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.

wanted: a really sharp elbow hacker.

So the next time I get poked by an elbow, whoever it be attached to, male or female, I will slice their bloody elbow clean. There will be nice Kill Bill-esque moment where Pointy Elbows will stare at all the blood spurting from his arm and bloodied piece of elbow bone, and i will walk away calmly. Oh and I'll whistle the really cool tune that plays in the movie.

and is there some kind of special school for this? where they teach you to ram that elbow straight into my chest and then disappear into crowds? Arrrrgh.

The really cool tune

ru -- [noun]: A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Eh ?

I’m bored of me. I’m bored of the same face that stares back at me from my bathroom mirror. I’m bored of my clothes, of the jewelry I wear. I want a make over. Where everything about me will be different

Different clothes. Thinner. No fab India. No silver earrings. No vodka n lime cordial. No cheap motorola cellphone. No buses. No metros. No same old curly hair that has looked the same since I was sixteen. No gurjari jhola. No chappals. no reporting stuff that I’m bad at. No wondering about why the bloody hell that guy didn’t call me. No keeping quiet when some one’s mean to me. No more sappy romance novels. No inarticulate speaking. No more whining. No more wallowing. No more of me.

I want to go out shopping for a brand new me.

I dont want to be brave. I'm not even trying to be. I'm not doing this for an extra byline. Or to get noticed. I want to get this over with and put it behind me.

And no i dont need to be asked if i'm ok. I might or might not be. But your asking me isnt helping matters.

If I were a beginning, I would be: the word
If I were a month, I would be: september
If I were a day of the week, I would be: sunday
If I were a time of day, I would be: dawn
If I were a planet, I would be: neptune
If I were a season, I would be: monsoon
If I were a sea animal, I would be: a dolphin
If I were a direction, I would be: south west?
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: the arm chair
If I were a sin, I would be: sloth
If I were a liquid, I would be: a vodka martini
If I were a fraud/scare, I would be: me
If I were a gem, I would be: a ruby
If I were a tree, I would be: a pine tree
If I were a tool, I would be: a screwdriver
If I were a flower/plant, I would be: a very prickly rose
If I were a kind of weather, I would be: the rains in calcutta
If I were a musical instrument, I would be: a flute, or a saxophone
If I were an animal, I would be: a well fed fluffy cat
If I were an emotion, I would be: contentment (is that an emotion?)
If I were a vegetable, I would be: an onion
If I were a sound, I would be: silence
If I were an element, I would be: water
If I were a car, I would be: this is easy. A bright red lamborghini
If I were a song, I would be: “maybe tomorrow” by stereophonics
If I were a food, I would be: homey comfort food. like rajma chawal
If I were a place, I would be: home
If I were a material, I would be: khadi
If I were a taste, I would be: chocolate
If I were a scent, I would be: a freshly brewed pot of darjeeling tea
If I were a religion, I would be: no idea. Do agnostics have a religion?
If I were a sentence, I would be: this one
If I were a body part, I would be: eyes
If I were a facial expression, I would be: a lazy smile
If I were a subject in college, I would be: not mathematical economics
If I were a shape, I would be: round
If I were a quantity, I would be: a litre
If I were a colour, I would be: turquoise
If I were a thing, I would be: my first fountain pen
If I were a landmass, I would be: plateau of Tibet
If I were a book, I would be: the catcher in the rye
If I were a monument, I would be: the Spinx
If I were an artist, I would be: Van Gogh
If I were a collection of poems, I would be: readable
If I were a landscape, I would be: an oasis
If I were a watch, I would be: the fast track thing I wear
If I were God, I would be: really bad at my job
If I were a vowel, I would be: a
If I were a consonant, I would be: l
If I were a formula, I would be: a grandmothers secret recipe
If I were a Science, I would be: marine biology
If I were a theory, I would be: chaos theory
If I were a famous person, I would be: smug
If I were an electronic equipment, I would be: the ac
If I were sport, I would be: ok so not sports. scrabble
If I were a movie, I would be: amellie
If I were a cartoon, I would be: luann
If I were an explorer, I would be: dead
If I were a scientist, I would be: archimedes :D
If I were a relation, I would be: not very nice to know
If I were a river, I would be: a brook pretending to be one
If I were intoxication, I would be: a nicotine buzz
If I were alone, I would be: making tea or reading
If I were a question, then I would be: han?
If I were a hobby, I would be: something totally pointless
If I were a habit, I would be: fidgeting
If I were in an atom, I would be: invisible?
If I were an end, I would be: a happy ending
If I were you, I would be: not reading this .


I was tagged by Jo and i tag Lara, Serendipiduous, Anwesha and Oopie

You Are an Afternoon Person

You can find energy any time of the day ... or night! You prefer to be out and about when most other people are. Very early mornings or very late nights aren't really your thing. You're practically solar powered, and the afternoon is when do best.

Are You a Morning Person or Night Person?

Things that make me happy right now

Incredibly pretty pair of long bronze earrings.
Meeting friend who I hadn’t seen for a long time
Getting treated to toast n stew
Plans of sleepover at bestest friend and rock’ s etc (I’ve mentioned her before)
The thought of meeting a lot of friends for girly lunch tomorrow
Not having any work
And yet getting a comp to myself (that is so rare in this office!)
Radioblog playing softly

hate-list updated. includes sleazy photographer person one. and fatso busybody irritating intern, one . and now excludes not-very-polite-but-actually-quite-nice person-in-new-team.

sleazy photographer(SP) besides trying to imply that "there is friendship between us" (WTF!! what does that mean?)also discussed pornography(this, 2 weeks after i join) (and i think its sleazy to do so. even if you think that makes me a prude) and makes crank calls at my extension.

so obviously when some guy calls at our extension and keeps on saying hello even after i said hello in reply, i assumed it was SP, and was a wee bit rude. after which the line got disconnected. i hang up. try to get back to work. when idiot phone rings again. i bark a really terrible sounding hello into the phone. person at the the other end of the line asks for fatso intern. intern answers the phone. which is when it occurs to me that, the voice did not quite sound like SP. it was in fact, or so intern tells me, my boss's boss. intern also tells me that boss's boss actually asked who had answered the phone inititally.(thankfully boss hung up before intern told him that it was me, new female/trainee who definitely should not have an attitude problem and should NOT bark hello's in to the phone)

i have decided that i will fake laryngitis and speak to boss's boss in sign language. or pass chits. or mime. or in anyway delete my voice from his aural memory. (is there such a thing as an aural memory?)

and yes i generally do not call people fatso. or fat. i call intern so, because he is an irritating name dropping pompous ass.

darn! cute guy at work is cute no more.

and there is possibility that i wont be working under my totally lovely boss anymore. my boss is the most amazing woman ever. she can turn the crap i write into an actual article. and in the entire building she's the only person in this entire building who counts me as human. also she never ever points out that what i write is total crap. sigh. and now i'll be shifted to a team of nice enough people or so i can assume, except that they were a team before i joined, and will treat me like an outsider. so jokes will be cracked which i wont get which wont be explained to me. and my articles will be subbed to bits. and... sigh. this too shall pass, i guess.

am whining too much these days, no? happy thoughts then. byline's come out six times already. yay me. bestest-friend-and-rock-one-person-who gets-me-totally-and-loves-me-despite-and-does-not-make-fun-of-me is in town. so yay!

skulk, skulk skulk.



am at work on Sunday. but skulking so that i can file silly story first and run away. am terrified that boss's boss will see me and send me on crazy story which no-one wants to do. and that's another thing. what is it with me and crazy stories? walked about like maniac and accosted random people on park street with bizarre questions. and then went to the tea table and accosted other touristy looking people with more questions.

and wanted to text colleague saying that i really liked his article. except in the process ended up sending text to boss. so boss thinks am presumptuous lil thing now. or worse. that am sycophantic. yay me. and obviously i cant send her a message saying that it wasn't meant for you. what would i say any way, "am sorry the message wasn't mean for you. your article was not nice?"...sheesh!

PMS and lock-yourself-up-in-the-loo-to-cry day. i really wish i could do something about them lachrymal glands. its totally ridiculous how almost anything can set them off. arrrgh.

Blue Monday

i need to whine. and take a crying jag. and spend an entire day feeling sorry for myself until am so sick of self that i have no option but to stop. funny thing is that i have nothing really to crib about. i have a really nice job. very few people actually get this job fresh out of college. and no one has actually said that i am a complete idiot for not knowing the things am supposed to. and whoever whines about not having friends at work ?