....

Two of my favourite men promised to come tomorrow - two debonair young men. Both of whom I adore beyond reason and can't imagine a life without...

One's going to live upto his promise - as always :-) Merci mon cher - je ne sais pas qu'est ce que je ferais sans toi! Tu es un vrai ami! *Bisous*

The other isn't - so what's new in that?

Even though I expected the second to back out, I was disappointed. But I handled it maturely. Damn why didn't I learn the feminine art of throwing tantrums, pouting and winding them men around my little finger? Oh well, for now, it's enough to know that he cares enough to think about making my day special for me. More shall come later...Insha'Allah!

As of now - am looking forward to tomorrow evening! :-)

Geebaby and Literary Mosaic - Status Update

Sometime back, someone asked me why I've stopped updating Literary Mosaic - and it's true I had been ignoring my other blog for a very long time. Infact even now that I am giving it some attention, I'm not posting any fiction on it (which is what the person was referring to when asking that question)....

It's not like the words have dried up inside me (glaringly obvious from the fact that I'm about to put down a couple of hundred words on the topic); nor is it due to any lack of ideas. Muses there are aplenty all around me - yes, even Virginia Woolf ;-) But it's all in the head...I read somewhere that a good story is one that comes from the heart, not from the head. And so it is, that I've decided not to write (or atleast post ) anything till it comes from within...

Besides, apart from 55-word stories & the like (which is more of a fun exercise than one that exhibits any real talent on my part), I don't think I'm that great at spinning tales...blabbing, gabbing, bitching, cribbing et al - YES YES I'M GOOD AT IT!

And so it is, that Geebaby flourishes as always (more mature perhaps than it was at it's conception?)...while Literary Mosaic shall once again fall back to its former avataar of hosting poems that snag my attention and reviews of books I've read. Which reminds me - my reactions to Tagore's short stories is up for your perusal!

Currently Reading :- Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (This pasionate declaration of female emancipation, shattered the perviously held stereotypes of the docile, decorative womanhood and set the path for a new era of equality. the work, in a way, established her as the founder of modern feminism.)

This and my copy of Woolf's A Room of One's Own are part of Penguin's Great Ideas Collection, that includes some ground-breaking works by thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas paved the way for modern thoughts and civilisation. Coming in these slim volumes, they have been packaged really attractively and are a great buy!

Currently Hearing :- New Age stuff - Barcelona Nights by Ottmar Liebert

The Return of the Muse - 55-word story tag

"Sipping hot soup, she curled up alone on the bed, under her favourite duvet. Picking up Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own…she soon lost herself in it. A couple of hours later, putting the book aside, she switched off the table-lamp and headed towards the study.

It was time.

Time to start afresh. "

My first reaction to this story tag, was complete horror! How would I live upto this? Me - the one who never learnt the minimalistic art of expression! Aristera often rebukes me for spinning out of control, digressing and embellishing my acounts with unnecessary details, when he's asked me to sum up the experience in 2 lines ;-) I've never succeeded in doing that till date. With my current state of mind, the challenge loomed large and I knew I had to do it or my flagging self-esteem would simply collapse under the weight of those 55 words ;-) Voila...so what's the verdict people?

Tagging :- Aristera, Akshay, Extempore, Parth & Phal...it's an interesting exercise, so let's not restrict it to those I've just tagged!

Warning - Extremely Volatile and Fragile

I've been rather volatile the past few days and restraining myself from blogging lest I pour out a jeremiad of complaints, or whine, but I'm tired of bottling it all up. So here's my catharsis of sorts...

A friend remarked some time back that I was going senile. Why? Because for the last two days I'd sent text messages with lyrics of songs inserted in between. I went from wishing good morning to talking about how it's raining men (how I wish that were happening - well atleast one man!) back to mundane questions of how the day is planned.

I'm not really going senile ofcourse. And I'm sure my friend didn't mean it either. I put down my erratic behaviour to boredom. That is part of the reason...but there is more. (When isn't there?) It's a sense of hopelessness that is pervading into my bones. I'm tired. Tired of pretending that it's all going to fall into place in the end - not when everything's still hanging in the air and stubbornly refusing to budge (leave alone fall!) ...

Satisfied by what’s on my plate…

Last month I picked up two books from the Strand Sale - having bought two design books for my brother, I found my budget compromised for a second time that weekend! So I played “In-Pin-Safety-Pin” and brought down the books in my own shopping cart from ten to two.

I’m happy with my final choice, for not only did these books satisfy my rather finicky literary tastes and held me mesmerized for as long as I had the book in my hand, but also had me returning to the book as soon as I could, to see it to its denouement. Having finished both of them, I’ve posted reviews on Literary Mosaic –

Bluebeard’s Egg –Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies – William Golding

I’ve gone back to my collection of short stories by Rabindranath Tagore, having reclaimed it from my bhabhi and am making my way through it slowly and surely, despite the rather tragic endings to all the stories and Tagore’s tendancy to portray most women as either nagging housewives or sacrificial victims of society. The Madonna-Whore dichotomy quite annoys me…

Top 5 Songs of the Moment:

1. Have a Nice Day – Bon Jovi :-)
2. Gin-Soaked Boy - Divine Comedy
3. Come Get Some – Rooster
4. Suddenly I see - KT Tunstall
5. Inch’Allah – MC Solaar

The Weekend That Was...

Cut to Friday morning. N.M. Wadia Cardiac Center, Jehangir Hospital, Pune. After an hour long wait for the cardiologist to come out of an emergency procedure, my parents went into his cabin while I waited outside. And all of a sudden, I was cold - not cold like when you go numb, but cold like you suddenly woke up and realised how cold it was outside. Cold with fear.

Waiting outside, I was swamped with images from a few years back. January 2002 - my mother had a near-fatal heart-attack. Subsequent angioplasty showed numerous blockages going upto 90% - I didn't need doctors to tell me that if my father hadn't gone to work late that day, I would have lost her. She had a bypass in February.
April 2003 - my father had a seizure at 4 a.m. A cholestrol deposit in his neck vein had broken loose and travelled upto his brain. Immediate diagnosis of the problem, medication and diet control brought the problem into control and all the reports back to normal. But not before he spent months regaining control of his fine motor actions and slurred speech.
That year was perhaps the hardest year for me - waking up to my parent's mortality, having to bid adieu to a close friend who was there for me everytime I was low, coming face to face with the hypocricy of my friends, watching some of my most cherished relationships crack and have to go through the motions of life like nothing had happened. The saving graces were my studies - I learnt to drown myself in them and sought refuge in those notes. And ofcourse, another friend, who has since become my closest friend.

Sitting outside the cardiologist's cabin on Friday morning, brought back those fears again. An abnormality in my father's ECG had brought us there...and I sat there praying that it would be just that. A slight abnormality, with no reason to worry. It seems God does exist, for the problem wasn't serious.

I'm still in the process of formulating my note of gratitude to whoever it is who holds the strings of our life.

Friday was followed by Saturday - a day that was supposed to be spent watching a movie, catching a lazy lunch with my Pune-pal and meet up with Phal who was in town for the day...that's what it was supposed to be! It ended up going down the drain in a sudden copywriting assignment - which meant meeting the client and working on it all day, and then taking the work home. (That day taught me alot - no I'm not talking about professionalism and how to work efficiently and quickly - I don't need to learn that. It taught me that there are people out there who need to learn these things, but yet don't hesitate to make you feel like the inexperienced, immature fool just to ensure that their egos aren't hurt. It also re-affirmed the fact that I had taken the right decision by not plunging head-first into the world of advertising/copywriting/journalism. I don't think I'm cut out for it...not the least bit. Academics it is for me...and crossing my fingers it all falls into place. Insha Allah!)

Sunday disappeared in errands and chores - and then came Monday. Another friend happened to be in town, but clashing schedules and my location across the city (not to mention the non-existent roads eading the way out of my area) ensured that I couldn't meet her! :-( NOT fair...

Well that was my weekend - stressful, agonising, busy. How was your weekend?

On Literary Tastes

Aristera blogged about about the authors he doesn't like.He threw names at random at his readers.

"naipaul, rushdie, agatha Christie, amitav ghosh, rohinton mistry, mahasweta devi, Sylvia plath, yann martel/mitzel (booker winner for ‘life of pi’….ughs!), most Russians (Tolstoy, dostovsky, kafka). "

I don't think there are any authors I particularly dislike - despite my complete lack of comprehension over the success (commercial and otherwise) of certain books. I never got around to developing a taste for the genre of science fiction, or for that matter fantasy. The day you see me reading a Tolkiens, or a J.K.Rowling without it being stuffed down my throat will be the day the sun rose from the west.

To each his own is my firm belief on the subject. The world as we know it is a wildly frothing mass of heterogeniety; so how can literary tastes be uniform? I hate it when people force their literary tastes on me (much as I hate it when culinary/fashion-related/personal tastes are thrust on me) and I've developed a certain sensitivity towards other's reading likes and dislikes. Which is why I find myself hesitating to gift books these days - specially since most of my friends have rather different likes/dislikes from my own. a book lying neglected, unread is worse than a book not gifted.(Does that make any sense? Ah well that's just me, the queen of convoluted logic.)

P.S. Incidentally I added a couple of blogs to my blogroll this week - I highly recommend Aristera Says (there is a definite pleasure in promoting a friend's blog)

P.P.S Literary Mosaic complained of step-motherly treatment; I've taken steps to dispel the ridiculous notion ;-)

Flooded...

A pattern has developed over the last few days - I wake up to a nice enough morning - dew on the grass in the lawn opposite my building, the road vaguely wet, but mostly dry, a gentle breeze blowing my curtains aside to let the morning light filter into my room. It gets hot later in the day; infact it's quite unbearably hot. And then come the clouds blowing in from the North East and within an hour the sky has gone from azure to grey. Torrential rains follow, the strong winds blowing in from the East...an hour later everything is thoroughly drenched.

And so it was on Saturday evening that my mother and I got down on our way to run some errands. A neighbour warned us to venture out cautiously since many roads were getting flooded. Dismissing her statements as pure exaggeration we got into out car and asked the chauffeur to take us to the Supermarket - we did cross this patch of water around 2 ft deep, but that patch gets water-logged with the slightest of rains so didn't give it any thought. Little did we know, that half and hour later my brother would call asking us not to even try heading home, but to head over to my uncle's place instead. As he was approaching our society, he saw a huge mass of water gushing down the slope towards him and had the quickness of mind to turn quickly onto a slightly elevated ground and park the car there. Wise, for the cars behind him got stuck in 4 ft water in their attempt to beat the water. We finished our chores and headed to my uncle's place and my father also joined us there - and there we stayed till the 5 ft deep water receded. My brother waited outside for nearly 2 hours, then finally gave up and waded towards our building in waist-deep water....apparently Manjari Meadows which is higher up than Mundhwa got flooded and so the people broke down walls there to allow the accumulated water to get out - and it all came gushing down the village towards our residential society, only to get stalled by the walls. It took nearly 4 hours for the water-level to come down - after villagers whose houses had been completely ruined descended on our society and made holes in the compound wall that was holding the water back... (got me thinking about the Torrential Tuesday in Bombay and how awful it must have been for those people when they couldn't get home for over 24 hours. Just a few hours away from home and I was restless - even though it was my uncle's place and I've stayed over so many times before! Also got me thinking once more about the crazy 'development' that Pune is going through and what kind of a city/nation we are 'building' for ourselves...)

That was one flood - meanwhile I've spent the weekend rummaging through the carton of our old photographs and trying to put them in some kind of an order and put them in albums, so that they don't get ruined with each time someone goes thumbing through them...plus I love doing this kind of stuff, and I think it's so much nicer to flip through albums seeing the gradual progress/change/evolution in life. It's kinda crazy doing this, because albums have been made previously with other photos, so by the time I end we'll probably have a couple of albums with similar date-lines! Anyway all the rummaging has got me flooded with memories from the past - some rather vague pictures, some very clear pictures. Pictures of a certain time bring back memories of events in my life of which I may not have photographs, but the images flooding my mind are just as clear.

Bombay Samachar

Bombay Samachar, established in 1822 by Fardoonjee Marzban, was the first vernacular newspaper to be set up in Bombay. (Even Wikipedia gives it a short mention.) Incidentally the first printing press was brought into Bombay in the 1670s by a Parsi businessman and Bombay's first English newspaper started nearly a hundred years later was also the result of a Parsi stalwart.

The headquarter of Bombay Samachar, located in Fort (around the corner from Indian Mercantile Chambers, not far from Strand Bookstall or Bombay Stores) is housed in a red building that's over a century old and boasts strong wooden beams that don't show any sign of decay despite their rather advanced age. I spent some hours in their Circulation Department on a wild goose hunt for an ancient Public Notice - and was amazed at how the office was organised.

The last time I entered a newspaper office, it was to walk out an hour later a little surprised at how uncluttered it looked and how none of the staff, with a rather high "I'm cool" quotient, was over 40. But that was the editorial department of a newspaper that's going through some drastic changes in order to boost its rather sagging sales. Bombay Samachar is nothing like that. It resembles by all means and purposes a typical old, bureaucratic Indian office.

The building may have had a classic fully-loaded Cadillac parked outside, but the entry is definitely not carpeted. Rather I felt like I was entering a warehouse of sorts. Up I went round a winding creaking staircase (the ones I am terrified of slipping through!) into a dingy, musty corridor. As I peaked into the first room, a peon surfaced from his morning nap to ask me where I wanted to go. "Purane newspapers kahan milenge," I asked. He pointed towards another room and I walked into a high-ceilinged musty room cluttered with files, and atleast six people, none of which were doing anything productive. I asked to be given access to their archives and was told to address the last man sitting in the line, one who was browsing through a film magazine. He pointed me back towards the first person I'd addressed, who then told me to sit down and yelled out to Ramji. When Ramji finally appeared 5 minutes later, I was asked which months and year I wanted to start with and Ramji was asked to bring out the concerned file.

I was there with my father, and since they could spare only 1 chair for us (despite the fact that 3 chairs at unoccupied throughout the time I was in that office and 2 others were unoccupied for most of the time) I stood while we searched through the newspapers of autumn-winter 1987. It was interesting for me to be flipping through the newspapers even though most of the content was in Gujurati, which I do not know! The adverts back then were so unsophisticated as compared to what we have today - ofcourse even back then women were used to pedal everything from women's clothing to jewellery, from holidays in Kerala to estate agents in downtown Bombay! Most of the models either had huge hairdos a la Madhuri Dixit as a newcomer, or these wierd beehives stuck at peculiar angles on their heads, or towels wrapped around their heads! And the reigning model seemed to be Sangeeta Bijlani - remember her? The Sunday newspaper had much more English content, with several pages dedicated to the achievements of Parsis and a double spread of comic strips - in colour!

Four months worth newspapers later, I had dusty blackened fingertips and a terrible back-ache; it was lunch time so the female clerk waiting for the others to return finally took pity on me and told me to rest my backside on a stool. When her 'boss' returned, she had to pay for her grave mistake. The man, as far as I could make out has nothing to do but read magazines and harass her...if he wasn't making flirtatious remarks that she tried her best to ignore, he was chastising her for not being efficient enough. How I itched to slap him...and ensure his unemployment for the rest of his life.

Luckily my father decided to abandon the search after we'd gone through 2 more months and said he'd find another way of achieving the desired end. After waiting 10 minutes for the designated clerk to return, we quickly paid him Rs.54 for accessing 3 files and made our way out into the sunlight and open air...as I took in deep gulps of the 'fresh' air, an employee of the newspaper walked out. He nodded at me, turned around and pointed at the building proudly - and informed me proudly that I was standing outside the office of the oldest existing Indian newspaper. He went onto to lecture me on the importance of preserving such old buildings and ensuring that old newspapers like this one don't disappear because of lack of funds, readership or efficient management and then just before we parted ways at the end of the street...he told me that I should go in to see the office and browse through the archives. :-)