up lamps all over the house and revelling in the soft light every evening that lends itself to a calm and happy state of mind. Or it's the fact that i've been spending quite some time in the kitchen revisiting my love for cooking and feeding people (while knowing that it's not a daily affair). It could also be the fact that regardless of everything i've been through in the past, I seem to have landed on my feet (in your face everyone who thought otherwise. Ha!) and haven't made the biggest mistake of at least a couple of lives. Of course, it might simply be the new medication i'm on. 

Whatever the reasons, i'm not complaining.

Someone Give Me a Time Machine

This is an extremely random post. Read only if you have nothing, and i mean absolutely nothing better to do. You have been warned. 

I was in class nine when i first read one of Georgette Heyer's books. And fell in love. 

Today, nearly 15 years later, i'm still in love. 

If there is one thing i really really really want to do, it is to experience first-hand, the regency period in England. Yes, I know that that time period in England was full of sickness and rampant poverty and the peasant class was exploited by the nobility and was illiterate and the weather sucked (which it still does) blah blah. Which is why i'm being very specific about whom i want to go back in time as - the daughter of a super wealthy duke. What? I can be selfish here, since i'm choosing to go back in time  (volunteering really) and all, in an age without the internet and microwave. I need to have the money to be able to really enjoy everything society had to offer then right? What is the point of going back as a maid emptying chamber pots (yeah, no toilets)? Of course, i would be able to have more fun as a man but i don't think i possess the stomach to be in a man's head even for a jaunt across the time-space continuum.  

So yes, i'll be content with living in the Regency period as a woman with a large dowry (quite essential then), bound by a hundred and five rules and crazy tight corsets that might give me lung disease and make me want to run a campaign for women's lib, definitely unheard of in 19th century England.

Yes, i may be sounding crazy right now. And maybe i'm romanticizing things too much. But I think I'd like to sit at a heavy oakwood table and use a genuine quill (none of your ballpoints thank you very much) to pen a letter on heavy, beautiful creamy paper, making sure to write in a tiny hand because paper was an expensive commodity then. And i'd like to wake up each morning to a mug of chocolate because apparently that was all in vogue then. Imagine.  I'd like to dress in gowns made of silk and velvet and real lace. Gowns such that i need a maid to help me dress. And do my hair up in fancy dos (ok i can do that even now, but still). And have all kinds of hats and bonnets. And jewellery that would, today, be called antique and unaffordable. Of course, i'd have to be every bit the lady and not curse (and in that time, even *damn* was an inappropriate word, yes) or sit slouched or show my feet in public (very forward that was, and not at all the done thing for a noble lady). Oh, and i would have to know how to play the piano, speak and read french, italian, do calligraphy, know the use of watercolours and how to dance several dances (none of your random all over the place kind of dancing). I would have to take care not to get freckles and have a healthy rosy look about me, even if it meant rubbing crushed strawberries on my cheeks to make them look rosy! And as an innocent young lady, i would know nothing about the birds and the bees. Expected really, since if you kissed a man you expected him to marry you!

Oh, i would also have to get married before twenty (the only acceptable age to get married) and pop children for the rest of my life but i'm certain i'd decide to come back to the future before that, er, happy occasion occurred. I don't think i'd be able to go long pretending i was a lady, what with my brain threatening to explode at the no cursing rule and the having to have a chaperone all the time. And i'm more than certain i'll start missing pants very soon, not to talk of rajma chawal.

So until such time as a time machine is developed, i'll stay content with day dreaming and sound slightly cuckoo.

Scribbles

24th May 2012: Once more i find myself at that ugly place called writer's block. This time it's the size of and as ugly as a certain industrialist's south Bombay abode. And all i seem to be doing is sit next to it on a small wooden stool, the kind watchmen sit on, and stare up at the cold concrete tower, wallowing in self pity.

30th May 2012: Several hours after i wrote the above, I decided i couldn't sleep and so ventured out for a midnight stroll through the house. No. Not to the kitchen (though anyone who knows me would have to make that assumption), but to get the ebook reader from the living room. Now, for some reason that i forget now, i decided to conduct this *excursion* in pitch darkness, confident as i was in my ability to avoid walking into tables and walls. And i did. I got back to my room safely. Which was when i had a spectacular fall, tripping over the Fellow's suitcase (which, btw, was right in the middle of the doorway). Now you remember i had an expensive gadget in my hand? Yeah. To save that, i sacrificed the right side of my body, landing quite efficiently, on my right palm. Where was the Fellow in all of this you ask? Snuggled under his blanket, snoring lightly. Anyway. I dusted myself off, cursed the man who was oblivious to his wife's predicament and crawled into bed. 

I spent the next 5 days with my right wrist in a bandage. The doctor i visited was mighty amused and a little concerned about my mental state because the last time i went to her was because I'd walked into a rusted metal peacock and needed a tetanus shot. Which, at my age, apparently, is a little weird. I want to know who decides these things. 

2nd June 2012: All day was spent recuperating from a dinner party the day before. I'd spent all day on my feet, first cooking a meal for some 8 people and then playing host. Thankfully we'd I'd make a good decision about the guest list and so not too much effort was spent entertaining them. Alcohol and embarrassing stories were enough. Of course, they also had their children to entertain/distract them as they went about systematically trying to break my new super cool coasters (and all because they had chickens drawn on them. But that's another story). Oh, and in other party related news, i'm now the italian food expert around here. Though credit goes entirely to the friend who very kindly gave me his red sauce  and lasagne recipe, which the Fellow has now requested i make at least once a week. Yes. I have my own Garfield.

5th June 2012: Here i am. Procrastinating. Hoping like hell i can get off that stool sometime soon.  

#856857

This is attempt number 856857 at writing a blog post. The number of drafts i have saved could make half a terrible book or a full not so bad one.

Anyway, this time i'm keeping it simple. No rambling or digressing *way* off the point. Okay, maybe a little rambling. Where's the fun otherwise right?

So, i'm having a little love affair with watermelons. Never, in all my life, have i shown so much fondness for this fruit like i am this season. Maybe it's because it really is hot. Or maybe it's because this year, i have a maid. It makes so much of a difference if all i have to do is reach into the fridge and pull out a bowl of chilled watermelon pieces, as opposed to attacking a whole watermelon with a giant-ass knife. Takes the whole summer fun out of don't you think?

There is also a little Pak Choy love in the air. Now I've always loved this chinese green. It was the Fellow i was a little sceptical about. But i guess it was all about finding the right recipe and the right time in which to introduce the taste. That done, i now have a convert on my hands. Yay! But it also means that we're the couple that picks up all the pak choy from the vegetable section in department stores and appears all gleeful about it. Oh well.

Bangalore was visited last week to spend some quality time with the brotherinlaw, his wife and their 4 month old lab, Hobbes. It was a nice little holiday where we had no plans, no list of things to do or see. We could just float around the house in our pyjamas all day, feeding the dog bits of carrot in exchange for tricks. Fun. Apart from the road trip to Pondicherry (which is my next post).

Pune is as hot as it comes. Which is a bit unfair given that north India is having some pleasant weather, totally unexpected for this time of the year. Needless to say, the cooler is my best friend. Yes. Cooler. Not AC. I'm a simple person like that. Also i hate being cooped up in one room all day. It's enough that i have to be alone at home all day. But that's enough of that.

A small medical scare happened last week. But at least i can explain my weight away now. Of course, with the medication, if i'm still fat, it's laziness. And no will power when faced with awesome food.

Saw the Avengers. Loved it. But now don't know whom to have naughty dreams about - Tony Stark or Bruce Banner or Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Raffalo. Seriously. Add to the mix Kunal Nayyar (from TBBT) and David Boreanaz (From Bones) and i'm behaving like a 16 yr old with braces who has absolutely no control on her hormones. Although, i have a theory. Since i didn't have any of these gushy, swooning, sighing feelings when i was actually a 16 yr old, i'm making up for it now.

We leave for Delhi in a couple of days. The Fellow has some work and i'm tagging along. It's been ages since i've been to the capital and now i even have an awesome friend there to hang out with. So looking forward to this next week, yes.

And now that the words are coming again, expect a lot of posts in quick succession. I have to make up for lost time right?