Monthly Archives: July 2003

Oops…I did it again

This entry was posted in humour personal on by (updated 5395 days ago)

I did it again. Am confessing unabashedly. I played that ‘I got engaged’ joke on yet another poor unsuspecting soul :-P. This time the victim was P. But I didn’t trouble him much. I have been rather busy the past few weeks (following a 14/7 schedule) and had not communicated with him since quite some time. The poor thing asked me where I have been all this time… and I could *just* not resist the temptation to give the ‘ I got engaged’ funda to him. Pssst.. girlies, this is a sure shot way of knowing whether or not a guy is interested in you and if he *is*, then you can have a whale of a time on his expense ;-). Sadistic, I am sure you all think, but it all depends on what the guy feels for you and how you play it up ;-). In case he gets all senti then well and good.. he deserves that for not taking the initiative for that long. In case he doesn’t, you will be able to make out that it’s not really making a difference to him and you might as well never let him on the fact that your engagement never happened.

With P, it was a long distance thing, I told him on mail and then chatted with him for around 10 minutes. He sounded shocked, wish I could have seen his face. Since I had to rush home soon, I anyway told him that I was playing a joke on him. Couldn’t have let him sleep over that :-). He sounded a little relieved.

I still remember the time I did the same with psycho. I knew he was flirting and he knew I was, but both of us behaved as if nothing was happening. In between, he had to go home for a couple of days. When he got back, we met for catching up. Just a day before we met, I had attended the engagement function of a friend of mine. Dunno what came over me, but just on an impulse I decided I’ll play that joke on him and built the whole thing up with things like, “I have to give you some news” etc. I gave him the “news” with a lot of difficulty. No, I wasn’t feeling guilty or anything like that, I was having a *REALLY* tough time controlling my laughter. LOL, the difficulty with which i smothered my giggles is only known to me. I didn’t have to prepare on any “correct information”. I just rattled out all the particulars of the fiance of my friend. Thank God, I had attended that function, otherwise am sure, I would have looked like a tongue tied, red faced baboon, on not being able to answer things like “Does he have a moustache?”, “Does he wear spectacles?”, “Where is he working?”, “How tall is he?” etc.

I still remember that despair and angst writ large on psycho’s face. In fact it alarmed me to an extent coz I never imagined an otherwise rather unexpressive guy, to possess that ‘I-better-go-and-jump-in-the-pond’ look on his countenance. That catalysed the bursting of the oversized bubble I had blown. Anyway I was unable to bear the pain in my cheek bones that comes with trying to keep a straight face when your brain is ordering your cheeks to draw and upward curve. I suddenly exploded (I must say, I must have given a heart attack to psycho, the way I did) into laughter and confessed that it was all a joke… The poor thing was absolutely zapped and stood rooted to the spot with a glazed look. “I must say you act rather well”, was all he could muster up. I felt sorry for him. I said so too. But I guess the relief was more than the initial shock and soon we were laughing together wholeheartedly, with him throwing affectionate jibes at me like “You naughty imp, you caught me there”. This episode helped in erasing all uncomfortable boundaries for us. It only confirmed what we both had known all along.


Celestial Odyssey 1

This entry was posted in delhi gurgaon travel on by (updated 5395 days ago)

Last night’s journey back from office was unexpectedly calm and peaceful. Set out at 9pm by the office cab bracing myself for the 1.5 hour ordeal. Surprisingly the traffic laden (no this isn’t osama’s relative), bumpy and potholed stretch of road was pretty empty. Of course it was still as bumpy and potholed as ever but at least there was a scope to bypass those unintentional ‘speed breakers’.
The pleasant breeze (sans the dirt and pollution) lightly caressed my face, delighting me. Strains of good music playing in the background made the effect even more ethereal. The breeze started toying naughtily, with my hair…throwing wisps of silken hair on my face. My hair was still not completely dry from the hair wash I had given it in the morn. (one of the disadvantages of butt length hair) As a result the cool wind managed to cool my poor brain which was overwrought with mental tension. I felt like throwing open my hair and feeling the wind streaming down the strands right from the follicle to the tip. (One of the thrills of butt length hair). It reminded me of the bike rides that we used to have back in Pune, when we (literally) threw caution to the winds at 90kmph on hilly Pune roads.
Seeped in nostalgia and complacently holding on to the moment, I snapped back into focus, realizing what I had been staring at for so long wasn’t just anything .. it was our very own moon, looking as full and brimming with moonlight as ever. It was SO big and close, it seemed like a scene straight out of ‘Bruce Almighty’ , except Bruce wasn’t there..but the Almighty was definitely showing off his breathtaking stunts to me :-). We crossed the back side of the Indira Gandhi International Airport..another peaceful stretch with thankfully no high rise buildings blocking my view. I kept playing hide and seek with the moon…saw it next to the beautiful Naval Officers Mess – Varuna, making it look like some Arabian structure with lots of mystery and magic. Suddenly I noticed a low flying plane going over the moon. From that distance, it looked as if it was literally ‘going over the moon’ :-). The beauty of a man made miracle next to a God made one, made that scene eligible for the best portrait award or something.
Soon we reached the Ridge Road, one of the best roads here. Because of the recent flyover constructions at Dhaula Kuan, not many people use it and the street lights have also been switched off temporarily. The ridge road is the last of the little bit left of the ridgewood forest. The wind is absolutely the best here. You can smell the fresh forest air to your hearts *and* your lungs content, hear the jungle around you and pass by unnoticed and unheard. No lighting adds to the jungle effect. The moon still kept its date with me as it followed me everywhere I went. The moment I would cast a glance at it, there it would be imploring me to somehow get photographic memory and lock this moment forever. Soon, I reached home, all fresh and calm and slept like a baby.


The ‘other’ end of the road

This entry was posted in delhi media social on by (updated 5395 days ago)

One of the many things I wonder about is … what it would be like being on the Delhi – Lahore bus. The Delhi – Lahore bus service resumes today. It would have left Delhi at 6am and would be half way by now as I blog about it. What would be on the minds of the people who go from Delhi to Lahore? Would they have someone across the border to welcome them, someone looking forward with open arms or would they be going just to satiate an inherent curiosity about this ‘other’ land, which was once their forefathers…
What makes us so different from ‘them’ – the Pakistanis? They look the same as us, wear the same clothes, eat the same dishes, speak the same tongue, were ruled by the same rulers.. heck, most of us would be able to trace back some antecedents there. I, for one, am very inquisitive (part of my nature) about what it would be like to live in Pakistan. Both sets of my grandparents hail from West Pakistan and migrated at the time of partition. They actually went through what we now just hear about or watch movies about. We can not really gauge the intensity of the occurances. But my heart really goes out to them, when they recount tales of eras bygone, of land that was their own once, of people that were their own too…
What would it be like to see where my grandparents used to live at one point of time (their youth to be precise), where my dad and a few of his siblings were born, what kind of lives they lead, what that camera looked like with which my maternal grandpa used to pursue photography as a passion, what those palatial houses looked like of which I’ve heard so much. That camera was among the many prized possessions that got left behind somewhere along with many cherished memories, in what we now call Pakistan. I can sense that some part of my grandparents being was among the many things left behind. What would it be like to visit Pakistan and go, be a part of what they left behind… What would it be like at the ‘other’ end of the road…


Rains Lash – Episode II

This entry was posted in nature on by (updated 5395 days ago)

Rains lashed back with a vengeance, on Delhi.. yet again. Monsoons have arrived and as usual, this was followed by traffic snarls, water clogging and vehicle stalling everywhere. Somehow Delhi never seems to learn but I guess some things are never meant to change anyway. I was *REALLY* pissed this morning as I wanted to drive to office. Had some work to attend to on the way. With the heavens pouring their hearts out the way they were, I wasn’t allowed to take the car as I don’t have much experience in “monsoon driving” yet. There’s always gotta be a first step, but that was not enuff of a reason for my dad to let me take the car. “The brakes also seem to be having some problem and I don’t think you should be taking such risks”. Humph was all i could do. Eventually had to resort to going by the office bus. Gosh!! Such a waste of time and it also involved getting wet. (am not really fond of getting wet, am no rain dance person).
So there I stood infront of the gurdwara waiting for my bus, getting wet and wetter with each passing moment, clutching on to my pink (yes, that *is* the colour), transparent, Japanese umbrella as if it’s my boyfriend’s cosy hand (wry smile). Passing vehicles inevitably splashed me with more muck. Finally the bus came and thankfully the seats were not *as* wet as I had expected them to be. The rain had almost stopped by then.
I decided that I had had enough of a bad mood and decided to spend the journey (it sure is a long one from Delhi to Gurgaon) observing how monsoons change Delhi. Here are a coupla things I noted.
–Lush greenery was visible everywhere..everything was cleaned up and bright even though the same place would have earlier looked like a patch of wild weeds growing -unchecked.
–Birds dotted the electric wires! They shouldn’t have been doing that in this weather.. and surprisingly they were all sitting with regular equidistant intervals.. made me wonder about their sense of space and order :-).
–Monkeys (yes they are as free as us to inhabit Delhi) were enjoying the monsoon too. I spotted one looking heavenward and slapping his forehead. That one might have been imitating me had he seen me earlier :-P.
–Squirrels were darting about trees probably checking if their stocks were soaked or preserved.
–Waves and ripples forming in the water bodies that had appeared everywhere.
–There were no boundaries to the roads! All footpaths and dividers were submerged in water in many areas. One had to practically rely on instinct to drive or rather wade through the water.

Finally I reached *office*.. what an anticlimactic destination for such a weather!

Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new sun

A new day has come-Celine Dion, A New Day Has Come
.. and a cathartic feeling has come over me…


Ode to my doggie

This entry was posted in nature personal on by (updated 5395 days ago)

Every morning we take out the water hose to fill the cooler and after that, we clean the whole place with water instead of going through the 2 regular cycles of sweeping and mopping. Every morn, my doggie (Boozy is his name n u bet he stays true to it 🙂 ), makes himself unavailable the moment he sees the water hose. He knows what’s coming and like all animals of his species, hates getting wet. He does something else with even more regularity. He turns up right there after about an hour (give n take a few minutes) with such accuracy that it’s amazing! He has observed that after about an hour, the place would be clean and the floor not too wet and just cool enuff to plonk on. His sense of timing *amazes* me, to say the least.
We all have an inbuilt clock inside. The body clock dictates a lotta bodily mundane (but nevertheless essential) functions. Many of the body’s responses to large changes in environmental light are controlled by a light detection system in the eye. Jet-lag is the classic example – where body time and local time get confused. It is only after a few days of exposure to the local light environment that body time and local time become synchronised once again.

There’s a long-standing fascination with biological clocks about understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate them. The circadian pacemaker, or control center, in humans is located in the brain’s hypothalamus. A cluster of only several thousand neurons govern a wide range of 24-hour physiological variations in our body, ranging from changes in hormonal levels and body temperature to susceptibility to disease. Understanding the detailed workings of the circadian clock may explain why heart attacks occur more often in the morning and why the incidence of asthma is more common at night, for example.

But to have an idea of how much time has elapsed since a certain event, one definitely needs a more advanced clock. So my dog ain’t no dumb mutt 🙂