LOL-ly

It's been three years now that a lolly tray has been an integral part of my Christmas decor.

My definition of "festivities" is "fun", "nostalgia", "good company" and of course
"indulgence". A lolly tray is one of the very few things that ticks all the boxes (can you think of any better company?)

So here's what I did this year:


You are supposed to ring the bell (notice the little thing hanging on the black handle?) each time you take a treat. That spreads the cheer
and is a signal for me to refill the tray. The bell, by the way, is my anklet...terribly re-purposed :)


Linking to Patty's Weekend Wrap Up Party!

The Philosophy of Friendship

Sounds like a crude metaphor, but friendship is like an investment. If you can invest your time, emotions, efforts and thoughts, you will reap a lifetime of support, companionship and fun.

For those who don’t know me, let me tell you, that I have been a GIANT of an investor in this sector. Friends have often meant more to me than family.

Millions of people have zillions of theories on friendships. In the years and years I have inhabited the Earth (yes, I have started using anti-wrinkle creams and hair colouring will soon be a need, not a want), I have seen my own philosophy of friendship changing quite drastically. It started off as pretty simple. A friend is someone I can have a good time with.

I met people who can keep me entertained through a tsunami of troubles. They are gems in their own right...and it is such a delight just to be with them. Funnily enough, I can laugh with them but can never trust them with my innermost thoughts/beliefs. Whether it is the comfort level, the fear of being judged /misunderstood, or the sheer lack of “attachment” in the relationship....I do not know.
Obviously, I realised that there was something missing...and it was time to modify my philosophy to: A friend is someone I can have a good time with...and someone I can open my heart to.

I have people who I can be completely honest with. No problems opening my heart (and untying a few of my arteries even) in front of them. But I wouldn’t really call them my friends. Some are aunts or cousins or family members who have assumed the roles of mentors or well-wishers. Many would argue that these people are “friends”...just like a “mother” or a “sister” can be a person’s best friend. But my definition of a friend also pre-supposes the fact that I “chose” the person to be my friend, from a thousand other options. Family is not a matter of choice really....
So I added another frill: A friend is someone I can have a good time with... someone I can open my heart to...and someone I chose among the rest.

Every person, I believe, has a pattern in their friendships. Call it my unfulfilled desires to be a philosopher or a French filmmaker, but I do believe that every person goes through a friendship lifecycle/pattern, which is typical of that person. We may not be aware of the pattern...but if we give it a thought, it isn’t hard to identify.
Mine is something like this:
Meet a person> Like or dislike immediately> If dislike, keep a mental distance/a degree of detachment from the very start>If like, invest all I have got...and open my heart (and arteries) to them, almost on the way back home from the first meeting. And THAT is the root of all troubles. Because, with time, I realise that the person is far from what my initial instincts were. More often than not, the Red Riding Hood turns out to be the Wolf himself...and I wallow in self-pity and self-criticism at being so naive.

After some bitter experiences, I decided to polish my theory yet again. A true friend is someone I can have a good time with... someone I can open my heart to...someone I chose among the rest...and someone who stands the test of time.

I thought this was a pretty robust theory that I could carry to my retirement home. But no. After a few years away from family and childhood friends, living amidst peer pressure, jealousy, competition and general nastiness, a funny thought descended. A friend is someone who you can share your joy with, almost to the point of being shameless. Need an example? OK, you buy a shiny new car...or get a promotion, you should be able to run to the friend and “show off” almost in a child-like way. No maliciousness in that “showing off”, mind you. Just the sheer joy and excitement that bubbles up from your stomach and lands straight on to a friend’s hug. If you have to hold back, or think about the consequences or rehearse your actions/words when sharing good news, you are not really dealing with a friend. At the cost of sounding strange, let me make a confession. I have no inhibition sharing my sorrows/troubles with people. Most people will be secretly happy at other people’s sorrow...which is why I don’t mind spreading some joy by sharing my grief. But when it comes to joy, I am cautious (quite opposite to the norm I think).Because I believe that only a true friend can be genuinely happy for your happiness.

So, here I am, with what looks like an epic of a statement:
A true friend is someone I can have a good time with... someone I can open my heart to... someone I chose among the rest...someone who stands the test of time...and someone I can share my joys with.

P.S. If I revise this yet again, will keep you in the loop. Or maybe not. Where’s the fun in living life by the book, even if the book was your own writing? So girls and boys, go give your friends a hug...or call them to say how much you miss them...or invite them over for a cuppa and some gossip...or send them a handmade card...or visit them with a flower from your garden....or pack your bags and get away for the weekend...or simply go through your photo album and remember them fondly. Whatever you do, don’t forget to tell me about it (or tell me if you have some philosophy yourself). I’ll come back with my cuppa to read every word you write...

Blessed or Deprived?

A sparking stainless steel tea kettle now stands on my gas top. I find myself aimlessly walking into the kitchen numerous times during the day, just to take a peek at it. Kitchen was never the favourite part of the house for me. But seems like that’s going to change...as long as the kettle looks shiny and new. It’s the highlight of the last weekend shopping, when I bought loads of feel-good stuff ranging from incense sticks to tea lights. The kettle, however, is not just a feel-good item. It’s a saviour for me, really. No more making a mess when I pour tea into cups from a saucepan. Tea in a saucepan!! I hear you exclaim. Yes, I had an electric kettle that boiled water for practically all my kitchen needs ...from instant noodles to tea-bag tea. But occasionally, on Saturday evenings, when there was no plans to step out of the house, I’d make that much-loved masala-malai tea... and the two of us would huddle under a blanket, lie together on a sofa and watch a movie. That’s when I used a saucepan to simmer my tea leaves and let the milk boil and froth for ages, to create that thick malai layer on top. And that’s when I poured the tea all over the bench top and spent hours cleaning it afterwards.

But the kettle is going to change all that. I can now have a taste of India, without all the mess of an Indian kitchen. And it whistles too, when the water reaches boil! What more can I want? OK, I do understand I am over-doing the excitement...but that’s because I did feel a child-like excitement at a new toy.

I dragged A from the study to show him how cutely it whistled...a low, meek, whistle that seemed to say “yes-the-water-is-boiling-but-there-is-nothing-to-panic”. He looked at it for a second and with the nonchalant face of a sleepy sea-lion, he said “Don’t tell me you have never used a whistling kettle before? My mother probably got one as her wedding gift and has been using it ever since.”

Now, I am not the kind of person who turns into a live wire at the slightest comparison with the mother-in-law. I get along pretty well with her, touchwood. But his statement made me wonder...

My mum never had a whistling kettle in her kitchen, so I hadn’t grown up seeing one. True, it was not the first time I had seen one...but it was the first time I owned one. And hence all the excitement. For A, it was like looking at a telephone. Something we had all seen, used, over-used... and taken for granted. As life goes on, we will grow older...acquire more things, see new places, be able to afford much more than what our parents could back in their times (partly because they were in India and partly because technology hadn’t advanced that much anyway). Does that mean we will forget what it is to be excited? The real, pure, innocent, unadulterated, child-like excitement! The kind of excitement that needs an exclamation mark at the end of it, just for emphasis!

Will our children ever say “Wow, I love my new pencil box!” Or will they just say “thank you” and head back to their rooms nonchalantly with their booty? Will they ever spend sleepless nights, waiting anxiously to go to school the next day to show off their new pencil box? Will they ever nag us to let them sleep in the garage on their shiny new bicycles? Or keep the new CD player beside their pillows? Or wipe their new school boots with the edge of their school uniforms on the way to school?

Is excitement a fast-fading, soon-to-become-extinct emotion? Is “taking-for-granted” the new epidemic that will change “living” as we knew it? Are we “blessed” to have everything we ever want? Or “deprived” because we can’t feel the purest of feelings anymore?

Of Cats and Real Estate...

Disclaimer: Cat lovers may find this piece un-cool.

I am not a cat-lover. That doesn’t mean I throw stones at cats that I spot on the road....or intend to hurt them in any way. It simply means, I don’t LOVE them. In fact, if they were on facebook, I don’t think I would have clicked the “Like” button either.

Those who know me well would say that I am terrified of cats. I wouldn’t contradict that. It’s no big deal, you know. I recently discovered that there are so many like me that they actually coined a name for it i.e. ailurophobia.

Ailurophobia specialists would understand (if they exist) that I am not sure why I am scared of cats and since when I developed this fear. I have ALWAYS been scared of them, let’s put it that way. So much so...that with my first salary, I actually hired people who covered the windows of our house in Kolkata with a net like material, to prevent the intruders to creepily walk into our ground-floor flat and give me a heart attack. Which was the main reason why I always wanted to stay in an apartment, preferably on the 15th floor (because cats wouldn’t really know how to use an elevator...and it’s possible that they take the stairs up to the 10th floor. But it would take a super cat to climb more than 10 floors).

But alas, we bought a cottage style house. And bought it from a person who had a pet cat. And this person sold the house to us and started renting the house next door, because he is building a palace elsewhere and would rent till that palace is completed. So the cat owner is now our left-hand neighbour. And the house on the right-hand also has cats. And we have a cat magnet in our backyard...a fish pond!

Now, let me make things clear. I love my house. But I doubt if I would have bought it if I knew I was entering a catty neighbourhood. Now, how would you make a cat understand mortgages and real estate and ownership? The previous owner, who is now our neighbour, probably didn’t even try. So his cat still thinks that our house still belongs to him. I spot him on the kitchen window sill, wagging its grey tail and demanding a hug. Sometimes it sits on the fence, grinning at me. Watching my koi fish seems to be its favourite pastime. Oh, and did I tell you that it chases butterflies in my lawn? How picturesque, I hear you say. How tummy-rumblingly scary, I would say.

Sometimes I feel like photocopying the “Land Title” and “House Ownership” documents, highlighting our names on it, magnifying the Council’s rubber stamp...and keeping it on the fence for the cat to read. But I spent two days teaching the letter A to my 2 yr old niece. I would have to spend a lifetime with the cat to make it read the legalese. And if cats really have nine lives, I may have to spend nine lives with it (because this cat doesn’t look exceptionally bright to me).

As if this wasn’t scary enough, this cat seems to be quite the chocolate-faced heartthrob (it’s brown, in case you wanted to know). For I have often seen it loitering around aimlessly with the other cats of the neighbourhood (yes, there are many more). I concluded it was a male when I saw it chasing two other cats down a lonely alley (what’s eve-teasing called in the cat world?).

I think its owners have been pretty liberal with its upbringing and apparently told him that it was OK to get his dates home. And because he thinks our home is HIS home, one night I saw it hosting a pool party in my backyard, with what looked like, a million other cats. Needless to say, I did not sleep that night out of fear...and I mean the hand-shivering, teeth-clattering, nail-turning-blue kind of fear.

Today, however, would go up in my biography (everyone has their biographies written these days...and I haven’t totally given up on the idea of becoming famous), as a black-letter day. I saw the cat squatting on the lawn and staring at me sternly. From behind closed doors, I said “shoo-shoo” (just before I passed out). And instead of “shooing away”, it shat in my lawn and then also puked a slimy green substance. And at this point, I must have passed out.

Now, I am serious when I say that I feel exploited wronged, betrayed and horrified. I can’t walk into my own backyard without sending someone to inspect the premises before I step out. Can I sue cats? Or sue my neighbour for not keeping his cat under control? Can I be that person who brings about revolution in the legal scene and has new acts created because of them and named after them? Is there a chance that a Scribbler’s Act will be created some day, making it mandatory for cat owners to tie their cats up or restrict them in their house, unless they want to be fined heavily for breach of privacy, disruption of peace, destruction of mental sanity and loss of sleep? Tell me, you legal minds out there....is there any merit in my case?

My Diwali Decor for 2010

Diwali is about light and love and laughter. And am so happy that we were blessed with all of it, this year.

Over the years, we will grow as a family...meet new people...create new bonds...paint new dreams...and most importantly, grow as individuals. But this Diwali will always be special... because it was the first one we celebrated at our own "home".

So it was all about my home this year.

I started with the window sill...

And then I thought that the blue vase might feel lonely. So I brought in the green vase (actually a beer bottle). And because I did not have flowers to showcase, I picked some weeds/grass flowers from my unkempt backyard (the joys of being a lazy gardener)...

I brought the new cushion covers out...the ones picked from the Bali handicrafts market.

What a riot of colours they are:

And then waited patiently for the sun to set, when I could light my candles.

Some floating candles on a glass bowl that reflects the light from all sides...

And how could I forget the outdoors?

My puja place and a happy Ganesha...


The yellow handcarved showpiece is a gift from a friend after his trip to Rajasthan.

And the corner that everyone loved...

My favorite light feature. Bali again :)


Oh! And did I tell you I made my first Rangoli this year?

This is not the Sydney Opera House, by the way. Was meant to be a lotus. Be nice...don't laugh.

Do you like my little plants?

And though he looks scary, he is a gentle giant...trust me. All set to welcome you at the door.

The relaxing Budhdha...one of the favorite housewarming gifts we got...

And since when was home decor complete without lights from Ikea?

This lantern can just create magic with its colours....

And finally...the Bali inspired corner that we absolutely love! Where drinks and sheesha will be in abundance....and the whiff of ghazals never quite die.

All things Bali and Beautiful...

Bali is paradise for sure. But what I am not so sure about is what kind of paradise it really is:

A shopper's?
A surfer's?
A foodie's?
A beer-lover's?
A silver-craver's?
A home decor maniac's?
A massage-o-holic's?
I don't have the answer yet. But maybe I will...after a few visits (for surely one is not enough).

But I know what it did to me. It turned me to a bundle of senses.
The five senses that human beings have, I mean. For the grilled lobster tickled my taste buds like nothing else did...the fragrances from the massage oils look me to another land....the massages themselves were a tactile treasure...the art and craft (stone carving, wood work, silver engravings) were a treat to the eyes...the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks seemed straight out of meditation music....

Sometimes, you want to express so much....that words fall short. So I leave you with some pictures...

When the past haunts...

And the present gives in...

Puja 2010

It’s that time of the year again when you curse the day you left home. “Was it really worth it?” Leaving friends and family behind....for bigger homes, better roads and a so called “work-life balance”. Where is the “life” without friends and family? Where is the life when you eat oats for breakfast and yearn for the luchi-aloo dum that’s being served in the puja mandap back home? Where is the life when you take the same route to work on Ashtami morning, remembering how you pandal-hopped in new shoes that gave you shoe-bites the size of craters?

All you can do is call up friends, who will be kind enough not to ask “So, what plans for puja?" The kinder ones will not talk at all...will just let you inhale the sound of dhaak and kasha in the background and imagine the whiff of the sandhya arati...that fascinating mix of flowers and dhoop and ghee and prayers.

Or perhaps you can download a dhaak beat as a ringtone. Each time the phone rings, your heart misses a beat. But it’s always the mower or the doctor’s receptionist or a credit card seller. It’s never the people you want to be with....because everyone back home is too busy with festivities. You can call your mother at the usual time...Saturday morning. But the phone rings away. She must be at the puja mandap, cutting fruits with the other kakimas and talking about her favourite article on the Puja Barshiki of Desh. And suddenly, you can see Baba....closely inspecting the caterers at work and instructing that the beguni better be crisp and warm when the afternoon bhog is served.

Confused, disoriented and totally out of place, you take resort in Facebook. Status messages range from “Bolo bolo Durga Ma ki...joy” to “Ya devi sarva bhooteshu”. You smile at the para youngsters chatting about their dance and natak rehearsals. Weren’t you one of them not so long back? Weren’t you awake all night before your performance, practising your lines in your mind and thinking of the make-up man and the costume-designer, who could turn you into Sita, or a tree or a soldier or a princess or a monkey with their magic wand? Weren’t you in the best of behaviour a month before puja, just so that Ma would let you wear her favourite saree for a dance drama?

Nostalgia makes you sick to the core. But the launch of the new website means that you need to be at work. Vivid before your eyes is the scene of the kakimas in red-bordered white sarees, betel-leaf in hand, smearing Ma Durga with vermilion. But all you can do is munch that cheese-and-lettuce sandwich and talk about the Commonwealth Games with your colleagues at lunch. And when voices saying “Asche bochor abar hobey” float into your ears from distant lands across the seas, you cannot hold back the tears anymore. Blaming it on hay fever, you excuse yourself from the lunch gathering. Because it's almost impossible to express how it feels to miss home during durga puja. You tried to explain to some... “It’s like our 5-day long Christmas”. But you knew that wasn't even close.

And so you go for a walk by the river, close to your office building. Where there are some flowers that will pass as kash phool...and some waves that remind you of the Ganges on the night of bishorjon.
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This or That

As my social life has blossomed and bloomed lately, I am spending more time pruning, watering, fertilising my priceless social-networking theories.

Warning – Please do not try these at home. There is a high risk of alienating people you like and attracting those you can’t stand. Practice under close supervision of self-proclaimed experts is recommended (and my diary looks pretty full at the moment...so, don’t practise at all).

OK, so here’s my first theory called This or That (my take on “there are two kinds of people in this world”). Basically, this involves categorising people as per a list I have created. It assumes that every person can be either this or that.

Click image to enlarge.


Am sure there are more kinds...I’ll just have to keep updating the list from time to time. If you are 1, 3, 11, 37, 39 or 41....good for you. If you are 5 or 8, you don’t know what you are missing. If you are 14 or 20, shame shame. If you are 25, stay away from me. If you are 34, are you retarded? (and that includes me).

If you think you are 2, 7, 12, 17, 21, 28, 29, 36 and 38... STOP COPYING ME!

But don’t forget to tell me whether you are this or that...and whether you can think of anything else to be added to the list.

In Pursuit of the Idiosyncratic

So here’s the deal. Idiosyncrasies make a person interesting, or so I’m told. Agreed.

I can’t deny that I love watching my colleague kissing his fountain pen (no puns) every time he starts writing...and refusing to sign anything, even group birthday cards for other colleagues, if he can’t find a fountain pen. The logic being, ball point pens are not pens at all. Fair enough.

But apart from him, I can’t pin down anybody else who has an idiosyncrasy of some sort. And the fountain pen syndrome is far from being a true blue idiosyncrasy.
What about a person who doesn’t shave because he believes that hair is an extension of God’s love? Or the lady who married her dog, adopted his name as her middle name, took him on a honeymoon to Switzerland and left everything to him in her will? Now, these characters may well be fictitious but aren’t movies infested with idiosyncratic people? What about Dr. Evil’s account of his father in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery?

He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

Or for that matter, the pinky-sucking Dr Evil himself, whose account of his own childhood is:

My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon ... luge lessons ... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets ... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Vilmer ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's breathtaking ... I suggest you try it.

Or closer home, Dr. S. Asthana, played by the brilliant Boman Irani in Munna Bhai MBBS, who laughs when he is really angry and insists on calling himself Dr. S. Dot. Asthana.

Or even more close to home, Gobeshok Gobochondro Gyanotirtho Gyanorotno Gyanambudhi Gyanochuramoni, played by Santosh Dutta in Hirak Rajar Deshey, whose name, gait, profession, appearance and very existence define “idiosyncratic”.

Where are the Dr Evils and S.Dot. Asthanas and Gobeshoks of the real world?

Not sure about you, but I am so typical that I often fear that I may bore myself to death. I was better off when I was small. As a baby, I liked twisting one end of my mother's saree to make a pointed tip, and rolling it on my face. That’s how I went to sleep every day. I did not need my mother to sit beside me and sing me lullabies or read me stories, as most other children did. I just needed that ONE particular saree. This continued to an age when it was no longer cute or funny. One day, my mother hid the saree and told me that she had thrown it away. My child psyche couldn’t handle the shock and I developed a peculiar reaction. I started fluttering my eyelids constantly...all day...for many days. Concerned, my teachers in school reported it to my parents, who took me to a doctor. On careful investigation it was found that it linked back to the shock of being forcibly detached from that saree. Helpless, my mother returned it to me and the fluttering stopped magically. Eventually I outgrew that habit, thank god.

As an adolescent, I insisted that my two ponytails aligned perfectly and were of equal shape, size, height etc. So much so, that I had a ruler beside the mirror and when Ma was done with my hair, I would measure the alignment. At the cost of missing my school bus, I made her open and re-tie my hair in that perfect straight line that I wanted.

I was such a fine idiosyncratic baby and adolescent; so what suddenly happened when I reached adulthood? True, I like my toast burnt and my nails clipped so short that you would think I have some sort of a disease. But nothing close to a peculiarity that “only the genius possess”.

That makes me sad. Real sad, believe you me.
So KG, Manikarn, Debanjana, Madmax tell me about your idiosyncrasies (or the lack of it). Surely you are doing better than me in that field.