Monday, June 25, 2007

Reliance Web World

I am in Reliance web world. I wonder if it should evoke few memories. Memories like talking to people from home who would be chatting in the air conditioned comfort of RBB. Well, it evokes one long lost marketer's feeling, who ever said a product without an experience with it can work in today's market! Well, you might not know I just am back from Central Bank. The sight of the bank and the officials make me wonder that such an institution is also running. We have come to the age of net banking (though most of us are still jogging our memories to remember THE PASSWORD).

Passbooks to passwords!

Well, sitting at the other end, or rather with the tables turned, as I experience the web surfing experience of RBB, I have nothing much to complain except this 'hard to push down' keyboard. ANd yes though I may still blush at the thought of writing a love mail or chatting with a special one from such a public domain, I see such an immense market for teen hangouts in the virtual world. Of course it has been tapped. To make things better there is webcam at help, to give e-dates a touch of life, with shared cakes and coffees (images only!) along with glowing smiles.

Well, this much for now. I am irked at the keyboard, but I am open to writing!!! Hmm well this makes me write you a closing note too. Writing does need an environment. I miss the desk back home in Kathmandu, I miss that chair, and that mirror hanging opposite to my working area. Now I realize I have my mirror opposite to my desk exactly the same way here in Kolkata too. So do I SEE ideas flowing!!!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Irrelevant details from life

'Bonjour', said the man behind the huge flat pan as he saw me meditating over his crepes. I was almost enchanted at the way he circled out a thin crepe over the huge pan. The crepe of the same diameter as that of the pan, which was three times the normal dosas I have seen back home. I had been looking intently at how he poured the batter, flattened the batter into a nice circle with the help of a flat wooden rod with a stick in its centre. Moving that equipment, clockwise first and anticlockwise next. Then flipping the crepe up, sprinkling sugar and caramel and folding it neatly like a thin handkerchief or a napkin.

I looked up completely startled by his 'Bonjour' and was more puzzled to see his enquiring eyes. Ah! I just smiled dumbly and walked away. Linus had a good laugh. He said I was staring so hard, it had probably unnerved the fella. All I could explain to him - it was such a lovely sight. He said, you must be hungry. And we headed to Mc. D.

There is little choice for food for vegetarians. Even the cheese is not really vegetarian. It has something from the calf's stomach. When I had enquired for a vegetarian cheese, I recieved a puzzled and amazed look. Fromage (cheese in French), it is Fromage! Period. Can cheese be non vegetarian!!

Well, a vegetarian by birth, I often wonder why people are non vegetarian. And people, my friends tell me, 'what possibly can you eat! just grass and flowers!' 'Is it because of religion', J had enquired during a dinner hosted by us. No, it just runs into our family. And what if your children want to eat, Mc Chicken! Hmm, I smile and imagine a dozen brats, eating Mc. Chicken. I can only tell them to brush their teeth, I tell J. He smiles, oh just brush the teeth. That sounds reasonable.

Children, ah! I must be quite old by now, to even comprehend the thought that 'kid' can be someone else other than me. Hmm, children, what strange creatures they are. Half your size and they make you run around like crazy. The other day, a little girl about 5 had come to my apartment with her mother. I had to divide my attention while talking to the mother and rushing in between to save my laptop on which she was pounding her hands madly and rescue the remote which she hurled in air while in an excited stupor of having discovered 'tom and jerry channel'.

Sometimes I think children have this perfect world of freedom. Unadulterated by thougths of shame, or concept of nudity. I have read that one of the most common dreams that people have is, where they find themselves in company without an appropriate attire. While that little girl feels absolutely nothing as she runs around with her bare bottom.

While I look for freedom of expressions among women wearing what they want, mini skirts and halter necks, or random muses posted in internet, I see those naughty pair of eyes looking back at me with a quizzical look. Mocking at me, saying FREEDOM COMES From a wild spirit!! Perhaps I am imagining those eyes quizzing me. She just must be wondering when will I give her the chocolate that she has earned after having recited all the rhymes and telling me her name, father's name and all telephone numbers at her momma's prodding. 'Smart girl naa', the momma shining with pride exclaims.

I wonder if having a child would make it a different world for a woman. 'Having kids is a full time job', the exasperated mom had exclaimed while I was glowering at the little one for behaving like THIS. At her statement I just wondered, it must mean: No more afternoons filled with silence or just the noises from the street. No more the loneliness punctuated by the incessant chirps of sparrows or staring at the arch of a gate of a villa just by the lake. And looking at the water through that arch.

Proabably I could just have a Siamese Cat, and name it Kathmandu. It would be a less than full time job, I smile at myself.

A cat or a baby... oh both are such a chore. But a baby will grow up. And if I believe what A had said, will cease to be a family. A is an English lady. The cat (she had a Siamese cat called Kathmandu), will be hard to handle. If you are traveling or working, you can't leave them alone for long. They get anxiety or bouts of loneliness and feel sick.

I should be feeling like Kathmandu sometime. I must investigate if I have those bouts of loneliness. Or perhaps, it must be different, some other poetic melancholy, that is essential to churn out a good post!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Blogging again

I managed to get an access to internet, somehow. Neighbours, especially Indian neighbours in a foreign land are a great boon. My next door friend leaves me her apartment's keys so that I can sneak in anytime and check mails or post blogs!

Last night we had a wonderful time with an English couple. It was a rainy evening, and a little colder than usual. But that did not deter our spirits. We went to the restaurant by the lake. We sat inside since it was raining, but from the glass panes I could feel the lake right there. Facing the lake and the setting sun, it seemed beautiful. How location can be such an important factor. It is one of the Ps in the marketing product mix, when it comes to service industry. Where you are determines what you are!

Hmm, it was an indulgence at the end. The tiramisu. 'Sinful' I exclaimed. Imagine all that calories..or rather Kilo cals!! But it tasted heavenly.

For a change no one was talking work. It was nice evening. And we walked back home. It was then A had remarked, 'how far we have come, it seems rather quick since we have been talking.' We had actually almost reached their hotel and in what seemed no time. P quipped, ' ah, so your life must have sped by.' What a terrific sense of wit! I smiled, amused.

It is rare to have such a nice time socializing. I wonder if it is because I have lost my socializing skills or is it that I need to have that rapport to be comfortable. Oh yes, I still can turn stoic and quiet in companies that I am some how uncomfortable for no known reasons. I think this is quite common or rather human or may be universal. One must feel at home... Be it a Siamese cat called Kathmandu or a dog called Mutt in Kiran Desai's Inheritance of loss.

See, how I shift gears from evening to food to pets. I have never had a pet. I do not think I would ever have one. But the most amusing pet I have seen, was a mouse. My friend had actually 2 mice. Ying and Yang. I wonder how she knew one from the other. But a bad cat ate Ying or was it Yang. And later the survivor died an unceromonious death. Less heroic than being chased by the cat.

Ugh! I did not want to fill in the details of the rat race err...rat chase. But of the instance when both the rat and I had jumped out of our wits, in an encounter deliberately planned to introduce two loved ones to one another. I am sorry if calling Ying/Yang a rat is derogatory.

Someone once asked me if I miss home. I wonder which home. The one I left when I got married, or the one I left when I came to Swiss. The home before marriage, for me has been frozen in time, exactly the day I left it in February, a year ago. I had carefully packed away my precious belongings. Given away sea shells to a cousin to keep them as lovingly as I had. The shells I had collected from Hongkong's beaches. Tucked away my diaries. Threw pieces of papers with stupid poetries I had written, one was I remember 'Mr. Tea'. I can smile at the thought of it! I donated clothes I would not need again. Returned books that I had borrowed. GOt back my books that friends still had. Emptied my wardrobe, so that someone else would have space when I wasn't there.

WHen I go back to that home, will I start from that point of time! THe time, the moment froze just for me, every one else will have moved. Friends to jobs, to marriages, to new love stories. I will not know how to fit myself again in that room. To stare out of the window and look at those neatly growing flowers in a row. Or turn on the PC and listen to Pink Floyd. And may be quarrel with mom over why I am late again!

There will be nothing of that sort. That life has disappeared. A part of me has gone. How I resist change. Or do I? To go back and stare at myself in the mirror...The same mirror and a different reflection. It is so weird that some changes are so sudden or are they really. Perhaps the realization of the change is sudden.

I am confused about my identity suddenly. Or rather I do not fit in that frozen image of me. That image is confused that there is no more of those , bland samosas of Ram dai in college canteen, or bickering about Rituz boutique or coffees and scrabbles in bakery cafe, or proffs I would have liked to hate. Everything is replaced, by a code or a decorum. Is it just my resistance to grow up?

Some one said so aptly, when u are in school you want to get in college, when you are in college you want to get into a job..and when you get into one... you miss your school....you miss your college.

Well, I think this is enough for today. And perhaps I should make this blog a personal blog seeing how much I ramble... with just few selected friends to share their thoughts on my weird thoughts.... argh...wotever....

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Away

Folks!

I know some of you there are reading me. So I am talking to you. Well, the most essential of all, the internet connection, the life line... is at hold. Meaning I have no access to internet from home. That is...the 24 hour obsessed with net VID is now getting to her neighbor to check her occasional mail..

THis is because I am shifting back to my India home. So, until I get there, you know I am just trying to get unhooked. Trying relaxation techniques to do away with the net addict in me. And well no more of my boring blog posts for a while.

So I Will see you guys in midweek of June...

Till then,
keep reading and keep fit!
Jump may be!!

Vid