Gumnaam hai koi

is actually not as gumnaam. As my now-husband J discovered, on musicovery when we ran into Charade by Quincy Jones, the gumshuda artist who ORIGINALLY had thunk up the tune was gumnaam only in India.

Bah.

this and that

i always thought ‘of mice and men’ was by somerset maugham. turns out it’s by john steinbeck. thank’s netflix.

ps: i just googled important works of somerset maugham and figured i was confusing this one with of human bondage.

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when i don’t punctuate well, it’s either i am feeling a lot of emotion, or randomness, or a i don’t have a point to make. which is like now.

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My fortune cookie just told me:

“Your financial situation will soon be improving. “

Bring awn the larder-ee mist-her!

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And what happens when a megalomaniac self-important pompous piece of shit meets someone with a severe minisculity complex and identity crisis?

They both think they have crushes on each other and hate the other person at the same time.

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I have the uncanny ability of being right in the middle of storms between such personality types.

Sigh!

Whatever we do will never be enough

Unless we keep doing it all day. Here’s what I heard:

“If you make an effort to get in 30-60 minutes of moderate exercise a day, but you spend much of the rest of the day sitting, you may be at increased risk of metabolic syndrome and death, according to an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.”

More at: Dangers of sitting too much

Bring on the beer, I am going to get a stapler!

Journaling In Transit

A new fledgling project that will hopefully flap its wings every once in a regular beat:

http://vaadka.wordpress.com/

Had to start with the quintessential Vaadka.

Cheers!

No place like in the head!

The best part about being in a foreign land where they speak a language you understand and you speak a language they don’t – or very few do – is that you can draw transparent space bubbles around yourself.

Of course, it follows that you must want to draw the bubbles to be able to enjoy the vacuous insides.

The long stretches of silence. The mental chatter of work-related calculated directional thought. Emptiness. And fortunately, or unfortunately, no pressing issues crowding your mental space for immediate attention. No it’s not dullness or the sleepy-headedness that comes from being duh-huh. It’s awake-ness with a sharp clarity and alertness to all things small and big. And a never-before objectivity and clarity of perspective. Yes there are those moments. There are days of inexplicable grins that come from nothing at all and stay for the day without anyone asking for an explanation; and the mind conditioned to constantly offering one while in milling crowds of another land and making others laugh or share the joy – no longer has to make things up for funny presentation. The joy of savoring and rolling about on your tongue why the fuck you are grinning is magical.

There is joy in space. There is joy in not knowing anything about anything else or knowing enough to not get overtly concerned and that too beyond a certain point. It’s liberating to be equanimous and not overly react to things that only now seem like unworthy of concern.

Or is it so?

Isn’t it so? Space is liberating.

But there is no groundedness or sense of belonging.

But belonging to some place feels like being tied down.

Not if you wiggle and make those ties loose.

But they are ties after all?

Are they really? Aren’t they bonds of love?

But why bind oneself?

But aren’t you bound anyways even if you don’t co-exist in the same space?

But here they are less restrictive.

But that’s what is missed.

Yea well.
I no longer feel like I belong to any place !

Which means you can be at home in many many many places yea?

But how much of my home can I carry from here to there and yonder and further?

2 suitcases and perhaps a cabin bag. Did you want more?

Maybe?

How light do the shoulders feel?

Very.
But the heart gets heavy once in a way.

So you are alive – nice to know.

She always makes me cry.

Perhaps it’s the gloomy weather.

I want to be in a cab going home in only slightly muggy January breezes and the black brown grime of a bustling invasive city which will never be home in my head again.

On the other hand – I REALLY hope Southwest doesn’t cancel tonight.

million dollars

I just went through a trail-blazing shopping experience. something in me went inert and stopped reacting to newness novelty and possessions. have been making rational decisions about the sarees and the lehengas – to the extent that after having finished almost all of it – it feels like i stopped living for a week now. woke up this morning to an overwhelming desire to listen to million dollar hotel’s soundtrack except that i left my hard disk behind for this trip.

You’re talking, you walk
‘Cause you can’t refuse
Learning to walk
In those dancin’ shoes

And just the beauty of the expression of even sad sentiments felt like rain on dry parched spirit land.

let’s get this over with. breathe. breathe. breathe.
this wasn’t our plan at all.

Evocative

PMS + Gloomy Nostalgic Sleepy Day + Amruta’s Posts #1:traveller and #2: in the name of the mother =

cringing stomach + sharp intake of breath + tear-loaded eyes + a mountainous longing to crawl into J’s armpit

bwaaaaaaaaaah

Homeland

An Indian lady colleague told whether or not I will bring back a mixer/grinder from India after the wedding. I told her not really – the American blender works very well thank you. Apparently every newly married Indian couple here brings back a cooker (larger size) from the avg single person cooker (350-500 ml me thinks), the stone grinder for dosai, the idli steamer, and the blender and food processor for chutneys. Esp the south indians.

So immediately I made a mental list:
- Cadbury’s Eclairs. I FUCKING miss those. My happy fix for any hour.
- Sharp ball point pens that are <=0.6mm tipped. American ballpoints are the thickness of pasta. I MUST have pens that draw lines and
- Anjali dabba – the little box custom designed for Indian spices – with the little boxes.
- Little little idols of Gods that my grandmom got me used to.

I may not be into avidly praying a fervent prayer every morning, but lighting the occasional diya and the blue moon incense stick raises my spirits and spiritual quotient. I am a sucker for feel good morning rituals.

Doesn't sound like a list that will impress my colleague though.

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There was a time when I used to chide anyone I knew who was Indian who over-valued Indian things like movies and festivals and rituals. After being here for nearly 11 months, I am beginning to understand why. On diwali, the same Indian colleague invited me over for dinner. Pongal vada dosai sambar chutney and payasam. I dressed to the nine's and went. As if it was my first diwali or something. Bought Kaju Katli to introduce experimental minded roomies. Threw the box into the garbage because mofos here keep stock that is probably 3 months old and nonrefrigerated for the most part. Dass sweets something. Mofos I tell you.

And don't even ASK what happens when i watch a documentary about India or senti scene from an Indian movie. Bawling doesn't begin to describe the outcome.
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Wedding prep in full swing. After J's departure and the end of ceaseless shopping and packing weekends – normalcy has returned to the turtle. But still hours are spent searching for the perfect jewellery that can't be bought yet because the outfits haven't been found yet. And yet the heart isn't going flutter flutter as it should be about the wedding itself.

I find myself jumping and calling bloody murder when I hear J met Bartinda and Shaman and they didn't discuss me. And then laughing and craving to be back in Bangalore. The heart also does a trapeze act every time past gilded memories come to the fore along with the prospects of making some more – with some sistahs and breddas who are traipsing the world at the moment – and some yogis and yoginis who are ascending spiritual dimensions and establishing kilometric records.

1 month 7 days to departure and counting down!

Once a geek … always a geek

I’ve just survived a technology orgasm yesterday. I can’t help but be excited by/about Google Wave. I think they’ve done whatever I wanted with UI. Drag and drop images from the desktop and mailblogchattwitterflickrfacebookdiscussionpolldocoedit in one chinti browser.
Like ONE chinti browser window can do all that. And it’s all in HTML. And Script. And CSS.
And REAL-TIME is REALLY real-TIME.

wave.google.com

PS:Now see if I had Google Wave to blog this with this link would automatically autocomplete and become a link.

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Also on a happier note.

Smile

“Hey, who let in all these elephants?
Did you know that elephants are made of elements?
Elephants are mostly made of four elements
And every living thing is mostly made of four elements
Plants, bugs, birds, fish, bacteria and men
Are mostly carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen

Come on come on and meet the elements
You and I are complicated, but we’re made of elements
Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade
They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are”

Meet the elements from the children’s album “Here comes science”; Artists:They May Be Giants
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They all kept saying
How much we look alike
I don’t think that we look alike at all

But I’ll admit that I look more like a chimp
Than I look like my cousin the shrimp
Or my distant kin the lichens
Or the snowy egret or the moss
And I find it hard to recognize
Some relatives of ours
Like the rotifer, the sycamore
Iguanas and sea stars

My brother the ape
My brother the ape

My Brother the Ape from the children’s album “Here comes science”; Artists:They May Be Giants
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Navratri Kheer Craving Crack

http://www.nanakfoods.com/upcoming.htm

All hail Guru Nanak.