Blood, Tears and No Glory

Wedding, Stars, Lights and Christmas

Whenever I have loads to say, I never know how to begin. Then I procrastinate till Ive forgotten what I wanted to say.
So this time I decided to just make a bulleted list.
I just spent the last 5 days in Goa as a bridesmaid at my best friends wedding and to celebrate Christmas... So what did I do?

Pre- Wedding

1. Had the most delicious home cooked Goan food
2. Lived in the beautiful Goan house
3. Spent the 2 days before the wedding roaming around with the bride, groom and brides bro for last minute wedding stuff
4. Practiced falling over each others feet with the best man. This involved a lot of prodding and nudging and pressing and other filthy sounding words, since we could never get each others cues. This was supposed to look like Waltz.
5. Bride and Self got ourselves pampered at parlour.
6. Tried to comprehend and manage all the secret surprises each member of old and new family were planning for each other. I was the secret keeper.
7. Gave the much loved and already used wedding gift to bride and groom.
8. Did a lot of dirty talk with bride, groom and brides bro, pretending 8 and 10 year old ring bearer and flower girl did not understand a thing.
9. Did church rehearsal, where tried not to trip over illogically built step halfway through the aisle
10. Best man and I tried our waltzing during above church rehearsal (in the aisle) much to disapproval of other people in church. In my defence, it was his idea.
11. Bride and I and flower girl tried on our dresses and floated around the house , day prior to wedding. All this when groom was happily sleeping in next room.
12. Got tanned, burnt and sweaty in hot Goan Sun
13. Had the most delicious home cooked Goan food
14. Lived in the beautiful Goan house

Wedding

1. Dropped self's jaw when saw bride in wedding gown
2. Modestly decided did not look so bad myself
3. Declared wedding photographer was God after seeing photographs taken before setting off to church
4. Fell in love with above photographer and decided to have him for own wedding (as photographer that is) at the turn of next century
5. Practiced the first waltz with best man (this a repeated theme as you might notice)
6. Reached church and met up with guest milling outside.
7. Walked down aisle behind bride and her 7 mtr trail, without tripping on mentioned illogical step
8. Got through ceremony without any major embarrassment to self
9. Did not like the fact that " You may kiss the bride" not declared by priest.
10. Liked the fact that groom decided to do so anyways when next part ceremony had already started
11. Spent most of time doing something or the other to brides 7 mtr trail
12. Grinned giddily with happiness at bride when she turned around.
13. Left for reception place
14. Distributed confetti with other brides maid best man couple
15. Slowly and steadily got increasingly nervous about toast and first waltz.
16. Entered with bride and groom ( wife and husband??) and did walk-around and got confetti all over hair and dress
17. Sat at bridal table, attended cake cutting
18. Said toast along with best man which self thought went off very well (complemented a lot on toast later by absolute strangers ... so verified i think)
19. Drank only little champagne so as not to get woozy before the big first waltz
20. First waltz - Best man and self made fool of ourselves. But think (self-delusion) only brides bro and other people who saw us practice, actually noticed gaffes
21. Then danced the night away with other best man (nubile youth of 20). Shamelessly flirted with 20 year old and felt like cradle snatcher. Helped that above nubile youth danced like dream.
22. Learnt and executed with characteristic brilliance (!) the waltz, the 2-step, the cha-cha-cha, jive.
23. Did shameless booty shaking dance along with bride and other girls from bride-side.
24. Other brides-maid and self did loads of dress shaking and swirling around (said dress was wine-red spaghetti strapped salsa type dress)
25. Lost sensation in feet but continued dancing. Could not stand on own two feet by end of evening. Note: Not effects of alcohol since drank next to nothing.
26. Encouraged bride and goom during kissing game
27. Tied up bride and groom with ribbons. Considered leaving them like that.
28. At end of reception full bridal party went to booked hotel room to say bbye to bride and groom.
29. Everybody took off shoes and coats to get comfortable must to dismay of bride and groom.
30. Politely escorted out of room by not-so-subtle hints by bride

Post - Wedding

1. Had the most delicious home cooked Goan food
2. Lived in the beautiful Goan house
3. Spent the whole afternoon at beachside restaurant Brittos with friend.
4. Attended Christmas mass with bride, groom and brides bro and mom
5. Spent entire mass trying to stop the siblings from pulling up my dress...embarassing me in public in a fine art of entertainment for them
6. Then grooms family and brides family and me..went for post mass celebrations (read eating) to the bride and grooms hotel ( we really love to visit them there). And ate a concoction of Christmas Pudding with brandy (from Harrods) mixed with butterscoth ice cream mixed with chocolate ice cream with wine poured on it .... eating in tea cups and saucers and wine glasses and ice cream tub covers.
7. Left them at around 3:30 am and came home and crashed
8. Spent a day mulling around said beautiful Goan house.
9. Left Goa.

All the stuff I want to say, I want to express, I can't do in words.

It was an over whelming experience. Thank you to all who made it so.

Free Verse

Untied

I look at you
And wonder

Are you alone
Are you with

And I wonder
What you feel like

I imagine shoe laces
Untied

I see that rough stubble
Under your lower lip

Fingers intertwined
Skin pressed

I feel your words
Entering my soul

And I talk, and listen
And smile at you.
___________________________

Curled Fists

Little hands
And feet

Wrapped Shoulders
And a trembling neck

Your look of complete trust
My spasm of uncontrollable fear

My crazy dreams for
years in another decade

Your insistence on
here and now

The gurgle, the burps,
The toothless smile

My need to use cliches
To explain the unmeasurable
___________________________

Urgent Neat

You enter and set the bag firmly on the floor
Parallel to the edge of the cupboard
You adjust the bag till its entire side
Is on the tile edge

You slowly remove your jacket
And carefully place it on the back of the chair
You smooth out all the wrinkles
Carefully not to leave any behind

I watch as you remove
All your clothes one at a time
Folding each into perfect quadrangles
Piling it on the extra chair in the bedroom

And then you stand back
In your naked splendour
Surveying your handiwork
Reviewing the geometric patterns

I know while leaving how
You'll put them on with the same care
Not leaving a trace of the afternoon
No wrinkles, no hair out of place

The only lines I see are the ones on your body
The only thing I want to do with your clothes
Is tear them off you, dishevel your hair
The urgent need I have has nothing to do with neatness
Whoever said the mistress has the exciting life?

The Man Under the Shirt

I was just turning around the corner in my rush to get to the ladies room. He had just come out the "boys room" and came around the corner at the exact moment. With me just about to go to the restroom and him just out of it, standing in front of the bathrooms, wasn't exactly the most romantic of first meetings. But then you couldn't really call it a meeting. A hastily mumbled sorry, a quick almost non-look in each others direction and we were on our way. His face didn't even register then. The only reason I know it was him, was because of the horrendous, fright of colors shirt he was wearing. My first thought was that people seemed to be taking this casual Friday dress code a little too far. My second was that he must be seeing someone, for no matter how brave a man is, he wouldn't wear a shirt like that unless it was a gift worn coz of a very compelling need. These thoughts passed through my mind in a couple of seconds and I forgot about him. The only thing that stuck somewhere in my subconscious was that shirt.

The second time we met, he was in the same shirt again. I mean it couldn't have been someone else wearing a similar shirt could it? At which point I should have walked away. A man who thinks that that was a shirt to be worn repeatedly was not to be pursued, I mean business networked with. But would I listen to my rare sensible thoughts? No. So I stuck around, as he waited for his mug to fill up at the coffee machine. He seemed to staring fixedly at the oddly dark brown, semi translucent liquid that seemed to be dropping into his mug. As the stream stopped, he picked up his mug and as he walked away he peered inside and only then did he realized that there was no milk in his coffee. He turned around and looked straight at me. "I guess, the machine's run out of milk powder", I offered in the away of a lame excuse (worst first line ever?). He smiled a very rueful smile, walked back, holding my glance (drooling stare?) and proceeded to empty the contents of his mug into the basin.

Then followed the usual, which business unit/ practice/ project do you work with, questions that must be followed according to "The 7 Rules of Highly Effective first time coffee machine conversations". Once the said questions from the script were gone through, we made some inane remarks about the absent coffee and after an uncomfortable 0.6 min which I spent wondering how someone this good looking, I mean with such in depth knowledge of the business, can wear such a shirt (I really need to get another line of thought! …ummmm…no! no! no! this is office! Let's just think about the shirt. ), we went back to our respective seats.

So then of course we'd run into each other often. I mean on a floor seating 100 odd, you are bound to, aren't you? So we finally reached the stage in our relationship (sporadic 15 second "accidental" encounters), when we could start asking certain questions to each other. So with shivering temerity, I popped the question. "So, what's with the shirt?" Really Nandita, a man's salary, his golf handicap and his choice of shirts are his own business. Or are they?? He had the gall to reply, "What shirt?". As if there were loads of shirts he owned, that needed to discussed. I shudder to think of the world if that were true. "The shirt you where every Friday!", trying to keep the emphasis out of "every". And I realized a little too late that me noticing what he wears every Friday, became very obvious.

However, apparently men do not get these subtle hints, and he proceeded to tell me, the story of the shirt. To cut a long story short…

This was the shirt he had worn, when he had his one and only kiss.

I know I should have walked away, when I saw that shirt.

Disclaimer: For any women from my workplace, reading this, this is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any man, alive or dead. There are no such good looking men in our workplace, with or without shirts, I mean with or without bad shirts.

Note to Self: The situation is in serious need of correction if your fiction is also full of losers.

When I speak of writing...

“When I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward.”
Orhan Pamuk in " My Father's Suitcase"

Real Life

Found this here:

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

'I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm this afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister.

All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.

It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived'.

Bole Chudiya...

I have been in a very chudiya mood since last week.

Have mixing and matching my chudiyas..to office.


Its not unknown in office. But it is unknown for me to do so. So ofcourse it has sparked all kinds of comments and teasing from my team.


But all said and done, I absolutely love chudiya. Maroon, Pink, Blue, Red, with sparkles, glitter, chamki, metal and oxidize.

Not only do they look fabulous, they make my fat wrist look slender.

And they jingle-jangle (this i reserve for my bus rides when I listening to my latest songs of the week.

Ofcourse they do look more fabulous with my recently highlighted and trimmed hair.

The Week that was

Have had a fantastic one week. Just had to bore everybody with it.

Diwali 2007
I think I will remember this years Diwali as the most fun Diwali ever.

Last year's Diwali was very low key since my grandmas were in the hospital all through Diwali and one of them passed away on Padwa day.
But this year even the shadow of last year's Diwali brought only happy memories.

I spent a whole 4 days in Mumbai this time for Diwali.

Thursday:
My late grandma's sister had called all the entire family for Diwali brunch to their place. Did loads of maja masti there. Had some fantastic home made Diwali pharal there. Good ol' aaji-made karanjis.

After this my parents and I went to my sister's place. Here I spent all the time I was there singing dance songs to my neice. She would be the only person on the planet who actually requests me to sing. So afternoon was spent me singing and she dancing (She is all of 1 year and 9 months today)

Must mention here the attempt at Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses. My mom, my sis, the baby girl, sis's sister-in law and me were teaching the baby girl the game. At the end of the sing we "all fell down" except the little baby ofcourse. And she looks at as if we were insane, wondering why in the world did we all suddenly sit down on the floor.

Anyways, after this, went home, lazed slept etc etc. Then in the evening I went back to a friend's (Mlch's) place in Bandra to do final fitting for my bridesmaid dresses. Did I mention I am going be bridesmaid for my friend at her wedding at a church in Goa. In December. Does it get more perfect?

At night my folks and I did a movie watching night at home with Chak De.

Friday:

Morning - Read all the newspapers, weekly magazines, Lazed

Afternoon - Lazed, Slept

Evening - Went to a school friends place. Did loads of bakar with her parents and her. Enthralled them with my Marathi poetry. Now this is enthralling not so much bcoz of the poetry but more because it was from the girl who couldn't frame a full sentence in Marathi in her anglicized accent all through her Convent school years.

Saturday:
Was shraadha for grandmom. Even though this was not a happy occassion, most of the morning and afternoon were spent remembering what aaji would have said. And general ribbing and pulling each other's legs.
My S kaka even broke some aawlas off the tree outside the window. And I soaked it in Salt water aaji-style. S Kaka and I spent the whole morning eating aawlaas.

Then Saturday night, some 9-10 of us got together to play teen patti (3 card gambling). I got terrible cards all night long. And I still betted high just to force everybody to raise their stakes.
P Kaka spent all the games trying to cheat. Not quite successfully. He's quite unsubtle and terrible at it. He even tried hiding cards between his toes. :-D

We went out and got this wonderful icecream-kulfi-falooda-rabdi mix that you get at this very small shop nearby at around 11pm. No branded ice cream that ever beat this concoction.

We were up till 1 or so playing cards. And me constantly losing money (on paper that is).

Sunday:
Then in the morning, we all went to have breakfast at this wonderful uduppi.

Ofcourse the whole weekend was spent coming up with jokes about the "marriage-ious" year ahead. My cousins are, 1 a year and a half older to me and one a year and a half younger...so marriage jokes are everybody fav topic of conversation.

Spent Sunday with one of my closest friends (AG) We did lunch and a movie and general roaming around and window shopping in Bandra. Had a great time.

Then it was back to Pune.

Pune - 15th Nov
The rest of the part of the week that was great was that I went shopping with a friend (HYMS) yesterday. Saw lots of uselessly vulgarly exorbitant stuff (lingerie included, he was thrilled that they forced lingerie brochures on me) and thankfully didn't buy any. Both of us did a lot of wondering about who buys this expensive lingerie (it was seriouslly crazy) and wondered what exactly they use it for that makes it worth it. Didn't find the one thing I was out looking for. But had loads of fun anyways.

16th Nov
And finally yesterday. Folks stopped in at Pune on their way back from GanpatiPule to Mumbai. Showed them the new house, still in disarray. Mom, obviouslly had a few(!) things to say about the things that still needed to put away.

Also, visited my fav book shop and found the perfect book for T. Its:
"The Jail Notebook and Other Writings
Bhagat Singh
Edited by Chaman Lal
Jail Notebook annotated by Bhupender Hooja"

Am very pleased at the find

And went for a movie last evening with a very dear friend/ old colleague (ABC) of mine. Great movie. Then went to look for dinner at 11 pm. After a long time went into the proper city of Pune. After a failed attempt at his favourite eating place (which was already closed), we went to the restaurant owned by the Mangeshkar family (Lata, Hridaynath et al)

Winter has set in Pune and the night was pleasently chilly making the skin go just slightly numb.
Good weather, good company - a great evening.

All in all, good times spent with family and friends. Lots of ribbing, laughs and some fabulous memories to tuck away.

The Nod

Now, the nod is very wonderful gesture. It can be used to pretend you are understanding, or to show that you agree, or the most complex - to acknowledge someone on the road.

Now this acknowledgement nod is tricky business. It normally is just a quick bob of the head with it ending, and this is very important, back where it started.
The quick bob with no smile is normally reserved for acquaintances who you really don't want to stop and speak to, or worse, who's name you don't remember. This mostly says "I see you. I don't want to stop and talk now. I have acknowledged you. Now lets move on"

The other nod is more of a long upward movement of the head and a then a very small downward movement. It is essential in this move that your head remained slightly raised till you pass out of sight. This nod, commonly used in metros, is normally accompanied by a slight upward twist of the lips on one side (colloquially called a grin).

This is used to acknowledge peers/ friends who are at some distance from you. This is an alternative to screaming out obscenities over that distance, that you normally use at nicknames for that friend.

This nod is in recent times is used in accompaniment with a cell phone. Thus you don't stop talking on the phone but just do the upward nod while talking as if to say " I have a life. I cannot spend it stopping, to talk to you."

A modification to the above nod, is the eyebrow nod. This is only a very slight shift in the angle of your double chin, but who's whole identity rests on the eyebrows. The idea is to raise one eyebrow as a gesture of acknowledgement.
This has a mischievous connotation to it and is normally used in situations where you don't want to disturb the acquaintance.

Now the most delicate of Nods is the good-bye nod. This is used in situations where you make the fatal mistake of stopping to talk to an acquaintance on the road.
Once the regulatory 1.25 mins are done and you have done the how are you, how is boyfriend/ girlfriend, husband, wife, parents, dog, imaginary pet; the "hows work going", you start hinting that you are on your way to some place.

Now most road acquaintances choose to ignore these signals and instead proceed to a long (and supposedly interesting) story of the colour of the sore on the neighbour's cats leg.

Now it's very essential to recognize a logical break in the story (this is what makes a true artiste) and use this pause for breath to remind them that " I have to go. I'm really late." and of course throw the "let's catch up sometime soon" line... and now comes the clincher. You must do the good-bye nod.

This is a quick sharp military style downward nod that stops with a sharp jerk. This says " I have to go now! NOW! NOW! NOW!"

Now some people not schooled in the art of nodding, do not recognize this need of yours to move. And will continue to inunciate the finer points of checking fungus on a sore.
Now this is when the vigourous nodding of the head starts and you start walking backwards.
It is also considered a matter of finesse if you take a first step to turn around during the backward walking trick.

This says " I have left."

Daylight Savings Time

Its 31st December.

One man forgot to turn his clocks back. He knows it actually 11 pm.

But everybody else has turned their clocks back and is pretending its 12 midnight and so starts celebrating. An hour early.

Can someone please explain this to me? Why the need to turn back the clocks?