It be cold... again.

Second winters, second bikes and, second chances. How much their value depreciates! I remember last year's winter - my first in America. My first white Christmas. How much I marveled at the snowflakes, the softness of the fallen snow. Trees laden, heavy and white. Grey skies turning navy at five o' clock. Watching people slip on ice and laughing out loud. Slipping on ice. Laughing, again. Wearing that extra sweater lest I should catch a cold. Sipping on ginger tea while staring out of the window into the blue...or grey? Listening to Madeleine Peyroux singing "Don't cry baby" and watching Woody Allen movies. Discovering my love for jazz and noir. Learning to appreciate the value of solitude. Wanting solitude.

There's so much to do this winter :)

We're getting a little obsessive here...

...but well, I'm in love with the man :D

Here he is, playing "Aunt Hagers Blues", New Orleans style :D, at The Carlyle, NYC.

Woody, oh Woody! Sigh!

This is how I feel today..

Took this one yesterday on my way back from school.

The first thing that you want is the last thing that you'll need.

How to fight lonliness - Wilco

How to fight loneliness
Smile all the time
Shine your teeth to meaningless
And sharpen them with lies

And whatever is going down
Will you follow around
That's how you fight loneliness

You laugh at every joke
Drag your blanket blindly
Fill your heart with smoke

And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you'll ever need
That's how you fight it

Just smile all the time.

Song Obsession #1

Naina - Omkara

** Song Obsession (SO) - Any song I have recently been obsessing over; where obsession is defined as having heard the song >50 times/day. Also characterized by mood swings (good or bad, depending on the time of the month :P) related to the mood of the song. SO is aggravated on cold, cloudy and rainy days, aka "Pyar ka Mausam" according to Golu. Hangovers are certain. Eggs and tomato juice don't help.

24

Not the sitcom, dummy!

Inching towards adulthood (or apparently, already being there) is not the best thing to happen. Well frankly, its nice to be here. Perks like freedom, independence.. Its worth the pain of responsibilities. Plus you still get to choose your mental age (which is stuck at 15 years, for me :P)

And since this is a pre-birthday (God I am so excited! Manolos here I come! VS too :D) post, I shall make a wish-list, for all you sweethearts <3 <3 <3 (Maska is the need of the hour :D)

So, I want for my birthday...

1. Date with Woody Allen in Bryant Park. (It's his birthday too! :) )
2. Trip to Goa with Dee and Kits. (Betch Kits you'd better go again with Dee and me! :-/)
3. 10 lbs to suddenly vanish off me.
4. To learn to smile more often. I've realized the importance. Its so much more than just a lame thing to say when one's low. It really works. Especially for those labeled "scary" :)
5. That job I'm eyeing :D
6. A gooooooooood back rub - aromatherapy candles and all.
7. Sexy Manolo's and VS goodies :D
8. A little golden labrador puppy (and to afford to take care of her/him:))
9. An occassion to wear saree! (I've been itching to, but just can't find the right occassion :-/ All those single and looking, please take note. Get married soon so my wish is fulfilled! :P)
10. Morrissey to play in Balto again, and front seat tickets to the gig. Wait, did I mention hot date to go with? :D Essential. Very.

So there.

PS: Woody, I'm serious. Dec 1st, 7 pm, Bryant Park. And don't forget the clarinet.

My first in Umreeka :)

I've been working on this one for a while. Its not complete, but I was itching to post. So there.

I prefer Manolo's...

A lot of my conversations with my girl friends are about men. Not surprising. We talk about men and how they are such c***s (use the choicest of letters; it could be Hindi or English, doesn't matter), and how we don't really need them. One such interesting and hilarious conversation led to the following conclusion -

"Men are like Manolos."

We don't NEED them.
They're bad for our feet.
But, we GOTTA HAVE 'EM.

Why don't you become a chef?

They just have to ask me that. Every time. And I'm flattered. And well, honestly, I LOVE it when I'm praised for my culinary skills. I love cooking. Its so so so relaxing. Therapeutic, even.

My roommate is a lucky girl. Chocolate-covered luck. Her ever-so-sweet "Daaaaady" sent for her birthday, a 3.5 lb slab of Hershey's chocolate. 3.5 lb of chocolate. "It's gonna take you months to finish that off. You know what you should do? Take it to school and give it away. That'll make sure the chocolate doesn't stick around as adipose.", I said to her on a lazy Saturday morning. "Aah.. don't you worry. Won't take me more than 10 days." she quipped.

Cut to Sunday morning.

Dear roomie calls out to me,"Praj I'm fed up of this chocolate. Make something out of it please please please!"

I love it. That call. "Please cook up something exotic for me?!" is the ultimate, one hundred percent, foolproof pick-up line that works ON me. That's the only one that works. Pity, no one's used it yet. Not as a pick-up line. Sigh. Men. Impossible. Synonymous.

Anyway, getting back to the chocolate slab. Well, as excited as I was, about this new project at hand, I started looking up some of my favourite food/recipe blogs (links on the right!) for inspiration. Erm..well.. more like, for a recipe. (Yes, yes, easy way out blah blah.. yadayada..) Now, when I'm looking at recipe blogs, especially the well-illustrated ones, with crisp, colourful photographs, and a decent family story before the recipe, its like a time warp for me. I lose all consciousness of the task at hand and just flow with the recipe. I can smell fresh asparagus when its just mentioned. Yes. I'm obsessive about food. I also go on tangents; so long that the main issue seems like a tiny dot. (More about my various mental, neurological [they're different!], psychological disorders in later posts).

An hour or so later, roomie hollered. "Praaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj!" and I jerked back into the world. Alright. Something had to be done. Soon.

I decided to risk it. No recipe. Follow your instinct. Jo hoga dekha jayega. I chopped, sifted, blended, ground, whipped (basically, all possible action verbs one could do in the kitchen. Oh wait.. didn't do all :P) for an hour, licked the cake batter off the mixing spoon (It's amazing how deceptive cake batter can be. It always tastes good; even if the cake turns out to be a disaster.) and shoved the baking dish into the oven. And waited; nervously.

45 minutes later, my roomies floated into the kitchen, like Jerry floats on the aroma of cheese. (Jerry of Tom and Jerry. Duh!) "Aah, get it out of the oven now!" And so I put on my cookie-monster mittens and took it out. It looked alright but I couldn't figure what was going on inside. (So tempted to metaphorically pick on Mr.Wrong). And as I got back from my time warp, well, what do you know! It turned out amazing. Perfectly decadent. Sinful, I'd call it. Just like the dense, slightly-mushy-gooey, perfectly sweet chocolate cake.

I live for these moments. And yet, I know that I don't want to be a chef. Too much therapy will make Praj a lunatic :)

Morya re!

Today is Ganesh Chaturthi in India. My family is preparing for the festival and everyone is over at my place. Everyone. My favourite cousins, all my aunts and uncles; even the ones that I'm not very fond of.

Ganesh Chaturthi has special significance in my life. Its just the closeness I feel with Ganesha; and I'm not even religious. I don't pray everyday. I don't recite or even remember any mantras. But I still feel very close to Ganesha. Maybe because Ganpati has been a big festival in my family, and I've seen how important it is to my family. Its just the electric atmosphere of my uncle's house - all the women cooking up delicacies, the men chatting over oblivious issues, people catching up, kids playing all over the house, people yelling at these kids, the serene music. How can such a noisy place feel like bliss?

It does. It does. Its so peaceful to watch this scene. Just the hustle-bustle of Ganpati (festival) brings so much energy. Its like the environment is charged.

The high point of this festival (besides food - Modaks yum!), is the Maha-Aarti. My maternal relatives are artists. Each and every person in my family is either a singer, painter, plays the tabla, harmonium, sitar, guitar or all of the above! Needless to say, when all these artists come together, its like one great art festival. Music is the soul of their gatherings. And only they do justice to the Maha-Aarti. Every time, since my childhood, I remember shivers going down my spine when I listen to the Aarti. Its a completely spiritual experience; one, that cannot be experienced anywhere else. Perfect rhythm comes so spontaneously, it looks effortless. The ringing of the "taals" and the beat of the tabla just take one into a trance. I could stand there forever.

Ganpati bappa Morya! :)

Interesting quote

This quote was a friend's status message today. Couldn't help but post it here. Don't know where she read it, or if she arrived at the conclusion through personal experience(?!). Couldn't disagree.

"Mirrors and copulation are abominable since they both multiply the numbers of men."

The hiatus

Lo[ooooooooooooooo]ng time, no see.

Yes. I have to recount the events that commanded preference.

Go on.

Well. Most eventful, but also most saddening summer I've ever spent. Lost golden [no wait, platinum;studded with diamonds] internship offer because certain government agencies took their own sweet time to process my employment authorization documents. Short trip back home was horrible considering I was at home and bed-ridden for more than half the time. Another disaster happened at Philadelphia. And last, but certainly not the least, got heartbroken. Yet again.

:) Didn't anything nice happen though?

Oh sure, yeah. Only, not to me. Well, maybe. I think I'm numb now. I hardly cried after the heartbreak. I've been working out and playing a lot; which makes me feel great. Maybe its all the Serotonin.

Whatever it is, don't you think you learned more than what you would have, if things went well; or shall we say, as you planned?

Mostly, yes. But, well, about the heartbreak, I beg to differ. I did everything right. Oh, but wait. That IS right! I learned not to let anyone walk over me; even if I had the biggest crush on him. Yep. I learned that.

Good. It was about time you realized that.

Yeah. I also learned that loneliness is actually solitude; that I'm no longer uncomfortable with silence and that I love yoga for what it has done to calm my mind.

So it was an enlightening summer then? :)

Oui ! :)

Its summer, and I'm working on campus. Its a silly job really, a no-brainer; leaves me a lot of time to do my stuff - applications, research and reading.

Eileen works in the same office as I. She's about 55 years old, African-American and one of the most beautiful and cheerful people I've met. After the internship debacle (not being able to do the internship because the EAD (Employment Authorization Document) didn't arrive on time), the heartbreak (a.k.a. post-rejection-murder-of-ego) and, the disastrous CTY teaching experience, I was shattered. Nothing was going the way I thought it would. Even the short trip home was scarred by my accident. (Spilled boiling water over the right leg. As a result, spent two out of three weeks in India, sitting at home.) Anyway, after the teaching thingy didn't work out, I came back to Baltimore and started back at my old workplace.

One morning as I walked into office, I saw Eileen at her desk. She usually comes in after 12, so I was surprised to see her at work so early. I greeted her, and as she greeted me back with her usual cheerful smile, I saw her eyes shine. She noticed, and looked away. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. I knew I'd seen tears.

That afternoon, I made masala chai for Eileen. "Spiced chai latte" as the Americans call it. (More Amru-bashing, later.) "I love this stuff. I totally love Indian food!", said Eileen. And then I saw those tears well up again. " My daughter's boyfriend is Indian. Such a nice boy. I'm still in touch with him and his parents. In fact, his mother's visiting me over the weekend." I asked her how old her daughter was. And thats when she said it. "She'd be 25 this year, if she were alive."

Suddenly those tears made sense. It was on this day seven years ago, that her only daughter had passed away. It was a sudden death. Nosocomial infection. She was gone. Only two days before she passed away, they had moved to this city. She was going to attend school here.
It was Eileen's birthday the next day. Shattered and lonely, she spent it by herself.

I was stunned. Nobody could've imagined that this cheerful-looking lady has ever suffered such a huge personal loss. And yet, here she was - always smiling and upbeat.

She mentioned that every year on her daughter's death anniversary, she holds a memorial service for her. Friends and family come over, and they recapture moments they spent with her. She also has a scholarship in her daughter's name.

She still lives in the same house that she and her daughter bought seven years ago. She still thinks about her everyday. Only, she feels happy that she's keeping alive, her daughter's memory.

I'm amazed at her resilience. Amazed and inspired - to forget the past, and move on.

Kudos, Eileen :)

I love Sex and the City...

...and anything that reminds me that I am a city girl at heart - my very own Mr. Big and all. Even the people in my life that remind me of characters out of the sitcom. And this blog http://thisfish.ivillage.com/love/ is one of those things that touch the city girl in me.

Its a silly blog, some would say. And I agree. I love silly. I love everyday experiences. I love sharing life's moments with people who appreciate it.

//5:45 pm, Home.

Sometimes it just takes that one little perfect moment to make one realize that your life is fulfilling. As I sit in the balcony of my seventh floor apartment, watching the sun set, and sipping on a hot cup of chai, I wonder why I felt my life was incomplete. It wasn't. It isn't. Monotony has set in, I agree. And, as a person constantly craving change, I'm surprised I'm not tearing my hair over it. I'm still sane.

Attempt at Poetry

Stand by me, stand by me;
The illusion of you is so comforting.
Suddenly, the past is a blur and
The path ahead so clear,
the light fills my eyes. I can't see.

Such bliss, this is;
Unbelievable, pure, soothing.
Pain dissolves, and regrets wash away,
Like dust from leaves
When it rains. Bliss.

And I flow with the current;
Not knowing where it leads me.
For I have you. You will not deceive me, will you?
And so it flows, this river
Of bliss and faith. Perhaps, even infinity.

And every river that flows
Brings a promise; the ocean.
And as I flow along, I get caught in a fallen tree,
The river, it doesn't stop for me.
And light fills my eyes;
Only this time, I can see.

And it strikes me like a bolt of lightening,
That illusions have toyed with my mind.
The world comes to a standstill,
Breath abandons me for a moment
As I fight the tide to reach ashore; struggling.

Emotions flood the mind
But the thirst for survival is so strong
That I am numb.
And then, I am alive.
Solitude, not loneliness, freed me from the bind.


I just wrote this. I know its far from being refined. I don't have a name for it though. Let me know if anything strikes you if/when you read it.

The fourth minute

Its been a couple weeks since I hit the gym. Hopefully, this time around I'll stick to it. Its been good so far, with a few minor cheating spells *grins*. The weight is coming off slowly, but most importantly, I'm feeling stronger.

I work eight hours, and although its nothing great (considering its a campus job), I still have to run around a lot and it makes me tired by the end of the day. Yesterday was one such day. I went home and crashed. I was so exhausted, I didn't want to move a finger. And I slept. Woke up at 8pm. It was late, but I decided to head to the gym. Hadn't been to the gym for the past two days. I thought I'll walk, and not run, because I was already tired. Something, is better than nothing - I was thinking.

And then I turned on my dear old faithful mp3 player, and ran. Today, for the first time in a long, long while, I ran continuously until the fourth minute. And it didn't make me tired. I remember the moment of surprise, when I expected my body to get tired, calf muscles tightening and about to give up. But it just didn't happen at 2min30s. It was such a rush - literally and figuratively!

*Music - Fleetwood Mac*

After a good 2 hour workout, I came home, and crashed. This time, tired - but ecstatic.

So a friend asks..

...but why is happiness like a mango?

Well, its like this dear friend.

Most people crave it. Considering most people are not masochists. What I like about them is that they're both seasonal. If only happiness was as predictable as the Indian summer months! But that's where it lies, the value of the mango. And by its absence from the rest of the year, it maintains its value. And that is how happiness is - valuable and sought out. Only, much more unpredictable. And both must be savored when they arrive, for they won't stay forever.

The Beatles wrote a song "Happiness is a warm gun". I picked up the "happiness is.." concept there. But the "mango" is mine.

:)

The nth blog..

It took me 3 days to think of a gmail id. And another two for the name of the blog. And of course, another day, to think of the blog link name. Why is it so difficult to pick names?

When I started thinking about this blog name, I thought I wanted it to represent who I am. I thought about it for long, attempted registering a few, but none were available. I wonder what would happen if they did that for names, in general. Well, the world would be a much safer place - with a lot more words than we know!

I finally thought of my most favourite Mahavishnu Orchestra composition. And that's what my email is about.