Sabse Chota
So yesterday evening, I headed to Metro Plaza after an assignment at the ICCR where I watched a stunning wadaiko performance. Something about them reminded me of anime cartoons… the martial arts type stance, the intense expressions, the very hypnotic beats…(unfortunately that’s all I understood of their music and thankfully I didn’t have to write anything beyond a 30 word caption). Down the lane was Metro Plaza, where I was supposed to meet colleagues out shopping.

I wouldn’t buy anything, I planned. And I held off for quite sometime. There was a nice lacy sleeveless top that screamed ‘buy me’, but I looked away. There was a plain black round necked T that, I swear, I needed desperately (it would go with my long sleeveless white tunic, my fab India skirts, on every fat day…) But I decided I needed the money in my wallet more. There were peep toe ballerinas that I decided were far too cute for me. I can’t do cute, I told myself. And then, I fell for a corduroy, calf length A-line skirt in pretty grape. It was languishing behind a lot of hideous mini skirts and was on sale. I had to rescue it. Except that the shop had no trial room. And the waist looked a wee bit big for me. So I tried it over my jeans and T. Fits fine, I thought. "If it fits over my jeans it’ll be loose emni, na ?" I asked my colleagues.
They nodded. "Bhaiya isse chota size nahin hoga ?(Doesn’t this come in a smaller size?"I asked the shopkeeper.
"Yahi sabse chota size hai" he shook his head.
"Haan?! Maine kabhi bhi sabse chota size nahin pehna (Really?! I’ve never worn the smallest size in anything!" (Yes I know the Hindi is wrong, but this is Calcutta). And…well…bought. Sigh. Things I do to feel thin!

P. S. the skirt looks fine if held up with a belt. Without it, it rides dangerously low.

P. P. S Does anyone know an inexpensive tailor who would alter clothes they haven’t made? In Calcutta that is.

the life and rants of the single, imaginative and (perhaps) desperate

So when he called me to ask if I was coming to watch his show, I shrugged. I thought, ok, cute bassist, already beginning to happen band, is being nice to media person. And then I watch them play, while hiding behind the bar so I can take notes while watching them, without being shoved around by the pub goers, my eardrums bursting because I'm right next to the speakers and I'm a little sad and a little lonely and fall a little in love with their music. It comes easy with self pity, beer and no company. I leave in the middle of their show as it is quarter to twelve and this was a last minute assignment and my poor mum is waiting up for me.

In the car, happy, alone, the wind in my hair, am impressed enough to leave a message saying "Loved your gig. Malini from so and so newspaper". I wake up the next morning and see the reply:"Hey, wanted to meet you. Left?" I almost reply. But decide against it.

Still don't have an interview so I sms the ahem-rather-hot band manager. "Would ****** be free for an interview at 2?" Nope. They're leaving the hotel at 2 since they have a show at an orphanage. Could the interview happen there? Sure, I say. And cringe. Mail my pending story. Get ready to go to work on my only day-off in the week.

I reach the venue, which is a quaint house off the bypass where they are setting up their equipment. And in the space of the interview am charmed in spite of myself. Their wit. Their humour. Their complete lack of snotty attitude. Oh and how they almost made me blush. Almost.

Question: Once the novelty factor wears off do you think your music and songwriting will be strong enough to stand the test of time?"

Vocalist: Yes because the sound remains the same. If today you take a baul or ram leela performer and make him wear a shirt and trousers while performing, what he sings remains the same. If that lady in jeans and kurta does the bharatnatyam, she may not look like a dancer but it will still be bharatnatyam. Even if there was no kajal in your eyes**(or something to that effect) they wont stop being beautiful.

I smile a little unsurely. What is going on, I wonder. What do I do with this sentence? Does it go in my copy? And well, what is a compliment doing in the middle of my interview?!!

Bassist sniggers: You didn't get that.

Vocalist: That was a compliment.

Me (I think I mumbled) : mmm well, I smiled. Sort off.

Vocalist: She got that. She smiled.

I continue valiantly with my interview (difficult to do, if your feeling as foolish).

Interview over, I watch them goof around and practice and realize that my copy would be hopelessly not objective. Just when the gig is about to start a woman lands up. "Where is ***(bassist)? I have his clothes."

"Ota ke ( who's that)?" I ask the photographer. "Bassist er bou (wife)," he answers. My heart sinks. Ok no. Shatters into tiny million pieces. "It's meeting the man of my dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife," Alanis laughed in my head as she sang this, I think. (Ok so not man of my dreams. Not tha-ha-at cute. But you know what I mean? Alanis, gets me.)

Sms to Debo and Sanjukta: I just found out that the bassist who I thought was interested is married. wail!"

Debo: Ahare hugs. Why does it always happen with us?

Me: Sniff. I dunno. He is cuteness!

Sanjukta: Single men are a dying lot....(more stuff I wont blog about)

Me: He's cute and has a dimple and a goatee and spiked hair and geeky glasses. Am a pool of mushy lust.


When the gig begins I see them interact effortlessly with the kids, entertain, crack jokes and dance and continue the show despite ten thousand complaints to lower the volume (madhyamik on, complained the neighbours) and the lights being switched off twice. I decide I'm in like with all of them. The bassist, who's married. The hot band manager, who Gtalk gossip tells me, is not single. And the sweetheart of a curly-haired drummer (who is almost three years younger than me) who grinned at the kids, who danced around him, as he played.

All the men I want are either married, otherwise taken or too young! Such is life. Sigh.

girl talk

The phone beeps. Girl: Checks sms. "Oh the reply…'too much thinking would be about trying to understand what happened yesterday…What went right and what went wrong and most imp y! :-)' hah! capital letter after an ellipsis! Ki boli?"

BFF: chuckles. "what?! does he even know women?"

Girl: hehehe. guess not. but honestly, what do i say?

BFF: hmm what about 'aha'

Girl: Nooo!

pause.

BFF: He's the one thinking too much. He brought it up!

Girl: Exactly. Maybe I should text him that.

pause

Girl: No. Let him suffer. I wont reply till he calls tomorrow after landing.

BFF: laughs. "You have to think so much, na. I feel all smug"

Girl: Bitch!

BFF: giggles and ashes her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray.

pause

Girl: Oh I know! I'll say 'hah, why don't you admit it. You're the one thinking too much.'

BFF: han send exactly that

Girl: Oh but I was supposed to maker him suffer.

BFF: It doesn't matter. This is a nicer reply.

Girl: okay... types furiously... "Smiley with a wink? or Smiley with a D"

BFF: Smiley with a D

Girl: ok... and send

5 minutes later

Girl: He still hasn't replied!!

I don’t hear my name often enough. At least, not the way I know and pronounce my name. Most of the times I’m Miss Malini Something. Or, worse, a Mrs Malini Something. And when I’m introducing myself to someone who I’ve called or met for work, I say Malini from so and so newspaper. So fast that I almost swallow my name and make sure that they get the name of the newspaper, but often not my name.


I remember a maths tutor and a relative who would attach the prefix Hema, to my name referring to a yesteryear Bollywood actress. Later in college when a television serial came out starring another Bollywood star,with my name and Iyer as the title, I was called that. Or teased by that title. It never really bothered me. It was annoying, true. But that was all. There are others who don’t seem to get their tongue around the middle syllable. It’s Ma-li-ni. Not Mal-ni. Though there are times I've thought Mal-ni sounded kinda cute. Another batch mate came up with another corny substitute. Maal-ini. Maal as in goods/ booze/ drugs/ whatever and ini as in her.


The only time when I notice hearing my name is actually a PR trick. I say “Hi I’m Malini from so-n-so newspaper and they make it a point to say ‘Hi Malini,’ when just a simple 'yes' would have sufficed. It makes me feel good ( I think, Ooh, what a pretty name I have!) and saying it out loud helps them remember my name. And though I know it’s a PR trick, I’ll be the first to say it’s damn good one! I’ve heard Mal B (ach. Like Mel B?!) Miss *insert surname* or Mal, or the worst, Muhi-li-ni. And this when my name is one of the easier Indian names.


I don’t know if not hearing my name often, has some kind of deep far reaching psychological repercussions. I’m too comfortable where I am and with who or what I am to ever have any kind of deep existential identity crisis.


It must be the same for others too, am guessing, since I don’t call any of my friends by their name that often. You don’t say the person’s name when you are talking to them in person. So much so, that I often don’t know the way someone pronounces their name. There is this boy I’ve known for a year and it only occurred to me to ask how he pronounces his name while writing this post. I know that Debashree pronounces her name as De-bo-shree. And Sanjukta is San-juk-ta sometimes and Shong-juk-ta/ Shom-yuk-ta at others, mostly depending on what language she is speaking in. Sabrina is Sabrina always. Srijita too is Srijita always except whenever I say it comes out as Shijita. Sonal is actually somewhere between Sonal and Sonullah… there are so many names I’ve mispronounced or pronounced correctly over the years. Sometimes even on purpose.

But I miss hearing my name. Which is a little strange. How do you miss something you never had?

So Sao, Debo and I were waiting for the metro back home. Sao was entertaining us with the traumatic experience that was reviewing Love Story when our metro rolled in. We headed for the empty seats in the ladies section and as we sat down we found that a group of young girls opposite us were staring with avid interest. Sao had to comment. "Girls check out girls more than girls check out boys...noticed?" she asked. I shrugged and pointed out that all of us do it. And pretty often.

We looked around. And honestly, there was not even one remotely attractive male in that compartment. So we switched to our standard bitching about how there are no men in Calcutta. "There are no guys worth checking out in Calcutta. So we stick to women," I laughed. Sao paused and thought for a while before relating, "Nah, there was this CITU bus that would go to Salt Lake that used to always be full of good-looking men." Apparently she and her family would take that bus while visiting relatives. "It used to be fun janish. It would take more than an hour to get there and we'd always spend a day there. It used to be like a trip," she reminisced.

"And?" I asked. She giggled," Sheyi bus tayi bondho hoye gelo (that bus stopped running)."

Hence, proved?

So now you know why I haven't gotten around to blogging. Look here.

So I have this problem. I am a cry-baby. I cry at the drop of a hat. Books, movies, TV serials… from the banal to the ‘deep’ nearly everything can make me cry.

Frankly my dear I don’t give damn? Booo hoo. (An hour of crying and a headache later).

Joe Hardy sad because girlfriend dies? Sniffle (yes, that too. I kid you not)

Harry Potter, angsty, misunderstood and Sirius dead? Waaail.

The time when Grey’s Anatomy’s Meredith looks at dishy McDreamy and says: "I love you, in a really, really big pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me. Choose me. Love me" and I knew he wouldn’t leave the wife…I bawled my eyes out.

And these are just the trivial fictitious things that make me cry. It’s a joke with my friends. An embarrassment to my dad (poor guy, he doesn’t get why a completely objective debate on Singur and Mamata triggers the waterworks. Its isn’t easy for a man to be surrounded by so much of oestrogen) and an irritant to mum. And well if you knew me, one of these reactions will be yours. I cry, when I’m so angry, I could kill you. I cry when I’m deliriously happy. I cry when I’m tired and frustrated (yes the office loo and too much work has done that to me). I cry when I’m hurt. Or embarrassed. Or humiliated. Or just mildly sad and wistful. I cry sometimes just because I need to. So if there is any basic spike of emotion I will cry. I don’t know why. Like when I’m having a fight this independent evil part of my brain decides, "oh she is mad now…lets make her blubber like a fool".

Mostly, this doesn’t bother me anymore. Everyone who knows me knows I cry, so they’ve sort of accepted it as "my thing". I’ve made my peace with it all. The red eyes, the puffy eyelids, the sudden blocked nose. The horrible look of pity I get when people realise that I’ve been crying. The slight ache behind my eyes when I’m all cried out. Even those times when the credits roll on a rom-com that I’ve been watching with friends and they look at me incredulously and say, "What? You didn’t cry?" Am actually ok with it all. I even find it funny at times.

But sometimes I think about this other girl I know off. She happens to be friend of a friend of a friend and I’ve never met her. Sometimes I wish I was her. She has this bizarre condition that makes her unable to cry. "My lachrymal glands are dry and almost don’t function," she had confessed to my friend. Which means she lugs around eye drops wherever she goes. And has to put it in her eye every hour when she’s wearing lenses and in general suffers a lot of general discomfort because of her condition. "Only if something hurts really badly and I’m in tremendous physical pain, can I squeeze out, like, one tear," she’d said.

Sometimes I wish I was her.

So the boy was hitting on someone else. And obsessive psycho-stalker that she has turned into she has the new girl all figured out. What's strange is that the new girl he's hitting on is exactly like her. The same taste in clothes. The same taste in music. The same major. The same university( only a batch juniour). In fact she even remembers spotting her around the canteen stairs sometimes. And this has happened her before. There was another another boy before. Who liked another girl. She remembered thinking she was a lot like her too. Only taller. "What is it with these women? Is it just them? Or am I an assembly line product and there is nothing to differentiate me from the countless other women I know," she thinks as reaches into her jewelry box. Out come the new dangly earring's acquired from the BFF. Out come a dozen pretty silver bangles. There are toe rings, an anklet and pretty mojris with faded gold work. "My jingle jangle morning," she smiles as she catches her reflection in the auto on her way to work. "There, I can't be that bad!"


Sometimes happiness can be that simple.

I have a look am told. A colleague of mine (who has a wardrobe and dressing sense I could kill for) just asked me to get someone with 'my look' for a makeover story. And as I stared at her blankly she added: "I want someone who looks like you...you know the whole ethno-grunge look." Thankfully she did not see me floating down the stairs all starry eyed and happy, thinking, 'Wow I actually have a look.' Although, now that Ii think of it, a look that calls for a makeover can't be a good thing now, can it?

I still dont how raddi kurtis, ancient Levis, flappy chappals, mad ma-ha-ad hair and giant-panda-esque smudged kohl can can count as a look, but hey 'ethno-grunge' works for me. This is what I love about this industry. Almost anything can be made to sound cool.

Though I hope it isn't quite as bad as Jude Law says in Closer (yes the movie is my new obsession)...

"Dan: At six, we stand round the computer and read the next day's page, make final changes, put in a few euphemisms to amuse ourselves...

Alice: Such as?

Dan: "He was a convivial fellow" - meaning he was an alcoholic. "He valued his privacy" - gay. "He enjoyed his privacy" - raging queen."

Question: What would my euphemism be?

Remember that irritating female in Dil Chahta Hai? that forgettable character who Aamir dumped for Preity ? The one who made it seem a little pathetic and sort of funny that she seemed to chase Akash so desperately. Remember Suchitra Pillai and Saif Ali khan? Remember the screaming, the ranting and the screechy "i never want to see you again" before she slams the door on him? Ever wondered what happens to them? What do they do after? Do they secretly cry into their pillows after their break-up? Do they go into hiding after their public humiliation ?(God, an entire generation of movie watchers will be forever laughing at them. ) What happens to all the ex-es of the scores of lovable rakes and the ruthless rogues (ugh yes I've read far too many romance novels) who meet the love of their lives in the romances, we read and watch? (hmm make that I read and watch) Do they get stone drunk and bawl their eyes out in some nightclub? Do they go buy chocolates and booze and listen to sad weepy songs on their iPods? Do they sit around in their PJs with a bottle of vodka and listen to All By Myself like Bridget Jones ? Hah well at least Jones has Darcy. What happens to all those women who get dumped for other women who the hero likes 'just the way they are' ? What happens to the geeky Avril in Girlfriend's video ? What happens to Edward's ex girlfriends in Pretty Woman?

and I hate myself for even thinking this, but what happens to me?

Watched the first 20 mins of Closer before heading for work. And now am in love with the first scene of the movie. And the song that plays in the background. Listen.

I stumbled across this rather pretty song today.

There is this bit about where they say

“Ohh maybe someday
Someway, somehow in some town
We’ll get together and
We’ll break it down
And I’ll ask why you’ve been
so shy”

that hits a spot somewhere. It’s completely mushy and so not profound but yet so…pretty. It reminds me of this day when a friend (is there such a thing as an ex friend?) handed this piece of paper saying, "Read. It's for you." (I still have that handwritten note tucked away in my diary) The poem was almost lame, but had this really pretty refrain which said ‘haven’t we met before right here on a certain rainy day.’ I know which rainy day he was talking about. And even though we don’t talk to each other anymore, I’ll always remember that rainy afternoon (the whole day wasn't rainy. Just the afternoon) And know that I’d once been that special. It’s a nice feeling. I’m all warm and fuzzy inside as I sing along to “I’m shy that way”.

In my heart I am a musician. I was meant to be Shirley Manson and wear knee high boots and very very dark eye make up and sing "Steal me, deal me, anyway you heal me,
Maim me, tame me, you can never change me"
Or may be Alanis Morissette and go crazy on stage while singing "You Oughta Know." Or may be wear flowy clothes and be ultra feminine and sing the dreamy "Shoot the moon" like Norah Jones. Though mostly, I can’t carry a tune. And though all those years when I was taking Hindustani classical music (vocal) (that’s what it says on the ID card. As if being vocal makes it less classical. Weird) lessons I used to be able to carry a tune (alas, I don’t think I can even do that now) dhrupad and random taals you had to double triple quadruple the pace of, used to confuse the bejesus out of me. And even I make me wince when I sing out loud with Sheryl Crow. Sigh. I really wanna be a rock star-ish person in my next life.

You know what the world really needs? A shampoo and conditioner timer. The medicated shampoo I use has to be kept on for five minutes and the conditioner for three. And my watch may or may not be waterproof but I don’t want to risk checking to see if it is. So, we need water proof timer. And counting to 300 doesn’t work. I keep forgetting where I am post 100 seconds. By 80-something seconds I drift off to some other world and I have no idea how many seconds I have lost in reverie. Have I reached 300 seconds mark? Have I gone passed it? Is this why I have either mad frizzy hair or limp weird hair ?

Ok this will contradict the inner rock star dream. I was born in the wrong time. I watched Pakeezah yesterday and I have realised I was meant to be Pakeezah. Ok not Pakeezah. Something close. I want to wear pretty kurtas and churidars, walk slowly and gracefully and wear lovely mojris. I was meant to wear white churidars and kurtis and lie on a divan with my hair soaking in the fountain. I want paighams about my pretty feet. But I don’t want to be surrounded by so many shrill giggling women.

I’m wearing something totally impractical today. Ethnic 16 kali skirts aren’t made for two-way trips around half of Calcutta that involve two auto rides and a metro ride each way. Or for possible rainy days. But oh, but today’s weather is meant for long flowy skirts. And for leaving your hair open. And for pretty anklets and toe-rings. (Am leaving out the bangles and the earrings, ’cause well for me they are every-weather). And while stepping out of the house today as I struggled to keep bag, stole, hair and skirt in place and felt the wind in my hair, I felt totally girlie. Absolutely filmy, I know. And absolutely lovely. Being a girl is such fun.

P.S. I don’t care how many designers scream themselves hoarse saying long n flowy skirts are out. I like them!

i bought. i read. i loved.

I didn't exactly spend my new year's eve doing this. But had a quiet new year's eve all the same. Hung out with S. And realized that beer, cigarettes and good conversation is all one really needs. (Reality Bites was wrong. hah.) Though calling it conversation would be pushing it. What it was, was a monologue where I talked and she listened. I obsessed and ranted about people-who-aren't-paying-attention-to-me-although-they-should-be and she listened. And was much amused. And considering I have to function without such daily rants because we meet twice a year, it was a lot of fun :-)

validation. hee

You know that feeling when you just don’t want to work? When you stare at the blank screen on your PC and the words running through your head are not the ones you should be typing. Those times when all you want to do is soak in the already fading winter and sit in the sun and peel oranges while your friends talk around you and you sit and you watch it all in sepia tinted slow motion.

I get that a lot these days. I’m missing something, I think. I just don’t know what.

My boss got me earrings from her trip to Bombay. I can now hereby swear that she is the coolest boss ever. Do any of you have a boss who fishes out a pair of girly, dangly earrings out of the front pocket of her dungarees? Or one who always makes it a point to tell you if she likes a story idea/story? or one who you would hug if only she weren't your boss? heh i don't think so.

my job so rocks!

My exams are finally over. Which means that even my 'part-time-student-days' have ended. I don't quite know how that makes me feel. Went out with university friends for dinner and drinks after the last exam. Which was fun, though Maddy took hideous pics of me. But ooh one pic, which is all shadowy and a little blurred is really nice. And I'm vain enough to be pleased with nice photographs of me. I know I'll look at it twenty years later and think that it was nice to be young and err... almost pretty. Which is such a nice feeling. Dontcha think?


Went back to work after a break of 19 days yesterday. And had no work so tagged along with Ducksie to a rock competition. And felt very old. And what is it with all the Calcutta rock bands. Where does all this bad attitude come from ?

And yes I'm capable of feeling young and almost pretty and old and dowdy in a span of twenty four hours. I amaze myself sometimes.