A kiss of Lemon
A kiss of lemon to douse Mr Chilli's fires
A dash of lemon.. to make Granma Salt less cranky..
A squeeze oflemon to make my veggies palatable
A spoonful of you makes my lunch box taste jus right
an ode to the one lement in my fridge that saves my face a lil too often these days .. :)Amma ... u r the best :)
P.S : I have absolutely no idea why I can put two sentences together these days...
''Make my bringal tangy'' ? ... The guy up there am sure is having a ball at my expense ...
Firangi Nadu
Motivation currently on a break to the Himalyas.. More when its back.. Had to pen something while on Friangi soil *wink*
When trains learn to fly
I am not sure why I chose that title .. But that’s what flashed through my mind when I saw the reports of the blasts in Mumbai .. Its like an experiment gone horribly wrong , as if someone wanted to make the train fly and it succeed for a few moments before it was time to meet its destiny … remember the story of the man who tied wings to his arms and jumped off a cliff.. He got enlightened half the way down but by then the only place he could carry the enlightenment was to the next world.
I am wandering away from what I started. But then unlike the story this was no experiment .. It’s a child of a very sick mind… yes .. probably in the plural…Who other than loony would think of making a statement by blowing up a few hundred people… But then .. may be someone is just trying to sell his wares… Dus ka teen dus ka teen … ek se sau mare… dus ka teen ..
No I do not want to sound flippant when thousands are in mourning... but have there ever been a time when peace reigned … then it used to be wars .. now that we cant have a war just because the neighbor’s castle looks pretty… we have 9/11 , 7/7 , 7/11 ...
You may want to call it whatever you want … I would still call this act to be war too..
Modern guerilla tactics probably, but still a war being stuffed down the throat of a country unwilling to wage a war.… but the results..
whether its in the age of bows and arrows or in the age of timer bombs its all the same … peace, sent on a forced vacation…
Now is a war .. inevitable… good bad .. evil .. divine… war and peace … do all this come in pairs ??
Of shattered dreams and broken... GLASS???
'Its the puja that I did last week at the Bhagwadi Shetram' Amma tells me . Now how did all this start? With me telling amma during one of our daily girl girl to converstaions, that these days I am feeling better. Well .. nothing wrong with the pinkness of my health... just having a bad time otehr wise. Now from my association with my fav 'girlfriend' that goes back more than a couple of decades, I have learnt not to disagree with her fundas.. Its futile.. She would let me win the argument without being convinced even a little. Still that doenst stop me trying
.. 'Alla amma , its the name change on my ID card . Even your astro 'nuts' would agree with me on that. Finally I have a full namenot just two miserly letters following my name. 'Now the reason for this too is not very complex. Its just that like most south indian from the southern most tip of India, my certificates always had initials instead of a last name printed on them. with their obsessionfor a last name in the north , I can tell you I have had a harassed childhoodexplaining to the northies why I do not have / use a last name . and considering that I spenta considerable number of years there .. you can understand ...
And a couple of days back that childhood stigma had finally got erased. My ID card which recently had a rebirth, had my name printed along with my father's name instead of the ... yes initials.. And I have always held it has a nice ring to it.. It rhymes.. Oh well... But the tough part was explaining to Amma how good it feels..And I would definitely not give the guy sitting up there any credit for that ...
Ok now back to my story...
That was yesterday. .. Amma finally says goodnite asking me to sleep facing northsince east or west was out of question in the dinginess of my abode..This I dutifully follow...I do make some concessions to the harassed guy upstairs... A few hours after that some does go wrong terribly.. Well the guy up there is up to his usual pranks.. I am not going to this anyways ...I still manage to sleep with a smile.. I still had a complete name now... and it felt good...
Come morning... wakie wakie... and the rush to the office bus.. I promptly go to sleep .. and dream abt the way everyone would call me.. Hmm and what was that horrible noisemy rash bus driver's sins have finally caught up with him... the headlites of the other cehicleand the glass of my bus lay kissing the ground... hmm its that Guy again...
Monday morning blues...
I guess the caption and the pic says it all.. *Sigh* 5 days for the week end.
Credits to Pravs for the pic .. :)
Oh deer..
Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a bird for dinner
Thats when Jack got a man and Jill shot a deer.
Now, Home went Jack n Jill trot to Jail
To count the days of the year!
Hail Humanity!
Now the memory of the incident about to be narrated has kind of done the will o’ the wisp act but , let me assure you the incident is true.
Last month , I finally managed to books tickets to.. home sweet home. It was supposed to be a packed weekend. Home to another beautiful city a nearby (as in 5 hrs ok lets call this place City 2. hehe ) , night to be spent at the city no.2 , and then back home the next day and then back to Bangalore.
Day 1 : Everything went as expected till I reached City 2 (except for squabbles with bro , mom and dad…oh well ok I admit those were the only 3 people I talked to that weekend grrr)..
Ofcourse goes without saying, Pitashri was with me .
Day 2 : Wake up early , have an early breakfast , and check out of the hotel, and finally an auto ride to destination. Go to hmm lets say Destination . After a couple of hrs go to the station and catch the train back home. In an hr take a bus to Bangalore.
Yeah that was the plan…
What did happen was…
Everything accoding to plan till I reach Destination. I get down from the rick .. look for a place to put my mobile… and yes.. my handbag has vanished. Now its not just a handbag. It has everything money … cards … Pics… the usual lutulusku..
Well apart from that my identity.. hmm .. Voters Id … Driving license and heaven knows what made me carry my PAN card too.
Now what do I do ?? go back to the hotel .. restaurant .. everyplace I could think of .. Well my identity was no where to be found…
So the culprit?... the rick.. Now how in heaven’s name am I supposed to find a rick in a city where every autostand has atleast a dozen waiting to grab people. Even if I find him..fat chance of getting the bag back. Anyways .. the stand where I got my auto from had some nice people.. who suggested we go to the police and report.
Well that found a reluctant me and Pitashri in the Correction factory narrating our story half a dozen times to various people ranging from the drumstick like lady constable (tryiong to look tough with a mean looking rifle) to the inspector.. besides other people there. Now the chief guy asked me a lo of questions about the cards.. card number .. etc and in the middle of all this also slipped in an innocent looking question of how much I earn . I am not sure if that would have helped the case of a missing handbag.
Anyway .. That was that …
Now what the time was just 11 and we had about 3 hrs to go for our train out of the city which ate my Identity.
Now Pitashri asked me to get over it and start thinking of not letting the Identity thief steal my money as well. Thus began a series of STD calls. The first few were to knock a few friends off their beds on a Sunday morning( yeah it was only 11) begging them to give the customer care number. Then the next series to my benevolent aunty (bless her.. she had a tough time locating them in MessLand namely my cupboard) in Bangalore to read out my card numbers from old bank statements. A few more calls and it was all done. All my money was safe though my identity was still stolen.
By the time all this was over .. it was time for my train back home. We reach early and get int oteh train and a call from matashri.. Someone has found my bag ! they have left their number . Pitashri and me get out of the train in record time.
Take another rick.. ( I hate em now) … and reach Lily Fernandez’ door step. And the lady tells us the rick man is a neighbour of hers .When he found it he did not know what to do with it. He gave I to her and asked her to find a way to give it back to me.Now the lady rummaged thru my lil home and found some visiting cards.. and telephone numbers .. tried calling .. all numbers were changed. It was the bus ticket that came to my rescue. She called up the travels and thus got through to my matashri and welll…. .u guessed it .. my identity was handed over to me .. untouched… no.. undamaged.. unchanged… J
Hehe .. gosh… long lost and found story …
Thank you Ma’am Fernandez!
Now… another series of calls await me … to get all my cards renewed… hmm… Life.. !
I am going onsite to .. Pune!
31st Jan,
Bad news... I have been transferred to Pune...
Bad news, because it takes me away from home.
May not be all that bad , its like another home coming for me.
Spent 7 years of my childhood here. 7 wonderful years, had so many friends
, I am excited. Used to live in Janawadi, those days it was a place away from the city
on the foothills of a tiny mountain. So that took care of holiday activities ..
Mountain climbing was a passion with us girls .. ofcourse small rocks became
bi boulders requiring absolute grit and guts .. Dont know if I would still find my friends there.
May be I can find Priya. my best pal.
10th Feb,
Priya , still lives in the same place . I talked to her after 15 yrs. 15 yrs! I didnt really think I would find her.
and she hasnt changed at all. She still remembers the way I used to cry every time someone called me 'moti'.. Well .. I used to be a cry baby..(still am .. hehe)
She says' agu tu mhala viserle nahi??' . Didnt u forget me yet ?
'Nahi ga' . No dear..
That was all I could remember of Marathi.
I am meeting her on 17th.
13th Feb,
Finally I am in Pune. A deep breath. I have dreamt of coming here. I want to meet so many people.and oh yes Deccan Hearld. Havent held this in my hands in such a long time.
aw and the first thing I see is 'Girl jumps to death from an old MHB building' . MHB Thats where I used to live too. But then a big colony
Dont remember the buildings though
First day in office was fun.Its far from where I am put up but still the excitement is too much.
Anis did say the enivironment in Pune office is different. So much josh!
15th Feb,
No company to go anywhere today . Office as usual . Work is too much .
Just enough time to drag myself back home and sleep. Waiting for Friday
I will go up to Priya's place for dinner. Can't forget her house. Spent so many days
during hols playing cards, generally chattign reading. Its third floor house number 219.
18th Feb,
Deccan Herald:
Girl jumps to death in Janawadi.
Its the third such incident in 2 months. Police say the incident took
place in a MHB ( Maharashtra Housing Board ) Colony Building.
The top floor was gutted in a fire in '97 when the entire family was burnt to death..
The girl was from.....
*** All characters in this story are fictional and the places too . Any resemblance is pure coincidence and all that blah! and ofcourse all views are mine and purely mine .. doesnt have anything to do with the place I work ... Hmph the disclaimer is quite a mouthful!
I ask thee..
Dont know what has strayed...
or why ... or if at all it has ...
But I ask thee... where did I go wrong...
Dont know if its the end of a dream ,
the the birth of reality....
or the preview to a nightmare
Maybe, it's mist that will clear away soon..
Yet, I ask thee where did I go wrong...
