Birds and bees

Once upon a time, very, very long ago, I wondered whether puke caused pregnancy. After all, every time in a movie, anytime the heroine (or of course, the hero's sister) ran to the bathroom basin, inevitably she ended up pregnant. Kids came to life always without any sex scenes, sometimes even without a marriage, but always, always with a throw-up scene to back their existence.

Real life, of course, is not Bollywood. Puking may cause people with deprived childhoods to envy your party life, but they are unlikely to consider your belly anything other than a memorial to beer.

No, what does raise knowing eyebrows is teetotaling.

If you had the good taste to once be a drinker, and then the good sense to detoxify, you know what I mean.

"I am off drinks," say I, and immediately there is hmmm in the background. Eyebrows rise, people go on the verge of uttering congratulations, and there is a general shift in gaze away from my face to two feet below. "Really? Why?"glib questioners ask while staring at the bump in my belly (which, to be fair, is the reason I am off alcohol, though not exactly in the way they imagine).

I suppose this inquisition is my cue to blush and stutter and admit that I'm entering the hallowed realms of motherhood. That would be so satisfactory to the thousands who have lectured me - many within 5 minutes of meeting me for the first time - on my biological clock and its ticking and well, the hallowed realms of motherhood.

Whatever happened to short talk about the weather? Can't we just stick to discussing the pollution and American Idol?

update:
Certain people (interestingly, only men), have been taking this post to mean that I am on the verge of delivering a Mini-Me. So to clarify - NO. This post is actually my [possibly incoherent] raving against people who assume that my non-drinking is a sign of inevitable fertility.

Drive me crazy

Apparently, it is time for me to learn driving. My husband has decided I must be empowered, which sweet though it may be, it is certainly not welcome.

I still remember my last brush with driving alongside my father whose idea of education was to shake me awake at six, jam me into the driver's seat, lurch around as I experimented with clutches, and hide his tears as I scratched against trees lining an empty road to save myself from a truck a kilometer away on the horizon. It was exhilarating bravado in the face of peril, it was amazing father-daughter bonding, it was even proof that I was my mother's daughter, but driving it was not.

After an entire summer vacation of trials and errors, we all heaved a sigh of relief when I professed to be a hippy in favour of resource saving and public transport, and gave up the wheel on moral grounds. It is one of those few decisions I do not regret.

[Eventually, my sister broke away from our maternal genetic spell and volunteered to learn driving, following it up with a license and agile dodging across Delhi's roads and potholes. Today, she cruises across the USA and will be happy to break your mythical beliefs about women drivers, or failing that, your nose.]

I have never understood why people love driving. Sure, there's the spiel about independence. And then there's the whole breed of car lovers who feel a stirring when they see a Maserati, smile at the roar of the engine, get a power surge when they touch the wheel and probably engage in unspeakable acts with the shift stick.

But honestly, how can staring down unending black roads and searching for road signs have more to offer than staring at lush greens beyond the window shield? How can it even begin to compare with the freedom of turning your head for outstanding samples of the human species?

Central Delhi's broad roads and drooping trees and jamun sellers dotting the passage of every two minutes... Hong Kong's heaving hills playing peek-a-boo with the sea... New Zealand's sheep that embark on a stampede the moment you enter their radius of sound... I would have seen none of these had I been trying to block the B%^&*&& trying to overtake me.

Driving isn't empowering; it's blinding.

You know you are past your prime when...

... you remember arguing heatedly when Sushmita beat Aishwarya
... you once had a crush on Salman Khan / Madhuri Dixit
... you know the full form of DHKMN but not IMHO
... you get nostalgic about Usha Uthup
... you recall Jugal Hansraj as a child actor
... you recognize Karishma Kapoor in her original eyebrows, not to mention other facial hair
... you wonder whatever happened to Anuradha Paudwal

and worst of all,
... you know what I mean when I say ILU ILU

Me! Me! Me!

Quicksilver has given me the opportunity to trumpet some more on my favourite topic. So here goes:

A - Available?
for chai, anytime

B-Best friend(s)
it's not diamonds, it's shoes

C-Cake or Pie?
Cake. Chocolate Truffle Cake.

D-Drink of choice:
Fresh juice

E-Essential things used everyday:
mirrors, brains

F-Favourite colour:
Turquoise blue in small doses

G-Gummi bears or worms:
Go ahead and nuke both

H-Hometown:
doesn't actually feel like home anymore

I-Indulgence:
travel without pay

J-January or February:
should be spent in warm islands

K-Kids and names:
have not troubled me yet

L-Life:
is fatal

M-Marriage date:
is ancient history

N-Number of siblings:
one

O-Oranges or apples:
Blackberries

P-Phobias:
Cockroaches, dead or alive

Q-Quote:
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." Calvin

R-Reason to smile:
facelift for free!

S-Season:
Autumn

T-Tag three people:
Gurdeepak
Ekta
Anand

U-Unknown fact about me:
Having exhausted all my creativity on previous tags, I have no choice but to admit: I love reality shows, and Simon Cowell

V-Vegetable you do not like:
Mr Anuja Byotra

W-Worst habit:
Mr Anuja Byotra

X-x-rays you have had:
When Leonardo Di Caprio saw me. or I saw him. same difference

Y-Your favorite food:
Mr Anuja Byotra?

Z-Zodiac:
Libra

Koreaaaaahhhh!

I love horror movies - reeking blood, sudden amputations, shrieking women - all so exciting! But nothing satisfying has come out of Hollywood since a long time. So finally, me and my friends went on a skiing trip last month.

All of us being hard-core Indians, and mostly bankers on top of that, admitting ignorance wasn't an option: that there was something we didn't know or couldn't master, even if it were skiing, was impossible. So we bought expensive gear that only pros wear and went up the ski-lift on day two, looking absolutely prepared as went up... and as subtle as Britney Spears as we tumbled down.

"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" we cried out, in a volume that these capital letters don't do justice to. Maybe some people mistook us for Rolling Stones (the band), maybe some thought this was our orgasmic screech of thrill, but its difficult to recall their reaction coz we were busy watching the tapes of our lives playing in front of our eyes.

I will never forget the experience, nor will my friend who now needs tendon surgery.

Anyway, the important thing is that no one recognized us. After all this is what we looked like:

Meow Cafe

It's a small city. Even so, Hong Kong regularly springs me some new surprise.
My latest discovery: Meow Cafe. A quaint cafe where nine cats have a run of the place while you fawn over them and try to take pictures.

I went there last weekend. It was a horrid day, gray and rainy like the backdrop of a thriller around the time when the heroine gets stalked by a serial killer. We went out anyway, which on hindsight, I cannot imagine why.

So there we were, walking amongst the throngs at Times Square, which for those unfamiliar with Hong Kong, is a rehearsal for the Kumbh Mela. Took us a while to find the place - but were we glad we made the effort:
As soon as we opened the doors we were greeted by a bunch of cats!

Of course that's not true. Cats aren't dogs. They they don't greet humans. Sucking-up sucks!

So more accurately, we were greeted by the sight of a bunch of cats, all sleeping and sprawled over the cashier's table - on the chair, over the printer, besides the credit-card machine, between rack shelves - they'd completely swamped the front desk.


Absolute heaven for people like me who'd love to adopt one, but have a house too small and travel too often to do so.

Food and drinks we tried were so-so, but the setting was a respite from the dry, done-to-death decor of Starbucks. I'm so bloody bored of coffee chains! Same old cappuccino. Same sausage roll. Same awful tea. And worse, same no-place-available-to-sit-and-talk.

Here you should easily find a place to lounge. And should the cats not wish to speak with you (likely of course!), you can while away time over board games.

If you decide to visit:
Address:
3D, Po Ming Building
Foo Ming Street
Causeway Bay
Tel: 2710 9953

Directions:
Reach Time square and ask around for Foo Ming Street

When we wake up...

Ever notice how we may or may not remember our dreams, but we can always recall our nightmares?
That when we wake up in a sweat we know exactly what shook us into waking up?

Perhaps we are shaped more by what we what we fear than what we desire.

I have nothing to wear. And judging by the rush in shopping malls today, no one in Hong Kong has anything to wear.

So all of us were out there, searching for something to wear tonight, frenziedly skimming through piles of clothes on sale, holding up hangars in front of mirrors, sighing in queues for fitting rooms, disheveling our hair for the only size available of the only thing we liked and failing to fit through.

Yes life is tough and shopping doubly so. And I still have nothing to wear for the party tonight. But at least I am prepared for the picnic next summer. (Or I will be, if the gym pays off!)

I sound like Marge Simpson ... Mmmmm

I am trying to look at the bright side of things as I have a sore throat. The only things that come to mind are:

1. I sound sexy
2. I sleep soundly over cough syrup
3. The aches would have done a ballerina proud
4. Chocolates don't taste like guilt
5. Vipul calls home from work
6. No cooking, only pizza
7. Headache is better than nausea
8. Britney spears is bigger than me now Hahahaha (that brightens everything up)

Birthday Girl graduates to become Birthday Aunty

As is annual custom in my diary, I am busy moping today.

Last night I was out for a Bolloywood Nite at Aqua. Apparently it was my Birthday Party. But as I was painfully correcting everyone, my birthday is not a party. It is a funeral of a perfectly good-sounding year killed from my introduction. Forever.

Yesterday was particularly traumatic as my twenty-somethingness was in its last throes. Possibly, my dancing too was in its last throes, judging from the looks I got. But when you are twenty-nine years down and the thirtieth has begun to tick you get some rights to display uncoolness.

Many people tell me that thirty is not the end of the road. However, an exact 100% of such people are older than colour-TV in India and remember watching Chitrahaar as children, and therefore have no credibility.

So if you are about to wish me a happy birthday, do not expect any smiling "Thank You darling! (muah, muah)", unless of course you are accompanied by a birthday gift/birthday money in which case thanks for contributing to my drowning-sorrows-fund.

I can see clearly now!

I still remember the night I saw the most beautiful moon ever. It was the beginning of summer vacations and I was in our school's bus-yard, waiting with my friends to set off on a hiking trip to Manali. Leaning against the bumper, I happened to look up and saw the most luminous, milky sphere I'd ever seen.

I am normally not given to sentimental nature conversations, but this time I couldn't help it. "Neha," said I, "doesn't it look just gorgeous tonight?"
"What does?" she asked.
"The moon, over there," I pointed.
"Hmmmmm, yes, the moon is looking great! But why are you pointing there?"
I squinted, and realised that my moon was one in a line of six moons.
I put on my fat spectacles and realised my moon was one in a line of six streetlights.
I removed my binoculars back into my pocket...life's so much prettier without spectacles. Confusing and smudged, sure, but way prettier.

The only downside for us -8.5ers is:
Smiling at people we "recognise" through the haze but who we actually have never met before
Scowling at friends who shout "hello" from the distance who we assume must be roadside Romeos
*********************

But that's all in the past now. I finally mustered enough courage to go through Lasik last month, and am pleased to report it works! I no longer flail my arms when i search for the screaming cellphone alarm in the morning. And I don't bump into the cupboard during midnight loo visits. I can hardly wait to swim with my eyes open under water. And since I no longer need to claw off my lenses before sleeping, I look forward to nodding off on the couch in the middle of cricket matches.

There's a whole new world out here and I can see it!

Lose it!

The good thing about working from home is that it gives me ample time to ponder over the deeper questions of life such as: How do I reduce my bloody weight?

Now I know some of you may say: Anuja, you got it wrong, the question that befuddles us most often is: "What the hell do I order from this menu?" But the majority of you, I know, will either
think that I've read their minds, or
send me spam mail selling fat-burning medicine.

Luckily for those who share my concerns, I have solved this riddle that assails us all in moments of solitude (and also in moments of partying). The answer came to me when flipping through old photo albums from my school days. There I was in all my teen glory: in an over-sized man shirt, with permed hair like Sai Baba's, and hoops in my ears so huge that they showed through my hair and helped you differentiate me (female) from Sai Baba (male).


for reference: Sai Baba


Don't snigger at your conjecture on what I looked like. I mean your conjecture is nearly correct, but understand the context - it was the 1980s and my look was very COOL for that point of time. Remember Madonna in Into the Groove? Or Kylie Minogue in Neighbours? Or Scary Spice in anything?

So what I'm saying is, I was very hot indeed. Yet, surprisingly, appallingly, I had very few admirers. I often wondered why my efforts at decorating myself did not yield even a single valentine's day card, leave alone a boyfriend. But hindsight being the slowpoke it is, it finally came in with the answer after all these years: my friends.

That's right - my so-called friends sabotaged my chances. They, being the pretty girls they were, made me look rather mediocre in contrast. Had I befriended the spectacled nerds I would have surely stood out and bagged loads of bouquets. But skipping next to the girls in mini-skirts, my bell-bottoms stood no chance...

Which brings us to the Big Answer you have all been waiting for. How to become slim and fetching? Just stealthily feed your friends steroids. Or dump them for fatter folks.

Remember the adage? You are known by the company you keep. The fatter your company, the slimmer you're known to be.

Good luck.
[and I'd be happy to refer you to websites selling fattening steroids. Delivery guaranteed!]

RGV ki $%^$%^$^%#%$ Aag

Contrary to what you may think I'm suggesting from the headline above, Aag is not a stinky dropping of crap.
No. It is an entire Biogas plant. It is a biogas plant with piles so high they could be used to light up the whole of Mumbai.

I know that the cinema lovers among you will still see Aag, irrespective of what I say, because after all it is:
1. RGV
2. Amitabh Bachchan
3. Sholay remake
4. conversation topic
So, I will not bother with a critique and in fact I shall go so far as to recommend it if:
1. you want your girlfriend to get over Devgan
2. you want your boyfriend to get over Sushmita
3. you want your mom to get over Amitabh
4. you want your father to get over insomnia

For the rest, watch at your own peril!

Some men think women shop seven days a week, Ha! Shows how little they know! I am a woman and I shop only six days a week (excluding weekends). Let me calculate - yesterday I bought a bag, day before I bought another bag, day before that I tried a dress that made me look paunchy - which (for a change) I realized before I'd bought it for myself, so I bought it for my sister instead, and the day before that I do not remember, but hopefully it was as productive as yesterday. Today is the Sabbath Day so I shall rest from shopping (not that I am a Christian, but my husband's terrified looks invoke a pitying Christian in me today and I relent.)

If someone were to ask me why women shop so much more than men, I'd point them to research. I'd point them to the fact that women in the work force are discriminated against. They are generally shunted into lesser paying jobs, and for the same job they are paid lesser than men.

How does earning less make you spend more? Elementary: Take me for example. When I earned well as an investment banker, I saved so much money. For one, I had time to splurge only on the weekend in which I also had to catch up on sleep. And when I did venture out to shop, I had the company of well-heeled colleagues who I could not buy street-side watches called RoleK with. I realized good pay and debauchery just do not go together for women. I needed to join conversations about buying shares, and renting bigger rooms, saving for cars, etc - and as I was uninterested in aiming green paper at bosoms in dance bars, I had no choice but to save.

But now that I am a lowly paid, seldom-working journalist, the possibilities are endless. The piddly amount I earn is pocket money, so I spend it in the spirit of pocket money. I have bought several RoleKs. I have spent a whole month's salary on an original movie poster. I often buy heels on credit card in anticipation of a payment yet to arrive. I live on debt, I assume payments will clear: yes, I live the American dream.


p.s. Of course, women buy more only in quantity, not value. Men and their bluetooths and i-pods and unopened gadget boxes cover women and their Blahniks many times over.

The last laugh

Vipul thinks every thing's about him. He's so wrong. Every thing's about me.

When I give him a hard time, with my outbursts or my silences, as the case may be, it is not because he's done something wrong, but just because it comes naturally to me. I have the innate ability to ask the wrong questions, and I like to use it.

Do you love me more or cricket?
Then why do you want me to stop standing in front of the TV?
Would you suggest that if I were Angelina Jolie?
Or if I was Bipasha Basu?
Or if I was Madhubala?
Or if I... c'mon do you actually believe the begging pose will work?
Why don't you answer? You don't like talking to me?
If you prefer Tendulkar why didn't you marry HIM?
Why did I marry you?
...It's unstoppable - just as Einstein's genius could not be kept in check by his low grades and a clerk's job, my capability to screw my husband (no pun intended) is beyond redress.

Now I know, you will say that North Korea should not go off exploding N-bombs just because it can, and likewise maybe I should try keep my trap shut for a bit. But then, you don't know how much training I had to give my husband. Eight years ago he saw my midriff in a tight tee-shirt and sniggered: Tyres look good only on vehicles HaHaHaHaHaHaHa. Today he has evolved into someone who lands up at the airport with roses to receive me and notices my shades of tan.

Guns have there uses.
Revenge has a long life.

Fashionably late...

To write my tag within an 8-hour deadline
or
To crown Quicksilver Queen of the Universe
Can't pretend the choice was tough! So here's my very late submission on eight idiosyncrasies:

1. I cannot tell a lie without laughing. So I'm either caught, or I end up improvising at the last moment by pretending I saw something funny at the corner of my eye.

2. I love Splenda, the zero-calorie sweetener. I steal it from Cafes. I buy it in kilos (or as big a box as I can). And if my stock is close to running out, I start replacing my husband's Splenda quota with sugar without telling him so that I don't have to go without it before we have time to buy a refill.

3. I ensure my feet are clean before I sleep to ward off nightmares. (yes it works)

4. When I see joybirds, I always count them and kiss my fingers and mutter 'two for joy' or 'three for letter' etc, as appropriate. If I see 'one for sorrow' I wait for it to fly coz then it becomes 'one for success'. (yes it works too)

5. When I'm on the treadmill, my mind compulsively begins solving mental maths problems on speed-distance-time thanks to the speedometer and clock dials

6. One of my exercise routines is dancing in front of the mirror (no it doesn't work)

7. Before I can sit down to work, I simply must tidy the house from making the bed, to smoothing the sofas, to stacking the day's newspapers casually on the side table, to putting the coasters in the correct alignment, etc etc

8. I strongly believe that Quicksilver is the Queen of the Universe!!!


Tag Rules
1) Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2) People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3) At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4) If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will have to acknowledge Anuja as the Queen of the Universe (Nice touch, M!)

I tag:
Amy, long time since we heard your Bollywood ravings!
The One, to get you out of your quotation moods.
N - maybe this will get you to Kickstart your blog again?!
Harsh- ditto!
Vinay , returning the hospitality of lemon juice :)
Gurdeepak, monsoon trekking begun?
Ekta , hope ur enjoying India and home?
Anand, hope ur suitably weeping away from the wife!

Milan

Began the day appropriately with window shopping which soon degenerated into real shopping. Not really Milan's fault... more to do with my teaming up with shopaholic friend from schooldays and the fact that we're wearing too little to enter the Duomo or other Christian sightseeing! I simply can't fathom the fuss in Italy's churches about showing knees and shoulders given how busts and pelvises loom all over the place!

Sunny Tuscany

Florence is where every two steps lead to a roadside Romeo, every four steps end at a museum, and every ten steps deposit you beyond its historic city-centre. There are, as in the rest of Italy, remarkable sculptures. But I'm burnt out! and my ability to pretend artistic perspicacity at its squares and museums is exhausted! So I finally embarked upon what I should have the very first day - its glorious countryside. Tuscany comes more alive in its olives and wine than in its marbles.


Went on a biking trip to the Chianti Valley with Bicycle Tuscany. The schedule was after my own heart - started off with wine tasting, followed by a three-course lunch with wine and coffee, and only after I had tanked up enough energy to cycle uphill and imbibed enough wine to believe it would be easy, did we start pedaling.

The Tuscan countryside is absolutely as romantic and picturesque as the movies show it to be. Cypress tress climb neat, conical, shapely heights; grapes branch out in school assembly rows; hills slope up and down as gently as they can - all of nature seems to be well-manneredly smoothing the course for trespassers like us!


Of course, the going was tough, especially as my cycling days belonged to memories of a decade ago, but the scenery and the calorie-burn was worth every wheeze.

But the biggest bonus for me was meeting interesting strangers in this journey, especially after the quiet days and quieter nights I've spent on this trip till now. Three of us in the group were solo traveling women and we reconvened at a bar abashedly named 'Pop Cafe', where the drinks were drinkable and all food you can eat free!

Florence is beautiful at night. Its Duomo may be ugly, but street musicians - not your guitar strumming variety, but entire orchestras of accordions and big base guitars and pianos - descend to add a surround sound in the moonlight, creating a spellbinding artsy atmosphere that Rome's untouchably old and preserved grandeur cannot give.

This trip is turning out as fantastic as I was hoping it to be!

More snaps here

God is in the big things

What can you expect from a country that's barely a country - smaller even than Disneyland ?

Its main square is not really a square, it's rather curvy.
Its flagship Church is more of a tomb, with St Peter's murder/martyrdom spot about it.
Its noted museum is no mere museum, it is an artifact that ought to be in a museum itself.
To top it, this Vatican City is a certified antique, and yet looks not a day older than I! What's more, like a kid, it struts about, preening about having its own postal system being all independent from Italy's, and then goes on to cheerfully survive without any immigration and border posts at its walls.

With all the contradictions dotting it, one should seriously doubt the Vatican's ability to do what it sets out to do: See how it started off with the bloody Crusades as a direction towards building a peaceful world, to more recently when its Pope Benedict made remarks to start dialog with the Muslim world and instead ended up angering them with that very speech for friendship.

And yet, and yet, and yet - the Vatican City ends up achieving exactly what it sets out to do - make you go Ohmygod!

The moment you enter the massive columns into St Peter's square, you know you are in a special place whose grandness has no equal. The square is big enough to accommodate 35000 people comfortably seated. And the surrounding statues are tall enough for you to recognize them, even if you are 35000 people away.

I'm not going to bother going into a travelogue here - I am no good with descriptions, and there's no way I can describe what it felt like to see one of my favorite paintings (Fresco actually) - creation of Adam - up on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Just consider that I still remember the first time I saw God's hand barely touching Adam's in a magazine when I was a kid, thanks to an ad that had pilfered the work to sell an Onida (I think).



So after two decades of spying it in magazines and coasters and reprints and t-shirts, it was like meeting a hot classmate from early-teenage days at school that I had a crush on and could finally lech at satisfactorily.

Now, leaving the Vatican, I doubt any other city's relics or museums will impress me, ever, or at least for a long, long time to come, or at least till the end of this vacation!

Rome Sweet Rome

Everything here is grand. Make that GRAND. On a scale of 1 to 10, the monuments here are are at 40. The antique buildings were built for giants and every pebble on every street reeks of history to prove so.

The only thing unexaggerated is the size of marble penises, which at worst have been castrated by the hands of time, and at best are rather humble in contrast to the muscled asses of the irrepressibly nudist Roman citizens.

Don't know why it is so, but sculptors seemed to believe that Roman men must be represented by the bodies of Greek Gods. Not that I'm complaining. They also seemed to believe that Roman women must be represented by bodies of real women - no abs, big waist, maybe some paunch thrown in. That's right, I'm not complaining at all. If ever you need a place to get your body image issues, walk into Rome's museum and feel liberated.



More snaps here