• For how suddenly winter set in in Delhi. The smog, the chills, the fans being switched off. 
• For the awkward coexistence of high-pitched excitement about Iran and the sense that it's still distant (although it's not!)
• For being 30 for a month (and it doesn't feel any different) 
• For discovering that the Mt. Fuji puzzle that I'd thought had gone for recycling with newspapers was, in fact, safe at home - enough to make me jump with joy 
• For some promises that I will get to do something new that I'd been waiting for, at work  

I started out on the walk with an irrational longing to be in Mumbai.

Perhaps it had to do with the dull lighting in the Delhi street, reminding me of the long stretch outside my home and hostel in Mumbai. Or the sudden remembrance of the craziness that the city is during 'Ganpati'. Or the song, "Kya kare kya na kare", and Aamir Khan's Mumbaiyya Hindi in Rangeela, the first time I remember registering the way Mumbaikars speak Hindi. Going down the nostalgia spiral that began with Rangeela, distinct memories associated with the song suddenly hit hard: me (and my sister, I think) hanging on to every word in the songs of Rangeela at my uncle's home in Borivli. The cassette cover of the album, with Aamir, Urmila and Jackie Shroff, and my uncle's signature on it with the date he purchased the cassette. Of long (boring) days there, filled with Champak collections borrowed from the local library on my aunt's account, of learning to cycle on the hilly slopes of the locality, the local bhandaar (grocery store) and my silly joke of how it sounded like bandar (monkey).

"Kya kare..." ended and "Behene de" played. Yes, it went well with the sombre, reflective mood. I thought some more of Mumbai, and the dirty stares I get in Delhi. The fact that there are still cycle rickshaws in Delhi. I knew Mumbai couldn't possibly match up to Delhi in the latter's variety of food, but hey, I'm no foodie. I'm happy with Mumbai and its sea, I decided. 

Yael Naim's "New soul" came up next. Nope. I don't want happy. I want sad, reflective, slow.

"Raat ki daldal hai..." Sukhwinder Singh! I remembered a school-time conversation when two friends were arguing on whether Sonu Nigam was better than Sukhwinder Singh. I remembered "pfffft"ing, saying Sonu Nigam could not possibly ever sing a "Raat ki daldal hai". I missed Sukhwinder's Singh. He somehow isn't heard so often these days.

I was nearing my home. There were strays on the street. Another Delhi thing, I unfairly judged. They ran up to me, sniffing my bag and then my ankles.

And just then, "Kaara aatakaara" came on.

More Mumbai!

But a happy Mumbai! I remembered being stumped when watching the movie, amazed that the song was used this way. Months on, this remains my favourite song in OK Kanmani. It never fails to put a smile on my face, and is the first thing I want to listen to on the few occasions I wake up early and head to the gym.

Going up the lift, I remembered the happy scenes showing Mumbai in the movie. The beach, the sea, the rains!

Getting into my home, the only thing I wanted to do was to type all these random things out. While "Kaara..." looped, just so I didn't lose the energy, the enthusiasm to put this jumble into words.

Mission accomplished! 

This afternoon in the office, I was sorely tempted to pull up my shawl to cover my head too – the air-conditioning was making the office so cold that my fingers were getting numb, my knit legging-ed leg was getting goosebump-y, and I was sure I’d get a headache at this rate.

And then I wondered how I would brave the Delhi winters.

Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, announcing the latest big move of my life. So far, the record is Chennai à Singapore à Mumbai à Delhi. I’ve steadily been moving north, except for the Singapore bit where I moved a few degrees north of the equator.

While Mumbai did a good job in getting me used to a city that wasn’t Chennai or Bangalore or another southern city where I had family – I could manage my way around in Hindi, get used to tomato-onion-garam masala-based gravies every single day – Delhi is a whole other world.

First of all, it carries the loaded baggage of being unsafe for women. After Singapore and Mumbai, here I was, resigned to not wearing shorts or being out and about alone at night. My mother’s concern reaches epic proportions as she signs resignedly when I tell her I’m out for dinner or to buy things. I try every time – unsuccessfully – to allay her fears and say it’s not that bad; but after Mumbai, I will admit that the number of women I find on the roads – alone – after 7pm is shockingly low.

But otherwise, things have been a lot more fun. The biggest change would be the Hindi. Yes, Mumbai made me feel more confident about my hesitant Hindi, and I shamelessly describe or bargain without any thought to whether I should use ka or ki, mera or meri. Mumbai generously allowed me those mistakes. Here, I don’t know… but I confidently rattle off anyway in my working Hindi until my lengthy monologue tapers into English and I finish with an embarrassingly well-constructed English sentence spoken to a house agent, tiffin delivery guy or carpenter who would likely just nod his head or answer back with a complex Hindi sentence.

Hindi here is literary, pure. After Mumbai’s Marathi-mixed Hindi and ‘Tum kya karta hai’ type lines, Hindi in Delhi is like listening to people read sentences from a book. Road signs use words like ‘pralabdh’ (or something like that, I forgot what intense word I saw!), and people use words that I’ve never really heard before, even though my Hindi is as textbook-ish as can be, given we learnt it for years in school without ever having to really speak the language. I hear the word ‘dikkat’ a dozen times everyday, and I wonder why they just can’t use ‘takleef’ (or does my limited vocabulary not understand the nuances and simply consider both synonyms for difficulty?). I also hear the word ‘nazdeek’ and wonder why you can’t use the simpler monosyllabic ‘paas’ (both, I’m pretty sure, mean ‘close’).  And took a minute to understand ‘khulle paise’ for ‘chhutta’ (change or coins).

I’m doing much better, though. I unconsciously switch to Hindi (albeit on very rare occasions) with my colleagues, and I consider that a big achievement because all my life I have never spoken in Hindi in a situation where I didn’t have to. I guess all the Hindi that I hear being spoken around me in office –something that amused me to no end on my first day – helps.

As life settles into a fairly comfortable routine, one of the things I enjoy the most is taking the train back home. I live three stations away, and two doors from the station I exit at. I’m silly enough to want to grin widely (but thankfully check myself) every time I walk past the cacophonous ‘Madam-madam-madam’ chant of the rickshaw-wallahs outside the station, asking me to hop on to their vehicle. I walk past the row of them and get into my house, the house till which their line extends. Ah, the pleasures of staying close to the station!

That said, what’s with having manually-drawn rickshaws in this day and age, and that too in the national capital?! It irks me whenever I have to sit in a vehicle and watch a man – often thin and wiry, and sometimes even old – pedal painfully through crowded roads. I feel worse when I have a co-passenger. The first time I sat on one – I couldn’t remember when I’d sat on a rickshaw before that day – it was like going on a roller-coaster ride through crowded, brimming-with-life-and-commerce Delhi-6. I kept sliding off the sloping seat, and had a laugh whizzing through the roads. Now, I wish I could avoid every rickshaw ride. Like my friend says, these men are selling their labour to earn money – but it’s bitter to watch. Like I used to be amazed and feel sad looking at frail, old people cleaning tables in Singapore foodcourts – they are only earning their money, but you wish they didn’t have to do this.

Otherwise, the roads are laaaarge and wiiiiide, and it’s such a pleasant surprise after Bombay’s choking, narrow roads. You don’t see slums, and the metro is just so beautiful and I’m so proud to see something like this in the country – and it’s kept clean, and how! Government buildings, state representative houses, a hint of the Red Fort from a crowded road in Delhi-6, the Lotus Temple that I see near the Nehru Place station, the Dilli Haat with its stalls from across the country… the city (or what I’ve seen of it) is like an everyday display of what the country stands for in its full glory, and it’s always thrilling to see things you’ve read about in History standing before you tall and proud (even though I’ve done enough trips to Delhi as a kid). And houses – man, where are the apartments?! Every place I wanted to rent was a barsati ­ - a glorified servant’s quarters or outhouse, built where the terrace should have been, stuffed with basic plumbing and a few perfunctory shelves. After seeing a dozen of them, I zoned in on one that’s as big as one of the bedrooms at my home in Coimbatore – and I pay more than what we would rent our whole home out for.  

As I settle into my new home, manage packed lunches and dinners, eat fruits like I never have before, feel hungry all the time like I never eat (!), hunt desperately for a maid (so much that I walked up to a random security guard and asked him to tell any maid he sees entering the society), feel like I'll melt in this furnace of a weather, feel delirious at times wondering whether I’m in Mumbai or a whole other city, and would give anything to get steaming, hot upma for breakfast, I’m slowly getting used to Delhi… and kinda enjoying it too. 

When the last time you celebrated Navratri at home was as a 17-year-old fretting about endless DAV exams and pathetic scores and friends visiting you for birthday, you can be forgiven for forgetting much. Like that you’re not supposed to touch the dolls on the kolu display, that you simply cannot keep leftover sundal in the fridge to eat the next day, and that dolls that you played with as a child haven’t been passed on over to another child but safeguarded by mother for display year after year.

Celebrating Navratri and kolu at home after nine years also shows you how much you haven’t grown as your parents wish you have. You simply can’t draw a rice kolam to save your life, you don’t know how to quickly grate coconut in time for the neivedhiyam, and you still don’t get which direction to give guests vermillion, leave alone understanding why it’s done.

Needless to say, Navratri 2012 has been a re-revelation for yours truly. I suddenly realise that dolls that were ‘recently’ purchased are actually over ten years old. I get to know with sadness that the old Dashavataram set broke, so it’s been replaced with a stone-carved version I had bought at a school trip to Mahabalipuram in class twelve. My two-year-old choppu saaman set (yes, bought two years ago at Vijaya Stores because I wanted it) sits together with the Barbie kitchen set bought in 1995 after a tantrum in Bombay. Wine glasses and toasters share space comfortably with a wooden kudam and a wooden chakki, while my nephew’s battery-operated Ben10 fan cools the chettiyar and topless chettichi (apparently 30 years ago in Calicut, this seemed appropriate – I’ve always maintained Kerala is cool, man). A series of new dolls, representing gods and goddesses I have long forgotten or never knew, adorn the shelves, as my mother takes a deep breath and tries to educate me (and tests me too – we visit a temple and she asks me to identify what the goddess has been decorated as for the day: green face, parrot in hand – Meenakshi! I say with joy, much to her relief). There are battles fought as parents try to come to terms with what my marital home might demand me to know (demand?  they must be nuts to expect anything!), and my desire to appease poor and tired mother, and chipping in with everything ranging from plucking vetthalai from the creeper, sitting next to her and trying to decode and recite the Soundaryalahiri, to obliging with her some of her favourite Carnatic songs.

It’s quiet old Coimbatore, so Navratri isn’t quite the same as in Chennai. With no relatives, visits are restricted to the few neighbours who’ve been here for so long that they can step in and immediately tell which dolls are new this year (no kidding!) As I politely decline to sing in every house with a kolu, I take in the sights and sounds in the display. I’ve only seen two, but one of those gave mom and me plenty of reason to chuckle in amusement. This one had the Dashavataram in any random order, and the lady had decided to throw in any doll she could find in the house that wasn’t broken – or wait, there were a few broken ones too – so much so that we found one decapitated doll with an elephant’s head stuck to his broken neck. Breaking into fits of giggles, I pointed this to my mother silently, but she thought it was some Gajamukha-contraption. I turned out to be right, though – this unfortunate person on display was earlier Parashurama. But the Dashavataram has ten dolls, I told the lady – there are two Krishnas, she said. It was difficult to not cross the amount of good-natured laughing allowed at such occasions.

Otherwise, it’s been three evenings of yummy sundal, sweets, new clothes and special treatment. Add to this the delightful five-year-old nephew who was the only one to notice that the Krishna standing amid the Gopikas has the end of his flute on his cheek, and not his lips. And throw in spells of laughter with the older sister. All of this is, of course, in addition to the delightful rasam Amma makes, the few minutes of sitting on her lap as she calls me chubby (I’m not!), dozing off with the unda mayakkam that accompanies a lunch that doesn’t involve paneer or a tomato-onion-based subzi, dad excitedly discussing his Economist subscription, my career prospects and the Mani Ratnam article on The Hindu – being home has its perks. 

P.S.: Yours truly also turned 26 at the beginning of the month. The number is increasing so quickly I don't even want to get excited about posting about it on the blog! 

There is something downright magical about listening to Rahman in the red-and-white headphones. Increase volume, close eyes, be transported. Listen to the at-least-five levels of music that is making life surreal. Kannil, kannil, kannil inba kanneerae!

I love my dissertation. It rocks. If over the next few months, due to the sheer volume of work I have to do for it, I begin to crib, do me a favour and point me to this post.

I managed to cook Rasam all by myself today. Choosing the amount of salt, rasam powder, everything. I don’t know how it’ll taste, but I think it looks promising.

There is a weird story stuck in my head, and I don’t know how to get it out in time, before it stops being weird. Why can’t there be a machine that can just transcribe what runs in my head?

The weather here is simply beautiful. A warm, cosy sun. A chill in the air even at 8am. Perfect for hour-long walks, with Amma pointing out children’s parks she used to take me to, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants we ate at.

Chennai is less than a week away. That means my Chennai people, beach, candyfloss, maangai, unbearable heat, Subbaiya bajji, Broken Bridge, Kapali kovil, Pondy Bazaar.

Singapore is three weeks away. That means my Singapore people, my Singapore places, my NTU and my awesome Asian food. And so is Cambodia, a nice swimming pool, centuries-old beauty, happy pizza and Pub Street.  

It’s a strange feeling. It’s been six months since the move back to India, six months since I became a student again, six months of feeling like an old, wise, out-of-touch-with-India woman, six months of alternating between missing Singapore and digging India. SO MUCH has changed in these months, and today I realized, for the first time – and maybe it’s simply a carryover effect of all the good things happening in university over the last few days – but I’m totally happy about the move.

So the university turns 75 this year, and there’s been quite a bit of (well-deserved) hoohaa, but I should be thankful – these events made me get closer to the ground realities, soak in the atmosphere, convinced me I really am back, and told me that it’s all for the better.

The first of these was the session on surveying M-Ward East, a collection of slums that have the worst Human Development Indicators in Mumbai. After a couple of days of mayhem and understandable disorganization – over 1500 students were to be involved in surveying 20,000 households, using tablets, so it was an organizational nightmare – we set out into the field, armed with water bottles, hand sanitizers, stoles around our heads, et al. I was excited about the project – my course doesn’t have sessions where you have to go to the field and interact with the beneficiaries of the development process I am supposed to initiate – but was at the same time very unsure of how far my Hindi would take me. Luckily, I was teamed up with a boy who had no issues with Hindi, and the very first survey we did will always stay in my mind: him completely at ease, joking, laughing, connecting with the people, and me listening to his every word to improve my fairly abysmal Hindi vocabulary. Over the next seven days, I realized how many things we take for granted – running water, electricity, access to medical facilities, etc. As a relatively socially conscious person, of course I was aware of problems people have with these things, but to see them live, in one of India’s richest cities, was shocking (yes, even though we’ve all seen Slumdog Millionaire). I spoke to women about their reproductive health, struggling to ask questions about their sex lives, vagina, etc. (resorting to crude ways of asking about it with a ‘Sorry, my Hindi isn’t that good!’), only to hear a number of them tell me nonchalantly about their babies who have died; it was especially painful to hear of a woman’s abortion experience, when her midwife put her hand so far deep into the woman’s uterus that it got scratched by her nails and was infected for months after the incident. It was an eye-opener in a number of ways, and most of all driving home hard one lesson – I have nothing in life to complain about, when there are millions who are surviving through days, forget living through them, hoping or planning. These seven days, life went by in a flash: coming back late at night after the surveys, showering, falling on to the bed and not waking up once till the alarm rang the next morning.

And this Monday, the school started its platinum jubilee celebrations. Four days of seminars, panel discussions, academics debating theories that went over my head, listening to a monk from Arunachal Pradesh telling us about their sentiments about being part of India, hearing out an activist supporting Manipur’s Irom Sharmila who has been fasting for eleven years to repeal a draconian army law, listening to students from the North East giving their views on how they feel alien in India even as the country claims them as one of its own, watching documentaries and short films by brilliant student filmmakers across the country, cheering performances from a highly-talented Naga troupe and a bursting-with-energy, feminist troupe from Tamil Nadu, hooting and going wild at a beat boxer’s performance, and wrapping it up by dancing to the DJ who had to stop spinning by 10pm to not annoy the residents nearby.

And this evening, somehow the realization that I talked about at the beginning of this post struck me, as we watched the cooks and servers at our dining halls and canteens put up a smashing performance – the one I think that got the most cheers and even an encore. For all that I have cribbed about the university, the curriculum, the bureaucracy, the pseudo intellectuals, prissy girls, wannabe boys, childish people, professors stuck in decades-old procedures and all that – there is something we have all learnt in our few months here, and something I know we will have learnt by when we graduate: appreciating others, and respecting people from backgrounds very different and often much more difficult than your own. Yes, the really urban ones will never be chummy with their more heartland friends, we will all form our groups with people from similar backgrounds, some of us will pretend to know more than our professors or criticise anything that comes our way – but somehow, and at some point, we shed these selves and know that in no way can we consider ourselves superior to anyone else, worthier than anyone else. The university suddenly seemed to be a beautiful place to be in, and I was proud to be in a place that had done some incredible, life-changing work in its 75 years of existence.

And for some reason, I left the place happy, brimming with hope and eager to push out the cynicism that has been entrenched in me since moving back. And for this reason, I knew that this move had to happen; it’s a phase of life God planned for me, to help me learn some things I would have not learnt so effectively in Singapore. I have no idea where life will take me next, and where I want to be, but for now, this seems perfect.

P.S., and note to self: Don’t be fooled by all this optimism. It’s time for classes, assignments and worst of all, dissertation, to begin, and be sure to look out for a crib fest next month. 

Dated 9 Aug 2011 and posted today because, hey, two months on and I still don’t have internet at home

It’s been two months since my massive move back to India, to Mumbai for the first time. And in this short span, I have seen so much: seasons (hot-humid-summer to horrible-rain to current-pleasant-weather), bomb blasts in the city, had endless permutations of pavs (vada-, misal-, bhajia-, etc.), jumped past dog poo, spoken Hindi that makes my new friends laugh in good-natured (I hope!) amusement, among other things. 

The day I landed was a hard-hitting lesson in back-to-India-ness. I had all but stepped out after a shower for two minutes, that I was covered with sweat that was mingling with dust from the roads (yes, it sounds revolting, but you can imagine. I wonder how students on exchange from Europe/the US handle it, but perhaps they have conditioned themselves to the I’m-coming-to-India experience?) Some five minutes after this, I had to cross perhaps the most dangerous road of all times. I patiently waited for the pedestrian crossing signal to turn green, realized vehicles don’t give a damn about it, and ended up running in terror, in between honking vehicles that screeched to a halt so they don’t kill me. I walked around the college campus, somewhat let down by the size of it (the whole campus was as big as the South Wing of NTU), but still happy at how green it was. I was surprised that every girl was in a kurta and chudidar. I found the canteen food good, but it was in a smelly place; I wanted to avoid having to walk over to the other side to wash my hands as far as possible. Two hours outside and I was craving to get into a mall for the air-conditioning (after being frisked and getting my bag checked at the mall entrance). I was disoriented and upset at the enormity of my move. 

Two months on, things have changed. The rains have begun, and the umbrella-hater me has had to walk everywhere with on in hand. Through the slush, into the auto rickshaw, sitting on wet seats, stepping into slush, and the like. Opening the cupboard to find fungus all over my black pair of jeans. Worms in the bathroom, leading the way to other kinds of worms and now, snails. I have gone from the phase of aversion to acceptance to now cold-hearted brutal murder. I have gotten used to saying Rupees and Paise, and not dollars and cents, and the fact that the 50 paise has no value today. I don’t run away from dogs anymore, just stand by and admire the gutsy mongrel doing his business by the tyre of a Honda City. I rattle away in crappy Hindi, know that kulta is a ‘bad’ word, swear more than I ever did, order Indian dishes I’d never heard (zhunka bhakri!), and enjoy my only non-Indian food at McDonald’s, having the McVeggie burger with fries. I negotiate the risky crossing with ease, shouting out the choicest of abuses at sedan drivers, sometimes even in Tamil. I’m used to the delays associated with Indian-ness, and although it gets the better of me very often (and it spirals into a whole hour of grumpiness and Singapore-sickness), I can recover with the help of Amul ice cream, Dairy Milk or Cadbury’s Bourbon. Drinking a can of beer that I queued up and bought at a ‘wine shop’ while the owner threw dirty looks at ‘girls these days,’ was a big achievement. NRI-ness has on the whole gone down, I think. 

And yet, it all feels so weird. I sink in nostalgia when I see Facebook updates on anything to do with Singapore; miss the fact that it’s National Day today and the crazy ads they have for the NDP. I spent a good ten minutes explaining the ‘We must be vigilant’ video they show in the MRTs. I look out for Singapore in charts showing statistics on different countries in class (though they mostly drop it out – either it’s too small or too developed ;)), and ‘lah’ and ‘sian’ have been taught to roommates and anyone else who bothers to hear me rant. I still say ‘I’m going to India’ when I mean ‘I’m going home.’ I miss wearing nice clothes – I’ve been wearing my pretty clothes to school because I don’t know what else to do with them. In a class where pretty much everyone is in a kurta/leggings or pretty tops and jeans, I go with my best workwear, and even dresses, and soon everyone is going to tire of asking where it’s from (and sometimes I feel weird; it feels a little show-offy to say that this dress is from Bandung, a hill station near Jakarta). Terribly miss the variety in food, the outside-of-work life, the endless movies, fast internet and God, the desserts (brownies here are terrible, and cakes, I’d rather not have). 

As I still negotiate the space between ‘I love India and it’s so much fun’ and ‘Ugh, why did I come here’ I guess the brain has already started leaning towards the former, and the heart is slowly following too – a sense of acceptance that one good life’s done and another has begun, and the optimistic self tells me I have to give things in India a fair chance. Thanks to the besties who still call/email from Singapore and keep me in the loop – so much so that sometimes I feel like I’m just on extended holiday in India – and the new ones here in Mumbai who make it so much fun – I guess I’ll survive.

I'm highly amused by my own thought process. In the ten-minute walk from the train station to home, my mind thinks of at least a dozen things. Amazement at the fact a train is speeding away on a bridge a few metres above my head. The moon and its stage in its fortnightly life. Why some women look pretty in skirts and why I can never pull it off. Counting the number of people smoking in that ten-minute distance. The old man who has his special little flashlight to shine at the rubbish bin to see what he can rummage to recycle and earn a living. Bus numbers 24 and 22. The song on the iPod and the lyrics that struggle to escape my lips loud and clear, and that sometimes do when there are fewer people around, and just the process of this happening.

Today's was occupied by rebirth, karma and the hand of God in our lives. Nothing religious. Nothing rebellious. Nothing that questions or doubts. Simple curiosity.

So our lives are predestined and all our fates have been sealed by God long ago. So long ago that it's ridiculous to even slap a time-frame on it. God probably thought of my current birth some twenty-thousand births ago. Of what S/He would make me do, what I'd earn good credits for, what I'd repent for, what I'd pay for. Of what my karma is going to be. So why did S/He decide my life should go this way? What about those who're not quite enjoying their time on earth - what if they are paying back for bad things they did in the previous birth and end up doing worse things in the current birth because of the terrible life they have to lead? Are they just caught in an infinite loop of bad karma over and over again?

Thinking these thoughts is just amazing. So much fun. That's why I loved Sophie's World and being in Athens, where Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived and debated, gave me that thrill. That's why I wonder now if I really did go to these places, see and live all those things, and that this day one week back I was relieved to have made it to the airport in time to take the flight back home. What if I'm just a pawn in someone else's game, a character in a story like Sophie was? What if cities, parents, books, Rahman, tennis, Obama, Osama and all that were merely inventions of a woman or a man who is scripting my story? Ah, the challenges and questions life throws at you!

Black Beauty is now history. For the first time in nearly seven years in Singapore, I'm moving houses without lugging along my desktop with its CRT monitor (I know!), CPU, keyboard. I felt a twinge of regret and sadness as the karung guni (how rag and bone men in Singapore are referred to) opened up the CPU, asked me where the hard drive was (I'd removed it last morning) and kindly offered me $2. 'Just take it,' I said. 'I don't want any money!' And there, the monitor, CPU and the keyboard (I will miss that the most - it was the most wonderful keyboard ever) were tugged away right before my eyes like scrap (that's nearly what they became, but that's besides the point). Here's something I'd written about her when she was still new. It hurts just to think of the number of years that have passed in between!

Anyway, back to the new beginning. I've moved house for the fourth time in less than three years, but there's not been a single place in all my years in Singapore that I've been as happy about leaving as the last place I was in. The new house seems like a blessing compared to the old one - it's clean, new, bright and the best part of all, I only need to peep out the window to watch trains passing - something that will have me squealing in delight till I get used to it.

Oh well, there's a lot to get used to, but I'm not thinking about it all. For now, the biggest point is that Greece (and now Turkey - woohoo!) is just days away. Let me while my time away thinking of the Parthenon, Mousakka, feta cheese, baklava and Bosphorus.

Hey kiddo,

I wonder if cricket is still big in India in your time, or if football or basketball has usurped its place. Anyway, in this short letter you'll learn about a historic moment for the game, how I lived through it and simply how it felt.

Growing up, we all heard about 1983 and Kapil's devils, and photos of a grinning, mustached Kapil lifting the cup were immortalized often. We're talking about the cricket World Cup, held once every four years. 1983 was before my time, but after I'd turned 10 or so, I used to watch every World Cup, and watch India lose. Sri Lanka won under chubby Ranatunga's captaincy, and even Pakistan (oh, Pakistan) won it one year. Australia - those arrogant men, as I often considered them then - won it twice too. India would get kicked out miserably, unceremoniously, and I used to watch my grandfather switch off the TV, disappointed and retire into his bedroom. Then in 2003, magic happened - we got into the Finals. Against Australia. Twenty years after we'd won previously, and the whole nation was on tenterhooks. All until we bowled our way terribly out of any hope for victory. 2007 was disastrous, let's not even get into it - you can search online if you want to know more about it.

Then 2011 arrived. We worked our way into the Quarter Finals, with some hiccoughs along the way... drawing a match with England, losing to South Africa, but pulled off awesome wins against Australia and Pakistan.

And bloody hell, we were in the final. Against Sri Lanka. So I ended up at the same place I'd watched India beat Pakistan, at the same table, with the same people. Endless baskets of fried potatoes in various forms, towers of beer, stuffed-with-cheese pizzas went around, and we watched Sri Lanka struggle to get a good start. Until this guy called Mahela Jayawardane started getting consistent and steadily moved from 50 to 60 to (before we knew it), 100. We watched in shock as every ball in the last few overs was sent to the boundary, and ended with a target of 275 to win the World Cup.

Shocked as we were, oh well, we thought, we have Sachin and Sehwag. Sehwag then got out on the second ball. Sachin, please stay, we implored. He smashed some balls to the boundary, and then got out too. A hush fell around the pub. Then new players came in and we successfully brought the score to 30 to win from 30 balls. 27 from 24. And before we knew it, it was 15 from 12. A six, a couple of fours, and we were going deaf - party horns, cheering, whistles abounded as we finally brought it to 4 runs needed. We held our breath as Dhoni lifted the ball to the air, and the whole place exploded. People had climbed onto the bar tables, random people were hugging each other, and despite all the screaming, some idiot of a man asked me if I was Sri Lankan and if that was why I was not happy - I gave him a look of utter disbelief until I waved him off and said 'Whatever!' 28 years we had waited, and it had happened.

Anyway, we left the place we'd hogged for nearly 9 hours, ordering endless plates of food and drink. A place where we saw kids a few years younger than us - a whole batch of bimbotic (would you even know what that means, I wonder...) girls and boys who made me feel old and incredibly mature. Boys who were saying the lamest of things, and girls who were extremely unintelligent - generally and when it come to cricket (they cheered for replays of wickets without realizing they were replays; and sample 'Oh I wait for the umpire to lift his forefinger in the air before I cheer for a wicket' - please, don't ever be like this).

I wish I could tell you how it was, but imagine me, the tricolour painted on my right cheek, hands up in the air, screaming my head off, my voice breaking, jumping. I wonder if you'll ever live through the excitement of waiting for years for a win and savouring it, and whether sportsmanship is the same as it was that day (although my own parents used to tell me that it was already on the decline then). Would you ever experience  cricket like we did, the way it brought the fans, the non-fans, the seldom-watch-it-ers together, and the agony, anguish, grief and debilitating joy that it brings?

Oh well. Writing this while grinning excitedly was draining enough. And anyway, here is the gist of this story in case it didn't clearly come through given the late hour and incredible excitement: I WATCHED INDIA WIN THE WORLD CUP!!!!

It's stupid of me to want and write now. I've just come back from a photography class that lasted three hours and was led by one of the most can't-teach-for-nuts-and-is-uninspiring teacher ever. Worse, it was a photo critique class, I had lost my photos because my desktop decided to fail the day I brought a new laptop home (it was as if the desktop, my 7-year partner in crime, knew...), and had to pull some old photos from Facebook to take something to the class, all of which had problems (I cringed as we went through each photo, finding one issue after another, amazed at how much difference a few weeks of lessons can make to composition and all that...)

Anyway, on my way home from the class, I cursed myself for being over-ambitious and loading my life with so many things. Work is unimaginably hectic already, and I insist on doing things outside of work just to make sure there's more to life than work, but ruining any chances of free time in the process. I want a weekend with nothing to do, and I don't think I've had that for over a year! All the same, with my typical indecisive air, I tell myself I'll never be happy if I don't have enough things for my mind to think about. I want to work hard, learn something new, sing, read, write, swim, try to take good photos, travel, work on Spark and spend a weekend afternoon yapping away with a friend. How can I want everything!

I have no way out other than to wear myself out doing all of the above, take a breather and get back to the manic mode of doing it all, all over again. And that's just what I'm doing. I lull myself into sleep reading a book. I effortlessly shift from Harry Potter to Milan Kundera to Nikolai Gogol to Ruskin Bond to my current massive project, reading Ponniyin Selvan in Tamil. I make my computer/iPod want to cry out in pain with endless repeats of Norwegian Wood, Rehna Tu and Pudhu Vellai Mazhai. I work till I feel like I never left the office and have exhausted all the 'take-away' lunch and dinner options. I read the newspaper on the way back from work, enjoying IHT's brilliant stories, and read a book on the way to work, dozing off mid-way. I crave for tea every four hours, but restrict myself to green tea instead. I fall asleep thinking of walks with ice-cream in hand, of spending an hour updating my diary on this manic life, and of packing the tripod one Saturday and going to Little India for a photo shoot.

I've probably said this countless times before, but I think this is the busiest I've ever been in my working life. It's also the most exciting, though, thanks to the umpteen things I've managed to cram it with. Anway, at 12.04 on a Friday the 18th of March, things can't be looking any better: I'm watching Rahman perform some 20 hours from now, a dream come true (I'm probably going to burst into tears of joy when I see him, or screech till I lose my voice). And Greece is barely a month away, and hopefully there are more things to look forward to.

Oh, what the heck. I'll survive. And survive well, that I know.  

I'm shocked that the first decade of the new millennium is over. I still remember my sister and I were watching Titanic as 2000 dawned. And close to midnight, we ran to the balcony and counted the seconds to 2000 on her watch. I was a gawky 14-year-old, and she, a college student. She's now a mother! God, I feel so old!

I've been reading so much about the Margazhi season recently, that I am longing to go to Chennai so badly. I'm fiercely jealous of anyone in Chennai right now, and anything that people have to say about the city and the December kutcheries, etc., are capable of causing a spiral into nostalgia. As a kid and as a teenager I used to hate attending a lot of these kutcheries, but thinking back on them now, I figure I rather enjoyed them once I was there. Visions of accompanying paati (all gleaming in her silk saree) to a TM Krishna kutchery in Music Academy, and with amma to TTD for a Nithyashree kutchery seem like glimpses of someone else's life. Not to forget good ol' Krishna Gana Sabha that we used to go to thadukki vizhunda, simply for the sheer proximity of the Sabha to our house. And as years moved on and kutchery outings became rarer, the TV - especially the Margazhi Mahotsavam on Jaya TV - slowly became the window to the world of December season kutcheries.

The other day I asked my mother if Salem had any such thing. Her response indicated Salem didn't even feature in any musician's plans. Obviously, I thought. What wouldn't I give to go back to my life in T.Nagar - to five years back - when life, home, friends and everything outside of Singapore centered on Chennai!

When I think back on 2010, I feel it was a strange 'non-happening' year - despite everything that happened - an escalation of responsibilities at work, carrying the DSLR pretty much everywhere, and opting to have fun by watching movies, eating out and simply yapping away. I think I used up most of 2010 making plans for 2011.

Of course, Spark was among the biggest things that happened in 2010. My writing habit has been whipped back into shape, I have been having great fun editing people's works, reading the brilliant things a lot of them have to say. My awe for anyone who can write poems has increased manifold.

New Year in Chennai meant a trip to Muppathamma Kovil beating its crazy crowds. I haven't been home for New Year's in three years. Midnight would have made no difference at home because I'd be fast asleep :) Tonight, I'm determined to catch the fireworks in Singapore and take some photos of them - fingers crossed!

I know 2011 is going to be a big year. I see it coming. I feel strangely optimistic and confident, and yet my brains are telling me to stay calm and be practical. Keeping in line with my usual levels of resolutions, here's what I plan to do in 2011:

- take Spark to new levels
- more photography. Joining a beginners' class soon!
- travel. Greece is happening next year. I still can't believe it :)
- ice cream at least once a week, but reduce the number of chocolates.
- a return to those long walks I used to take in NTU.
- chart out a proper plan to volunteer/give back - no sporadic money donations,  something bigger.

That's enough, already. Cheers to the New Year! Hope 2011 has more happiness, no disasters or war, amazing health and fun!

I have finally turned 24. I say finally, because I have long considered myself to have turned 24 - don't ask me why.

This is probably the first birthday I haven't greeted with bursting enthusiasm, with plans for the next year, and a constant grin on my face. Perhaps a sign of wisdom finally creeping in? Oh well, time will tell - for all I know, tomorrow I will get to work and swear reasonably loudly whenever I see an email that annoys me, or laugh like a fool at the lamest of jokes.

As listed to my wonderful colleagues who graciously agreed to do a vegetarian lunch in honour of yours truly today, these are my priorities for the 25th year in life:

- Travel more
- Take more photographs
- Be even more chilled in life. Boss interjects saying I'm quite there already, but I think it can be much better - I've decided I should up the ante a little bit there.

And I decided to shamelessly check what I put out on Oct 4, 2009 and evaluate myself:
- put even less tension: CHECK!
- write more: CHECK! Thanks to Spark, that is!
- sing more: CHECK! If all goes well, I shall continue to strain my throat and perform early next year.
- read more: CHECK, going on as usual. The library is being massively built!
- put the blessed d5000 to good, frequent use: CHECK! Nearly a thousand photos in one day, most of which I can daresay look pretty good.

Given my reasonably low goal-setting habit, I have done well and am immensely pleased. Now as 25 begins, and I enter it a little hesitant as I'm painfully aware of the possible changes it heralds, all I can say is hope it's all for the best!

The 24th has begun... on a day of unimaginable fun and good food and dreams come true!

Resolutions for the year of the age that I can't believe I have already reached (Gosh, wasn't I 19 just recently?!?!):

- put even less tension
- write more
- sing more
- read more
- put the blessed d5000 to good, frequent use.

Thought it would make sense to put these down given I'm pretty sure Oct 2010 (AWK! A DECADE THAT I REMEMBER EVERY YEAR OF!!!) will come soon and I'll look back at 2009's post to see how things have changed...

What’s with Asians and MIXING the strangest things to eat? Or eating flowers? Having tea made from the weirdest ingredients?

The day I landed in Singapore, my relative offered me aloe vera juice that I gulped in out of courtesy, stifling the tears back in. Few days later, on campus, I tasted the weirdest, sourest lime juice I had ever tasted, so different that I went to the stall guy and asked him if it was vegetarian (I know, I know, but I was just 17 and paranoid – I had just seen a ‘vegetarian’ stall selling pork). Soon, I saw that people had cucumber + aloe vera juice, and that fruits called honey dew, dragon fruit, DURIAN and longan existed. That people have juice made from celery, while all juices I had had till then were made of the traditional apple/mango/orange/carrot/grapes. And then there was bubble tea - never mind the jelly-shaped things that float into your mouth as you sip the juice through a thick straw, the juice itself was probably made from ginseng. Soon, I had grown used to chrysanthemum tea, jasmine tea, and horrors, until a friend recently gifted a box, got to know that there was something called Turkish Delight where the chocolate was stuffed with rose (I nearly lost my appetite for chocolate, I tell you – and that means that Turkish Delight had tasted terrible). And just a couple of months back, I ate fungus – not even mushroom, mind you, but bamboo shoots with fungus. Braved fungus once more yesterday, and survived.

And today, I have braved myself to a challenge and made myself a cup of hot green tea. It looks a muddy light green and I’m doing everything to not drink it though I brought it upon myself. I took one sip gingerly and it tasted like I was chewing leaf. LEAF.

Singapore is a foodie’s paradise, and for a vegetarian not too keen on trying new things, it’s nearly hell. But well, I have braced myself for the challenges and have learnt how to eat things I am just too sure will bring tears to my eyes.

Well, it’s 31 December and while everyone in the office is sending each other thank you notes for the year that it has been, I should probably thank this weird city I have lived in for 4 1/2 years, in whose honour I have dedicated dozens of posts in this blog, for making me steely, giving me courage and confidence, and most of all, to take things in my stride and laugh at one and many a thing.

Happy 2009, everybody! May this year be healthy, peaceful, prosperous (with all signs of the credit crunch disappearing) and joyous!

It's one of those numbers you never thought you'd be associated with in life; and yet, there they are, not lurking in the corner anymore but jumping out to stare you in the eye!

So I turn 22, and I look at the year ahead and wonder what surprises and what changes will happen, and how life will turn. Hopefully all turns are for good!

Awk, it's just the most sensible birthday post I've written in the last almost-4-years of blogging. I guess the blog is the perfect place for me to see how I've changed from some gawky teenager to some sensible (!) and mature (!!) woman - lady (?!)

Happy Birthday to me!

It's Friday and I'm desperately trying to churn out some fluff writing at work for an event. I realize, with horror, that it turns out to be more difficult than I thought. Nevertheless, I chug on, with extreme happiness that a week with long hours at work is finally coming to an end.

What contributes more to the tempo and enthu in which I'm doing everything is the song I'm listening - Elay! It's cute, funny, fast, interesting and enjoyable! And it's got everything I like - acoustic guitar, a violin that's on a frenzy, Naresh Iyer [;)], pace and interesting and understandable lyrics. And the part of the song I love the most (for reasons I really cannot follow) is the way the song grinds to a halt in the end, with the sudden halt of beats, the chords that still play on and the voice and the words - 'Kaadhal station vandhiruchu vaa...'

I feel like an idiot getting so excited for (of all things), the ending of the song, but.. it's..

Awesome!

Randomness reigns supreme in Vani's life.

(I know, even I'm getting tired of announcing this-and-that in my blog, but that's pretty much what I am doing these days - looking forward to things to make life seem good! Not that it's bad, though!).

We've moved in! Hostel life officially came to an end almost 2 weeks back, when we finally brought in our things from here and there and started 'living' in our house. Other things took longer, and it was only today that I finally got my desktop a wireless USB adapter and finally came online!

And so, I waited for a week to write what I thought of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.. What do I say? Bloody entertaining! And very, very cute and magical. It's cliched and everything, but it's the movie I'll associate my end of college with. Of course, the movie has the same theme, but everything about the movie was so thoroughly enjoyable and things you could relate to - which I believe very few directors have been able to achieve!

And the songs.....wooohoooo! For the first time in my history of AR Rahman movie watching in Singapore, where I clap with uncontrollable glee every time his name comes on the screen, some guy sitting in the row behind mine commented 'Why so much happiness for this?!' and I wanted to say, I'm-super-excited-and-the-title-is-my-favourite-track-and-the-title-song-looks-so-bloody-nice-
what-more-can-I-ask-for.

That says it, I guess. I totally, totally loved the movie for everything it was, it's funny, magical, cute, entertaining, dumb and silly moments. Coz it was just what life was till a very few days ago.
RANDOM.

4 years came to an end yesterday. As I woke up this morning and realized I have NO studying/course work to do, I felt weird, but I wanted to jump up and down! Which means, I am probably happy - of course lah, coz now I'm a GRADUATE!
Whhhopppppppppeeeeeee!!!!!!!

The blog's THREE! She's growing :D

During her first year, she was a place where I dumped random thoughts - reading them now, I feel like an immature kid excited about a space where others could read her.

Second year was when I realized I could probably put up my stories!

Third year became just a place for me to rant about things that worked - and those that didn't.

And now, hmm.. a sudden thought.. this being my last semester in university, if I have the mood and time and everything else, maybe I might put up things about the university that were so important to me in the four years here. Let's see.