The Mars-Venus dialogue

The 22 questions tag has been doing the rounds across the blogosphere for quite a while now.
Almost every female blogger worth her err..estrogen has given this one a shot.
So why be left behind eh?

For the uninitiated, these are 22 questions asked my men to women to better understand them.

1. How do you feel after a one night stand?
Zilch. You don't get into one night stands with people you have "feelings" for, do you?

2. Do you ever get used to wearing a thong?
Why bother about another pain in the butt when we already have you ?

3. Does it hurt?
D-Uh!

4. Do you know when you are acting crazy?
Of course.. we plan it to the last detail. And the best part? Make you apologize for it at the end!

5. Does size really matter?
Tell me it doesn't really matter to you if its 36D or 32B and I'll answer with a "No" to this question.

6. When the bill comes are you still a feminist?
I've already been generous enough investing my time in you. Don't expect me to invest money as well!

7. Why do you take so long to get ready?
Try mentioning the word "Shopping" next time. Drastic improvement guaranteed.

8. Do you watch porn, too?
Well, it's a lot more fun watching you try to hide it from us, what say?

9. Will something from Tiffany’s solve everything?
Of course, honey. Just don't forget to slip in the the gift certificate. And at Tiffany's, they do store credit, don't they?

10. Are guys as big of a mystery to you as you are to us?
When you have mastery over something, it ceases to be a mystery, mister!

11. Why do you sometimes think you look fat?
We never do. Just giving you enough practice to rehearse and re-rehearse the "No". You don't want to invite catastrophe by answering otherwise, do you?

12. Why are you always late?
'Coz we don't do things that are not fashionable.

13. Does it bother you when we scratch?
Not if you use it on scratch cards and win me jewellery or cars!

14. Do you wish you could pee standing up?
Don't think so. All that aim-and-shoot in a day is no fun unless you're an archer or something!

15. Why do so many women cut their hair short as soon as they get married?
You know how life after marriage is. They just want to keep their bad hair days short, I guess.

16. How often do you think about sex?
This question somehow reminds me of the Mountain Dew slogan.
"Thinking...is such a waste of time" :-P

17. What do you think of women who sleep with guys on the first date?
They probably chose falling-madly-in-bed over falling-madly-in-love with those guys!

18. Would you?
I ain't a fallen person, either ways.

19. Do you realize every guy wants a girl just like his mom?
They say it takes 20 years for one woman to make a man out of her son and another, just 20 minutes to make a fool out of him. Wonder who should be like who?

20. Why does every woman think she can change him?
Well, if change is constant and the man in her life's also gotta be constant, shouldn't they both go together?

21. Does it matter what car I drive?
No. As long as you don't bore me to death with details of how it's so much better than your neighbour's.

22. Do you ever fart?
Nope, I believe in the burp-and-taste rather than fart-and-waste policy. (Sounded almost as gross as you, didnt I?)

So all you ladies out there who haven't done the tag yet, what are you waiting for?

Go ahead. Educate the (hu)man race.

It's about time..

..I returned.

To this nondescript yet comforting space of my own on the cyberspace.

Here's a long overdue 'Thank you' to everyone who checked on this space regularly and left notes here, on Orkut and in my mailbox(I make it sound like I have half a million visitors thronging this page every day,don't I?) . And a special 'thank you' goes out to Lavs for bestowing the "Thinking Blogger" award upon yours truly. I wouldn't be surprised if she has forgotten about the award herself , now that it's been sooo long! But trust me Lavs, it's truly fulfilling to know my writing appeals to you. I must also thank you for your subtle slap on my wrist for not posting consistently :)

No, it wasn't a case of the much talked-about Blogger's Block. Just a matter of my incapacity to squeeze some blog-time between 11 hours of slog-my-ass-off-at-work-time, 3 hours of commute-to-work-till-eternity time and 7 hours of sleep-like-a-log-out-of-sheer-exhaustion time. So you see, it was rather a case of Slogger's Slack!

Sometime in June,when my new manager offered me this hard-to-refuse role in a high visibility project in the organization , it didn't take me long to accept. The fact that it was driven by a crazily aggressive deadline and on a technology platform that I knew about as much as Laloo Prasad Yadav knows about Molecular Nanotechnology didn't deter me either. But once into it, it sure felt like sitting in this roller-coaster wondering whether my mind was on a vacation when I signed up for it. Hectic, it was. Draining, it was. Exhausting, it was. And now, after its success, I feel exactly the same way as one would after the roller coaster ride is over - Exhilarated. And Proud.

So while my sanity was still intact and to keep it that way, G and I decided that a really long-in-the-planning beach vacation in Malaysia couldn't have a better timing. And boy, did it turn out to be a vacation of a lifetime..
The idyllic beaches of Langkawi and the vibrant city that's Kuala Lumpur offered the right mix of serenity and joie de vivre that was just what the doctor (and the travel agent) ordered for the stressed out couple.

The resort staff, tour guides, sales girls in malls, museum curators, restaurant waiters, air hostesses..practically everyone we met asked us if we were on our honeymoon. In the beginning, we did nod sideways and say the honeymoon was three years ago.

I leave you with glimpses of a vacation so memorably delightful that left G and me nodding in agreement to the same question on our return journey!

Three Cheers to Us!

Dear G,

It seems just like yesterday that you popped the question to me as we waited on your bike over a red traffic signal. Technically,it wasn't even a question, was it? I wouldn't think "I want to marry you, girl" would even remotely qualify as one! And for the first time, the signal counter hadn't even counted down to zero and yet, you had your green signal!

It's been three years since.

Given that you had been my boss for almost a year, there were quite a few people in the beginning who couldn't stop gagging me about how I'd "basketed" you, with the devious motive of bagging great performance ratings at work. And I'd wonder how on earth did that totally escape me? Not the great ratings, but the fact that you were actually my boss! You don't normally associate terms like "down-to-earth" and "fun" with "boss", would you?Guess it was about the way you made me(and everyone else on that team) feel that it was always working with you and never under you, that did me in.

And remember how we used to squabble endlessly over the hackneyed male vs female superiority and other assorted inconsequential debates during every coffee break? And every single time you'd make fiery, animated arguments in a determined bid to win.That had somehow led me to think that you were the kinda person who was always up for a good fight. So much for my inference,for I can probably count on my fingers, of one palm at that, about the number of fights we might have had during these three years. I mean, how come it just takes me a minute to blow my top and like, almost never for you? Even when I am being unreasonable? You don't have to be so patient with me all the time, you know. It's okay to yell at me when I ain't behaving. Really.
Okay, now you did not take me seriously there, did you?:-P

Marriage has thrown other surprises my way as well. Like the V-Day last year, when I woke up to a huge bouquet of red roses and a diamond pendant from you? Remember how I kept brushing my eyes, telling myself that I was really awake. I was of the opinion that you probably never realised a noun called "romance" and its corresponding adjectives existed.Even if you did, I was pretty sure you had no idea about this other noun called "mush" and its adjectives. Well, can you really blame me, considering that I had to, in the past, drive you to the florist myself and direct you to buy a couple of orange gerberas to "gift" me? Or when the most romantic SMS you'd sent me ever would read "Don't call me tonight. Want to sleep early"?

But you know what? There's not a thing I'd want to change about you. Well, except the way you snore in your sleep or the way you chicken out of riding even a merry-go-round in amusement parks or your obsession for cleanliness or..

..Alright Alright, I'll stop :-) But I'll say this - the same line that Scout Finch had for Dill Harris.

With you, life is routine. Without you, life is unbearable.

All my love.

All about (S)mi

One of my favorite bloggers has tagged me! To list eight little known things about myself. And ofcourse, the license of having one little lie 'camouflaged' in the list for the readers to identify, comes with the package.

So here we go..

1. I have a couple of "bunny teeth" that is in all probability the first thing you'd notice if you met me. My mom and other "concerned" family members tried all they could to get me to wear braces, in the fear of not being able to find suitors!!
Well, nothing came of that. And the irony? G thinks they are adorable!:)

2. There's a max lapse of 10 seconds between the plopping of my head on a pillow and deep slumber. I can sleep at the drop of a hat and not be awakened even with the loudest of noises.
A few years ago, there was a fire in a building hardly 100 metres away from home, at 2 am and apparently there were fire engines, loud sirens et al for a good couple of hours before the fire was finally extinguished. No wonder my neighbour couldn't stop rolling his eyes when he heard my response to the story that kept the entire locality awake through the night - "Really?"

3.I am a neurotic hypochondriac. I've spent many a sleepless nights worrying if my nagging headache is brain tumor only to be told by the doc later that all I need to do about it is to reduce the brightness of my monitor! Or wondering if I'd have a tetanus attack just 'coz I fell from a couple of stairs and ended up with a hardly visible bruise and having the doc laugh out loud on my face when I tell him why I'm asking for an anti-tetanus vaccine.

4.I never leave home without my Asthalin inhaler. I swear, that amazing little invention is the best thing to have happened to all asthmatics of the world. And just to clarify, there’s absolutely no connection between this and the previous point! :-P

5.I got drunk on red wine(!) once and confessed to G, my co-worker at the time, that I had a crush on him. That, was the first and last time I tasted alcohol.

6.I’ve attended five different schools, all in Bangalore, through ten years of my schooling.
A couple of those were real crappy and had teachers from those very schools summoning mom to advise her to get her "kid with so much potential" out of there asap!

7.I have a knack for making really really really soft chapatis ( a tortilla like bread) . My husband can never have enough of those.

8.When I was 15 years old, I’d punched a guy in the nose, when he’d tried to slip his hand under my shirt in a crowded bus. By the time I was 19, the number of ill-fated noses had climbed to about 10.

9.I bought a 3-bedroom apartment in a swanky locality in Bangalore when I was 23 years old.

Hmm..I'm starting to think the "lie-detection" job isn't really going to be too hard. Or is it?

The rule is to tag eight more people. But then when the total number of bloggers you are familiar with, on the blogosphere is about that same number, and half of them have already done this, two shouldn't sound like too bad a number eh?

So, Shyam and Accidental Diva..Go for it!:)

On Amma's Day

• She is the walking Webster’s English dictionary. Every time an unfamiliar word would cross my path, I’d just have look “her” up, instead of the big fat lexicon.
• She is the compulsive book worm. Tidying up a house so messy, that it looks like a war field or doing the pile of dishes forming a little mountain in the sink would figure nowhere on her to-do list when she would be in the middle of an interesting read.
• She is the in-house Deccan Herald Daily Crossword champ. Cracking the toughest of ‘em in record time and having only one person in the household to better it. Herself.
• She makes the most delectable Mysore Pak in the entire universe. Somehow or the other, it turns out the best only on my birthday!
• She weaves magic on her knitting pins, crafting the most exquisite of sweaters for Dad and the three of us. Turning us into show-offs amidst awestruck friends who just don’t seem to believe that the sweater was actually created from scratch, on our living room sofa.
• She carries off a salwar kameez with utmost elegance. Leaving her much younger perpetually-clad-in-a-saree sisters go green with envy when their neighbors mistake her to be their younger sibling!
• She and I yap for hours on end, standing in our balcony. One way or another, we never run out of topics. Whether it’s having a good laugh about dad’s goofy ways or a serious discussion about what career should choose for myself.
• She is the one I run to, every Sports Day after coming last in the Running Race,Skipping Race,Obstacle Race, well, every goddamn race and she would be ready with her line. "Never mind, Participation is important, there's always next year". Never mind that next year would be the same miserably sad story, yet that line somehow works like magic when she says it.
  
• She tells me very matter-of-factly that I look like Tabu and l’il sister looks like Karisma Kapoor. Lying all bandaged up in the ICU after a major surgery.
• She is a huge fan of Dev Anand and his histrionics. She must have watched every single Hindi movie produced in Bollywood, including those that the producers themselves never bothered to sit through. Yet cannot carry out a decent conversation in Hindi for nuts!
• She is “Amma” to not only us but another little cousin. Whose mother went back to work, entrusting him to her every day, knowing a smart post-graduate woman who chose to stay at home to look after her three kids, could never go wrong when it came to raising kids.
• She just won’t step out of the house without doling out atleast 65 instructions to me and L’il sister. Rattling ‘em off at 120 kmph, she knows we ain’t paying attention, yet never gives up.
• She knows it’s me, her 12 year old, who has rummaged her wardrobe when she wasn’t home and tried on all her sarees and left the wardrobe looking like a laundry basket. Yet, when she’s back, she just rearranges the wardrobe neatly without a whimper, leaving the nervous 10 year-old thinking her mom has no clue.
• She accompanies me, her jittery 10th grader to the exam hall every day, advising throughout the way, to take it easy and how getting "tense" could ruin my performance. And when the exam bell rings and it's time to get in the hall,suddenly I am the less "tenser" one around!
  
• She walked out on her father who objects to his post grad daughter marrying “just a graduate”, entering into the first love marriage of the family.Years later, all three of her children follow suit.
• She never fails to say "You won't understand now..You will when you're a mother yourself" at regular intervals. Invariably, l'il sister and I utter the second half of that sentence in chorus with her, as soon as we hear the first half from her. Yet, the line somehow never changes.
  

It's been six years since Amma's gone.

Yet, it doesn't feel like she's gone far enough to not hear when I say..

"Happy Mother's Day, Amma!"

World Cup Gupshup

It’s curtains for the Caribbean Calypso. And I bet I ain’t the only one heaving a huge sigh of relief. Phew! It’s finally over.

Sure, Ponting and Co are reveling in the glory of their hatrick triumph. Over a brave Sri Lankan side. Yes, “Brave” – that’s what the newspaper called the Lankans. Guess that’s as far as you can get when you’re playing Australia these days.
Seriously, are these guys for real? The way they bulldozed over any given team in the tournament, was there even an iota of doubt in anybody’s mind about who would win the cup in the end? Even if there was, one look at Ponting’s play and that’d be enough to dispel any.
The team will go down as the greatest in the annals of cricketing history..yada yada..yada..But hey, they’ve made the game so monotonous and predictable. All thanks to them, we don’t have the nailbiting, nerve-racking games anymore, that used to keep us all at the edge of our seats. I mean, is there any fun watching a match with them, when you know they’re just going to saunter in and annihilate the opposition , in a rather business-as-usual manner?

Lata Mangeshkar volunteered to step back and let others get a chance to win the coveted Filmfare trophy after there were countless of those bestowed upon her year after year. How I wish the Aussies take a leaf out of her life , lest there be “ho-hum-it’s-Australia-again” endings to the next 'god-knows-how-many' World cups!

Remember the classic Lance Klusener retort at the 1999 World cup when asked about how he felt about screwing up the semi final match for his team?
“(So what?) Nobody die(d)!”
True, that's the worst that could happen.
This year, sadly though, someone actually did. What was initially surmised as a succumbed-to-stress death turned out to be a murder most foul. A respectable coach murdered in the middle of a tournament and all that happens is the players just have one extra black ribbon to wear before they resume business again. What can be sadder than that?

Of course, lesser said the better about our (beaten black and) blue brigade. Their World Cup debacle prompted our irate junta to burn their effigies. But then, it also ended up burning holes in the pockets of many a sponsor! When the “Ladega toh jeetega” Pepsi ads or the “Mind and Body,Heart and Soul” Visa ads proved to be nothing more than money invested foolishly. And these ads being aired like a zillion times before the exit, just added to the sponsors’ expense and to the cricket viewers’ annoyance.
So, when the sponsors realised that they’re just maaro-ing the kulhaadi on their feet by airing their ads calling the team hilarious names like “Team Reliable” , someone in the ad industry came up with this even more annoying idea.
Of churning out ads showing random gully-cricket playing bachhas as future World champions! If you’ve seen the enormously irritating Pepsi gold “Agla World cup hum layenge” ad or the Surf Excel “2015 mein World Cup” ad, you’ll know what I mean!

Like our desi team, Mandira’s cup of woes has been overflowing as well. As though, she didn’t have enough troubles of her own already, making herself look like a complete nincompoop amidst the whos-who of world cricket on her show, the enraged “activists” find a new effigy to burn. Just when she thought she could manage to have everyone’s eyes glued to her noodlestraps and get away with wearing the tricolour on her saree. It quite did not turn out that way, did it? I suspect a certain Shilpa babe is now sulking at the Mandira babe for diverting all the attention of the activist junta away from her!

I wrap up, with my favorite World Cup 2007 anecdote.

G and I are watching a world-cup match where the hapless Bangla boys are being battered mercilessly by the mighty Aussies in a grossly one-sided affair.
A few overs into the match, I turn to him with a “What’s the point?” look on face. My hands stretched out, in the hope that he would probably surrender the remote that he , the compulsive sports freak, would otherwise usurp during the entire length of a cricket match.

The man looks back at me , with a “Don’t-even-think-about-it” glare.

I yell back at him as fiercely, “Come on, it’s not even like, India’s playing” .

Still fuming, he reasons with a straight face,

“ See, that’s exactly the problem . If India wouldn’t have exited the tournament, I wouldn’t have to watch these matches, would I? All thanks to our useless players, I am now forced to watch a team like Bangladesh!”

I don’t exactly remember tying him to the sofa or pinning his eye lashes open with a stapler.
Yet, what do you do when your husband, a full grown adult, makes an argument as “valid” as that?

I, for one, almost fell down from the chair, laughing! :)

The 'Phone' Identity

At work, the cubicle right across mine is shared by a couple of new joinees from another team. One of them is this jumpy youngster who can be often seen having outrageously loud conversations on the phone. When he’s not on the phone, he keeps himself busy with free coffee and snacks in the cafeteria. Both ways, ensuring he utilizes the office resources to his fullest capacity, of course. His repertoire also includes top-of-the-line acting skills, which is at its best when he swings into action, staring really hard at the monitor or typing away on his keyboard, at the sight of his project lead approaching his desk!:) Interesting bloke this huh?

But this is not about him.

This is about his cube-mate - the really quiet and unassuming Tamil girl, M. One would hardly notice M in that cube, except maybe on days when she’s wearing that extremely fragrant posy of jasmine flowers in her hair. Those are the days when the maintenance guys breathe easy, considering that they have one less task on their hand –of spraying room freshener in our floor.

M and I do exchange smiley hellos everyday and there’s the occasional small-talk about work. But, nothing beyond that.

So this week, as I headed home from work, I met M in the elevator lounge. As soon as we stepped into the elevator, her cellphone rang. And what I saw when she held up the cellphone to see who was calling, left me stunned!

“Husband” said the caller id display.

Husband? HUSBAND??

Alright,in my defense, I didn’t really mean to snoop or anything. But then, all thanks to the horde of over-enthu people wanting to run home, squeezed into the elevator , I had her standing right in front of me. And in the extremely small distance that separated us, if she held up something to her face, it was as good as holding it up to mine!

As I picked up my jaw that had dropped to the elevator floor by then, I wondered for a second if I’d misread the display. It couldn’t be that, could it?? Sadly enough, I hadn’t.

My first thought was this - You’d probably store your plumber’s name as “Plumber” in your phonebook, just because he’s identified that way a little more quickly than by his name, if he called. But surely, your husband deserves a better deal, doesn’t he?

And then through my daily bus journey back home, as I wondered what on earth made her refer to her husband by a name as cold as err.. “Husband”, a particular ritual in my wedding came to mind..
That was when the new bride (that would be me), was welcomed into G’s home for the first time after the wedding. The ritual is to stop the bride at the doorstep and “taunt” her by asking her to pronounce her husband’s name.
The rule is that the new bride has to act all demure and blush till her cheeks turn a dark shade of red and keep refusing. And the “taunters” will have the question on loop until you decide to give up.

Not meaning to sound curt, “G” , I blurted out immediately, in a tone that asked a “Didn’t you know that?” to the aunty who asked. Of course there was this cuteness factor associated with the ritual and most of them had a good laugh and all that. But still, I’m sure there were a few aunties and grannies in that room who’d frowned upon the rather audacious bahu.

Of course, we all know scores of women who don’t call their husbands by name. Most of our grandmoms and sometimes, even moms don’t. In fact, its commonplace to refer to one’s husband as one’s “yejamanru” (literally translated to “master”) in many a household in our state.
I ain’t no rabid feminist, but then this one still gets my goat.
Clearly, the term “better half” for a wife, wouldn’t sit well with people who coined this term.
I don’t even see them agreeing to “half”, let alone “better”.
To them, it all probably stems from the thought that your husband is someone you put on a pedestal. Someone you look up to and believe is only second to God (“patidev” after all eh?).

Does it sound a little too archaic for our times? Maybe, it does. But then, for M, it probably doesn’t.

I hope, things change soon with time and M gives a nicer name to her husband in her phonebook
For all we know, maybe I am just over-reacting to an innocuous phonebook entry or probably that’s her nick for him(it's possible, you know) or maybe she’s just being funny!

But seriously.. “Husband”??

Sur'prize'..Sur'prize'!

My earliest memory of receiving a prize goes back to the time when I was six years old. I was at this Annual Day event at school where the agenda, apart from the “cultural programs” (read song and dance numbers from kids made to wear make-up of at least two inches thickness!) also included a prize distribution ceremony. The idea was to reward kids who’d scored the highest in every subject in the curriculum, individually. A jolly good idea to avoid one smart ass namely the class topper, walk away with all the glory!

I was slated to receive three prizes, for English, Science and Social Studies. I was summoned on stage three separate times and was given three different books and some coloring pens. Well, the reality was that the only rewards I could ever dream of reaping were strictly restricted to academics. It was a distressing sight every Sports Day , when I'd get thrashed black and blue in all "races" I competed, by kids with far superior athletic abilities!

As I sat there with my friends, proudly showing off my heist, I was caught unaware, when I heard my name being called out yet again! Much to my surprise, I found out I'd found out that I had the highest scores in all three sections of 2nd grade! The management had decided to award a special prize for that particular feat as well!
The prize was a cool kiddy story book, a Russian publication that had this really amazing wrapper and lots of pictures. I remember L’il sister being particularly besotted with that book. So much so that, at the age of four, she’d mugged up the entire book and would compel everyone in the house to listen to her recital (both backward and forward!) at least once every day!

As for me, it was like being announced “Man of the Series” soon after you’ve been announced “Man of the Match” , the perfect icing on the cake! No prizes for guessing that I grinned from ear to ear during the rest of the day.

To think of it now, I feel it’s purely the surprise element or rather the shock element that’s left this incident etched in my mind, even after all these years.

So the last week at work, as I stared at the monitor pretending to decipher a complicated software architecture diagram, while actually surfing the net for the best spots to holiday in Malaysia in another window, I spotted my manager walking towards my desk. After the initial "how's it going" small talk, he went on to ask me to attend this meeting the next day with a different team(that he manages, apart from mine), in order to help them out of a major crisis that they'd landed themselves in. Now, this was not something that I was not used to, since I'd helped the same team resolve some issues even earlier.
Although I muttered a “Damn!Not Again!” under my breath, sending out silent curses to the goofy guys in that team, who messed up so regularly, you can't really refuse when your manager makes a personal request, can you? And I agreed.

The next day, as I walked into the conference room, expecting a room full of glum people, I noticed my manager looking a little too cheery for a crisis resolution meeting. Considering that he'd described the crisis situation as really colossal, I wondered how on earth this guy even managed a smile, even if it was fake!
But then, the smile only got bigger, as he rose from his seat and proceeded to deliver this absolutely fancy vote-of-thanks kind of speech, acknowledging my earlier contribution of having resolved some rather unnerving issues in that team. All praise for my effort, he went on to say how those issues had the team vexed for weeks and how I was able to resolve it in a matter of hours. As I sat there, feeling rather embarrassed, he dished out a cool backpack, and presented it to me, amidst much fanfare and applause.

After the meeting, he explained to a really-taken-aback me, that the whole crisis resolution meeting was just a decoy, and he'd called the meeting to ensure he recognized my effort in the presence of the entire team. The unjustly cursed 'goofy guys' hadn't really messed up in reality.

And I thought to myself - A "nice manager" is not really the oxymoron that I thought it was, after all! He very well could have let me know beforehand, but then he'd meant the whole thing to be a surprise, just to make me happier! What a darling eh?

Déjà vu! The surprise element had done it again! Enhanced the pleasure of being rewarded, many fold.
Whether it’s the story book or the backpack, they will be remembered fondly as two of the most memorable prizes I’ve received, all thanks to the happiness they’ve brought, when you least expected it.

Even then, it’s never about what prize you’ve been rewarded with, Is it?

It’s always the memory of the experience, that turns out to be the prized possession!

Turning Twenty Seven

When I returned to work this week, after a blissful trip to my l'il sister's at Hyderabad, I heard many a ‘what-i-did-over-the-long-weekend’ conversations in the elevator.

So, what did I do?

I turned 27.

As a child, my birthday was always the best day of the year. That was the day when mom would make my favourite Mysore Pak. Doting aunts and uncles would arrive to wish their neice. It’s another matter that the 50 bucks they would gift interested the neice way more than the wish! And for once, dad was not allowed to yell at me for anything goofy I did that day.
The only thing that peeved me was the date, that fell during the summer break in school. I could never be the gleaming kid in her brand new dress, distributing Nutrine pineapple flavored toffees to her class, while they sang the birthday song in unison. Funny how I was relieved about the exact same thing ,no-school-on-birthday when I got to high school though!

But then, the picture is not quite the same, when you are older, is it?

“27?? Oh you don’t look that old” said my visibly surprised co-worker, after she’d wished me.

And I thought about the “that” in her sentence. Should I be smiling about the fact that there are people who think I look younger than I am, or should I read into the way she stretched it making it sound more like a “thaaaat” which makes 27 borderline old-age?!

And then there’s my really really concerned aunt.

“27?? And you still don’t have a baby? Don’t you realize time is ticking away? Atleast, give me the good news by your next birthday!”

She's set me on a race against time now. Timed by not just one, but two clocks- biological and regular.Sheesh.

If that wasn’t enough, I recently saw this mentioned in a skin care article in my favourite mag, Cosmopolitan. They’d sectioned the advice by age group and of course, I had to look in the (26-30) age group.

“We hate to break the news to you. But your skin is no longer going to be as naturally radiant as it used to be when you were younger.”

Et tu Cosmo? Life can suddenly get so cruel once you fall outside the (21-25) bracket . Sigh.

But what the heck? Birthdays are for celebrating right?

It was the first birthday I spent with dad, l'il sister,brother-in-law and G, together.
Li'l sister and BIL played perfect hosts when they took us out for a midnight buffet(!), a first for me. I did have my suspicions about whether this was the restaurant's ploy to get rid of leftover food, but I was soon proved wrong when we were asked to wait for 20 minutes for a table when we arrived at the place at about 12:15 am and the food turned out absolutely delicious!

While at the buffet, we did click a few snaps. But here's the one that takes the cake, well, literally!

Courtesy the worst photographer in the world - my sister. So much for the enthu G was posing with, for this snap! :)

And in the morning, I woke up to a barrage of phone calls from friends and family. And my Orkut scrapbook, abound with messages from friends near and far. L'il sister and Dad made sure there was abundant supply of Mysore Pak at home. How sweet is that?

And yeah, G's promised an air conditioner(!) for a gift. Considering that he's gonna be sharing the room with me, I am trying hard to ignore any hidden agenda here. And to believe that this is going to be my gift and not ours! :)

Oprah couldn't have said it better when she said this.

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. "

Addicted to Abhiwarya

Movie director Gurinder Chadha , of Bend-it-like-Beckham fame has proclaimed that she would christen her twins, ‘Aishwarya’ and ‘Abhishek’ after we know who. So this entrepreneur in our locality was not to be left behind. He's decided to pay his own tribute to the couple by doing this.

Beauty salons (or parlours as they are commonly known) carrying Ash’s million-dollar face on their signboards is a pretty familiar sight in Bangalore. But in this instance, even her beau has earned a spot beside her , helping market a men’s beauty salon! Yikes! The prices you pay for deciding to marry a beauty queen! Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing less macho about men frequenting these “beauty” salons, but it somehow creeps me out to see men getting manicures done!

Undeniably, they are the most celebrated couple in the country right now. The media never tires of chasing them. The engagement came as such a relief to the nation. A nation sick of watching news channels scream "Breaking News" even when they'd brush past each other. Well, it's a different matter altogether that they did Mani and themselves a huge favour by deciding to announce the engagement at the brink of "Guru"'s release. Never mind that the announcement set the cash registers ringing! What's commerce got to do with it? Yeah, right!

Ash being labelled a 'manglik' by the family priest has had the Bachchans go on an incessant temple hopping spree. And what's more, they've even had their bahu-to-be marry a tree to help her wash off her manglik induced misfortunes! And the worst part is that, the Miss World touting dignity and respect for womanhood in her speeches went ahead and did it How on earth are we supposed to make foreigners believe that India is not just about snake charmers and ridiculous superstitions, when our most recognized faces abroad resort to such ludicrous "rituals"?! Sigh.

And then, there's the beaten-to-death-by-the-media question of whether Ash's going to continue acting after marriage. And what better person to ask this question than the father in law himself right? The Big B was ready with a reply - "It ain't my prerogative to decide. It's Abhishek's". Hello sir? The question was about Ash's career, not your son's?!

Now that they've announced their marriage date, the media is back to their 'breaking news' ways. There's supposedly going to be none of the 'Liz-Arun'esque affair. Thank God! We've already had enough of the L-A wedding being forced down our throats, thank you very much! I mean, I'd rather watch my own wedding video over and over than watch two obscenely wealthy firangs who have absolutely nothing to do with my country, get hitched. Even if the wedding was the most spectacular event of the year. Whatever!

Alright, that’s enough vitriol.

In all fairness, the path to marriage hasn’t really been easy for them. They’ve had to deal with their share of angst over broken relationships. For poor Aishwarya, it’s been more than once. When things turned ugly with the perpetually shirtless guy and the second time with the one-hit-wonder guy flaunting their affair to the entire world, much to her resentment. As for Abhishek, he’s had to get over a broken engagement plus a string of flops before making a mark in the industry.
Here’s wishing that peace finds them at long last.

So the next time we hear about something breaking on TV, let’s hope it’s good news about their marriage and not the marriage itself.