In the bedroom, Thursday evening@10.30 pm...

Don't expect too much! The title was only to draw attention :D

1. Pari is reading out numbers. She flips one page of her board book at a time, and calls out the next number from memory--

One
Two
Thee (No, I did not miss the 'r', this is what she said.)
Phone (Oh really?)
Five (Correct for a change..)
Sick (how sad:P)
Semen (yuck.. enough!!)

2. Husband is groggy, more due to the 2 cans of Fosters downed during the evening than sleep. The light in the bathroom is already switched on. He puts it off, goes inside, slams the door shut, does his stuff and returns.. and yes, turns on the light once again before crashing on the bed. Thankfully, he remembers to flush!

3. Me, in a state of pure bliss, listening to 'Arziyaan' from Delhi 6 for the nth time. God bless ARR! Also, absent-mindedly reviewing some code which was apparently written in a stupor, like after a couple of tequila shots and does not deserve any more attention..

Shunning anonymity..

After much deliberation, I have finally decided its high time I make an appearance on the blog. Most people who visit this do not happen to know me personally, and I guess a picture will help them relate better to the blog, and me. So here am I, this is me.. in flesh and bone, and some colours :)


Just to confirm that you got it right, I am the one in the center, with funky orange hair, blue eyes and very 'rosy' cheeks, wearing green and pink (3.5K raw silk suit, "sobs"), trying to call the husband to my rescue(the cellphone in the right hand). I am surrounded by my colleagues, who caught me while I was trying to sneak out of the office. And this picture was taken and circulated through the company, proof of the triumph of evil over innocence, notice the grin on their faces, specially the ladies. Happy Holi!

Mumma Barber

Here is one who doesn't take the slightest offence at being called a 'Barber'. If somebody upgrades it to 'hair-stylist', my eyes would surely mist with overflowing gratitude at this undeserved honour. I know absolutely nothing about styling hair, and neither am I interested in knowing. What I like is the snip-snip of it. One of my darkest, deepest desires since childhood has been to cut somebody's hair. I had once secretly cut my baby sister's hair, and mom couldn't stop wondering why she started looking so weird all of a sudden. The opportunity came knocking again yesterday, after 15 long years in the shape of another little girl, only this time I wasn't scared of the subject's mom, so it needn't be clandestine. My golden girl happily provided me with the ideal client - agreeable, enthusiastic, and non-critical. If only she had been less excited, more still, and not so keen on picking up already cut hair from the floor while more was being cut, she would have been a barber's dream! But then, that is too much to expect at her age, and I am not complaining. For all those wondering why and already jumping to conclusions, giving her a hair cut at home was not to combat recession. VLCC does it for a measly 100 bucks, for babies that is. But Pari hates hair cuts at salons. The moment the woman with scissors touches her hair, she has a major meltdown. And each time, for those 4 snips, she cries her little heart out. It is simply not worth the pain, which is why we keep defering the cut till her hair crosses over her broad forehead, drips into eyes and crawls into her ears, and she has to literally peek from behind the mop to watch 9XM. Yesterday, while I was clipping her nails, she took away her hand to scratch her head. It was then that it came to me, if I can do this, I can do that as well. So as soon as the nails were done, I took her for a quick bath, and washed her hair. Then, while it was still wet, I gave her the hair cut. It was fun, and both of us enjoyed it immensely. Pari laughed heartily when she saw hair falling from her head. I tell you, cutting hair is easy, and safe as long as you spare the ears.. The pics follow, just in case you wish to appreciate my effort :)

Before




After

Now, this is PROGRESS!

Circa 2007


Circa 2008


Circa 2009


Obstacles..


The last laugh!

Monday Blues...

..what are those? This is the advantage of working over the entire weekend. Monday becomes just another day, and I don't feel bad about it at all. I remember the weekends that started friday afternoon and were so much fun, they made the following Monday appear an impending calamity with an effect similar to PMS on me. Not anymore, I have successfully conquered 'the Monday Blues'. Attaining Nirvana suddenly looks so much more feasible, hmm... next on the list.

Isn't it remarkable..

..how some things remind us of so many other completely unrelated things, places, people and times.. Ever tried tracing back to find why, how? I do it a lot, and the association brings back so much more in terms of memories.. like this song. I heard it today after a really long time, and in one shot it reminded me of a mostly out-of-touch friend, my ex-roommate, my M-I-L n bro', my previous work place, the first day of our Malaysia trip and an ipod that I did not even remember possessing. Its rather interesting to relate them all to this vintage, classic gem of a song. To begin with, my friend S, who was just a colleague then, caught me humming it over a coffee break, and corrected me with the tune. He left me stunned, to say the least! Firstly, he is a South Indian, born and brought up in Bangalore, always talks in Kannada/English and I did not expect him to know a rarely heard, Hindi devotional song back from the 50's. And then, what surprised me even more was his rendition of it. I had no idea that he could sing so well, that he has such a beautiful voice and a keen sense of music to top it. For the uninitiated, it is not an easy song, mostly in the lower octave, and climbs only in the second stanza. Needless to say, I was completely bowled over. We soon became friends, courtesy an exceptionally common interest in Hindi film music. Even now, whenever we meet, which is only about once an year, I don't let him off without singing this one for me. Ok.. I got carried away a bit.. With the other people it is rather simple. I sang this song on the first day after my wedding, and my M-I-L liked it lots. She still asks me to sing it at times. And my roomie made fun of me for singing such an outdated song, that too one that is devotional. Brother actually went to the extent of saying that I did not deserve the Ipod if this is what I put in it. I downloaded this song from the internet after a vigorous search the day I joined my previous organization, since I hardly had anything else to do. Therefore it also reminds me of my first day there. And finally, the Malaysia trip.. the husband caught me unaware, absent-mindedly humming this and recorded it on the handycam. So our VCD for the trip opens with 'Darshan do' in yours truly's voice :)

p.s. I have been trying to upload the song to esnips since last week.. never occured to me that I could find it on YouTube. And surprise surprise.. the comments there tell me that Slumdog Millionaire has an adaptation of it!

Getting crafty..

It is our wedding anniversary tomorrow.. and as always, I have been racking my brains for the past 10 days, for what might be the ideal present. I like to work towards a present, and do not go for off-the-shelf stuff unless unavoidable. Now, this makes the otherwise simple job really complicated, especially since I run low on imagination and creativity. For the record, this will be our 3rd anniversary, and we could not celebrate the first 2. So just to make up for the lost occasions, I wanted to buy the spouse a platinum ring engraved with our names, with a solitaire if the budget allowed. Such was the plan till last week, before my organization axed some 10% of the total work-force. What followed were extremely low spirits and a drastic drop in my budget, from INR 25,000 to a meagre 500 rupees. I was more than willing to slash it further, but for anything less than that, the present would have reduced to a flower plucked from the neighbour's bush.. and they don't even plant roses! To cut a long story short, I decided to get crafty, pun intended :) I had wanted to do some glass painting since when I forget, and used this opportunity to fulfill that longing. After much deliberation, I decided upon a personalized calender with 'glass paintings' on transparent plastic sheets. Its come out looking rather childish, especially because I have done the calendar part manually. It would have looked far better with a printed calendar, there are plenty of cool options available on the internet for that but I just wanted to give it a more personal touch. Come to think of it, I could have got this whole personalized calendar thing made up with no effort, very little time, and markedly cheaper by placing an order on any of those websites and uploading a few family pics but I prefer it this way. No more rambling, here's presenting some pics. I know they are not impressive, but just want to share :)