Help!

I need somebody to dust, sweep and mop, wash dishes, wash clothes, vaccum clean, cook my meals and iron my clothes. My maid has been on french leave for the past 5 days (fever has conveniently rendered her inactive for the length of the Durga Puja festival) and I am half-dead. I have 3 assignments and 1 case study to submit, projects to plan and allot, pages and pages to read up, write 2 papers, read 5 chapters for my other diploma, arrange my admissions and courses and complete my reading list. I need help, I'm coming undone. Living alone is tough. God, why me? WHY?

Life is tougher for single people. Couples can share housework and other chores, but for the single there is no respite. I have no one to even request to cook up soup when I am feeling unwell. It sucks majorly.

Due to work, academic and housekeeping pressures, this blog will be updated sporadically for the next 3 weeks. Do keep commenting though. Heh. Meanwhile, let me just get out there and get some work done.

Terrible Threes

Nobody can drive me up the wall better than Ponappa. The babe has not changed one bit. She can still sell her soul for books. She's badgered me to death and now I am lending her few books. I still wonder how I walked into that. I don't think advancing age has affected our capacity for mischief. To be sampled at the meeting: Vodka Pani puris. Mmmmmmm...

One entire week of solitude

The Durga Pujas are a huge thing in Kolkata. My workplace seems to be the only business open on almost all the puja days. Its ashtami today, the main day of the pujas and I went to work. Its very irritating to see all services come to a grinding standstill during the pujas. I grit my teeth and shout at the unfortunate customer support phone monkeys and vent my displeasure. If I had my way everyone would work on all days, even on weekends. Its not just me, its Volkswagen too. The scientists at Volkswagen are working on circadian rythms and their alteration. I feel that I have Seasonal Affective Disorder and I'm curious to know if this means cures for psychosomatic (in my opinion, how can SAD be real, huh?) illnesses will be discovered. If its all in my mind, I'm not so sure I want my mind tampered with, though I'd give anything to stop being affected by gloomy weather. Such are the thoughts that occupy my brain in my one week of solitude. From what, you may ask? That is actually my little secret!

Mean old biddy

Yesterday I threw a hissy fit at Ponappa and told her I wont meet her and Her Highness for lunch because I felt pushed around. Later I cried in despair because I'd rather be pushed around by my two old biddies than not meet them and be not pushed around by them. In our scheme of things, I am the weakest link, but somehow I don't mind that. So, I rang up Ponappa in the middle of things and told her that I had changed my mind and would meet them for lunch as was planned. It was nice to hear her hysterical laughter. I haven't laughed that way since I left my gang.

Literati lover

There are days (rather nights) when no matter what, I just can't get any sleep. On such nights, I play Literati. I slay opponents without mercy and push up my ratings. On bad days, the Literati Gods insist on doling out xcvxnym arrangements to me and it makes me push on for yet another game to see if my luck will hold out in the next draw or not. Those are the days when my ranking plummets from the 2200s to the ignomious 2000s and I become a lowly orange blob instead of a lofty red blob. Yesterday night was not one of those nights. I won every game I played. It didnt help me sleep any better, though.

Pillow Talk

In the last few days, I have watched Hoffman, re-runs of Sex and the city, Will & Grace and The wind in the willows. I didn't watch all this by choice, I watched them while I was doing my assignments. I was charmed by The wind in the willows and laughed at and was scantily menaced by Hoffman.

Most of the time

I wonder what has happened to the himbos in my gym? Aren't gyms supposed to abound with beautiful, dumb men? Where are they in my gym? Why do I get to see only ugly, uncouth, pot-bellied old men?

One more cup of coffee

Everybody seems to be getting married, everybody who falls in my age-bracket atleast or so it seems. Yesterday, I called up someone who I can classify as an old friend (every adjective being used in a very relative manner over here) and it transpired that the fellow had gotten married. Nice!

Ponappa might be jumping the gun soon too. She seems resigned to her fate. Her fate being, following docilely the dictates of her rather over-bearing, conventional father. When I hear her mouth inanities like, "I can't escape fate and I can't say no to my father, you know how it is, don't you?" I feel mad and positively incendiary. Whatever happened to the woman who was all fire and brimstone and feminazi? Its just been four years and this is what happens to her? I merely laugh wryly and say, "whatever Ponappa, its your life." Now, if Varsha was to get married too, I would so totally know that my friends had completely gone to the dogs. Years ago when I had told Ponappa that I knew that 5 years from now, I would be the only one living life on a principle, they had all laughed at me. Here I am now ladies, having the last laugh, or not?

Few days back, I was talking with an ex (the only one with whom I am friends), and like most exes tend to do in the late hours of the night connected over a telephone cable, we pulled and tugged and took our now-over relationship to pieces. Now that I am older and less prone to aggressive fits and temper tantrums, I realise that I am just not relationship material. Nobody can stand me for a length of time, not even my flesh and blood and I said the same to him and I apologized for all the hissy fits I had thrown. He apologized for being non-committal all the time and that I was surprized he admitted it. I got the feeling that he was trying to edge back in, but I really have no time for anyone right now and certainly not for non-committal men who have dumped me (and have been dumped by me, hehehe) for no apparent reasons in the past. When I don't need anyone, I have a surfeit of help, when I was in need I got all doors slammed on my face.

The fakeness of blogging

Well, well, well. What the British do, Indians do after few years. So if the Guardian goes ga-ga over blogging, can the Telegraph (The Indian one) be left behind? The Sunday section devoted the cover story to blogging and dragged out non-entities and made grandiose, idiotic statements about the "future" and "passion" of bloggers, and so on and so forth. My reaction? Hah!

As far as I am concerned, I hate the fake hype created by newspapers that render the stupid, news-worthy. It gives a whole new meaning to dumbing down the masses and I'm amazed how people can swallow BS day after day! Anyhow. To each his own. Building up a hype about blogs (or for that matter any technological advancement) reminds me of the excitement that trains or cars must have caused when they were introduced.

I read many blogs and consider myself voyeuristic for being interested in the lives of people I don't even know. Mostly, I keep reading because I like seeing how people live and function in different cultures. I still feel it is silly the way people root for popularity on blogs. Why would anyone want total unknowns to give a pat on the back or a verdict of okayness? What difference does it make anyway? I like it when people comment on my blog, but thats just about it. I'm naturally taciturn, moody and totally asocial, so I simply don't get people who are not. Heh!

Say what?

My digital camera is cradling in my lap while I type this.

The cosmic joke that is my life

I have 2 assignments to submit today and yesterday my PC just hung up and refused to get booted on again at 1:00 a.m. in the night. Why me God? Why me?

Meanwhile work is getting really busy and my deadlines are looming up again. My digital camera is ummm.... on its way. That is the one and only thing in my life that I can smile at.

Red Kitchen and Lounge - Alipore

Lovely kebabs, nice mongolian hotpot, horrible and terrible kitschy decor, pukey music, stomach-turning crowds.

What is it with Kolkata and lounge bars? I wondered aloud and was told that its the concept of getting something for free that appeals to the crowds in Kolkata. Maybe that theory holds some weight? I haven't been to the shisha lounge bar yet. There is no reason for not going actually, but everytime I plan to go, the truly awful crowds hold me back.

Where do you go, my lovely?

Dr. (Miss) Varsha has disappeared without a trace. I didn't realise a doctorate would result in disappearance. If any of you know where she might have gone, drop me a line.

Hormonal rushes

You are a pheromone. You are seductive and you know
what you want. You have something about you
that permeates the air and draws people to you.
You can get what you want almost without fail,
like some of the sexiest moths out there.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Lunch at Shun Li's, Tangra

Menu: Chilli crabs, Thai (yeah! but tasty, tasty) soup, rice noodles with mixed mushrooms, Steamed Garlic fish (to die for), drunken prawns.

Justifies dinner, what?!

Dinner at Plumpie's

Can of diet pepsi, handful of walnuts, 100 gms yoghurt, a bowl of leftover cold rice mixed with gherkins, mustard, leftover karela (bitter gourd) bhaji, green chillies, HBR alternated with Ishiguro, Dylan.

My diet scares me at times.

Wicked thoughts in the dead of the night

WHY do Indians breed? WHY do they breed wailing brats who wail at exactly 1:30 pm in the night EVERY fuckin' day of this fuckin' week? I thought my hidey-hole was a calm and peaceful haven UNTIL the fuckin' neighbours brought home their fuckin' baby. Another reason never to breed.

Look Mamma!

My legs have no jiggly cellulite anymore! If only I could say the same for my tummy. There's nothing that an elliptical trainer can't take care of, eventually, I hope.

Dead

I feel dead - from inside.

Whew!

My first assignment for my diploma came back with respectable marks and with a rejoinder to be slightly more descriptive. For someone who is used to clean, precise and neat mathematical proofs, being descriptive does not come easy, but I shall try.

I was pretty scared of my assignment reviews since this is the first time I am studying something other than the sciences and I was not sure of how to structure my write-ups. I am feeling more confident now.

Meanwhile, my reading pile has again crossed the one foot mark. My days are returning to normal. Heh! Sleep - 3 hours and work - neverending.

Taaja's Garlic Dip

Taaja's Creative Cuisine is a well-known restaurant in Calcutta. They do a lovely paella (which is nothing like the original thing though) and serve it with a mouth watering garlic sauce. Recently, the best natural cook I have ever known, revealed the simple recipe to me. I bought a handheld blender two days back and tried it out promptly. It was identical to Taaja's version! So here I share a simple Garlic sauce/ dip recipe. You can have it as a dip with tortilla chips, potato chips, carrot fingers, asparagus or anything at all. You can also serve it with paella. Indeed, it goes best with paella, in my opinion. Anyway, here is the recipe.

Ingredients: 100 gms hung curd or thick non-flavoured yoghurt, 5 big cloves of garlic, 4 green chillies, salt to taste, 1 teaspoon of sunflower or olive oil. I used sunflower oil.
Method: Mix all ingredients and blend till smooth. Add salt and enjoy!

Singapore is a FINE city

My vacation was spent in Singapore eating, shopping, walking and sight-seeing. Being all alone is therapeutic. It was a relief to be in a city where no one knew me and I knew no one. Thankfully the city I had chosen was safe. I ate HERE, HERE and very often over HERE. I shopped HERE, HERE and in many malls located HERE. I enjoyed local and south-east asian art HERE and HERE. Then best of all, I got a lovely treat, I got to watch a musical "Mamma Mia!" over HERE. I also swam, went to amusement parks, safaris, sampled Mooncakes (Thanks Renee!), went to Glutton's Square, walked and walked and walked (despite the heat and the humidity). I also increased my shoe count by one. I went somewhat berserk at the Body Shop. I loved services in Singapore and the people. I loved the fact that no one bugged me even once. I loved the fact that despite being all alone I got excellent services. Most of all, I loved being alone without the pressures of work or deadlines. I enjoyed this vacation so much I might just head to Singapore everytime I need a vacation.

Lifecycle of a Guest Doodle blogger

I am back from my vacation and you can see my very first doodle blog at Dem's over HERE. Thank you Demian for the lovely surprize!