Dear random person on Linked In

There is a good reason why my Orkut account is dead and inactive.

There is a good reason why I did not create a Facebook account.

There is a good reason I only have a Linked In account.

Linked In is not a place to send friendship (even if it’s spelt the right way) requests. At least say you want to network professionally (though going through your profile, there’s absolutely nothing in common between us. I do not want any “friendships to bring us together”. Thank you and bye

Why people do what they do – 1

In an attempt to bring myself back to writing and to revive this sad little blog, here’s presenting a new series.

The recent brouhaha in the blogosphere has had me wondering. There are several people who invest a lot of their time and passion into their blogs. They have opinions and they’re not afraid to air them and get into arguments with people, as long as the people arguing remain in the realm of civil behaviour.

Now that’s the issue I have. What causes people to cross those limits of civility? Why are trolls trolls? What is it that motivates them and causes them to leave nasty comments? What causes them to wish the blogger ill? They’re most welcome to dislike what a blogger has to say and disagree, but what is that chemical in their sorry heads that causes them to shoot off that hate mail, that nasty comment, say things like “I’m done reading you. You don’t deserve the readership you have” etc.

Is it a case of too much time, too few worthwhile things to do, too few friends, a bad childhood, not enough love in their lives? What?

On the other hand, what causes bloggy bonds to forge? (this is something I needed to have done much earlier, but better late than never). I was really touched by the response I received to my last post, comments, and emails. Thank you guys, it really cheered me up and I got caught up with a hundred different things and couldn’t post replies, but it really meant a lot to me.

What causes some people to reach out to a virtual stranger to just convey some understanding, a simple “Hang in there”? Whatever it is the world is a better place for it!

Edited to add:
While I’m on the topic of blogs, I have to mention food bloggers. How do they do it? On the one hand you’re cooking, on another, you’re taking pictures, mentally composing your blog post. How do they get the motivation to do these things! I doff my hat at them. Seriously, major admiration comes!

More random

Ok that’s it. My fears have come true. I have completely lost the ability to write long winded posts with all my arguments. I start off full steam, totally irked by something and then something happens to divert me and I lose interest. So till such time I’m able to its back to random stuff:

I had the best Diwali in years..coming as it did in the form of a long weekend, Diwali eve dinner at the inlaws’ place, Diwali lunch at my parents’ and we had our very first guests on Diwali night. The dinner went off well though it had the potential to be a huge disaster. Lesson learnt – Never invite friends over on a festival day. First up none of the veggie shops were open and we were roaming around in the hot 1 pm sun (yeah the rains have stopped) on foot trying to locate one. Having woken up before dawn that day I was so exhausted that I had to squeeze in some sleep before starting to cook, I’d figured that if I started to cook at around 3 30, I’d manage to be done by 6 30 ish which would leave me time to get dressed, straighten out the house and light the diyas. And I slept and slept and slept till 5 40. Woke up in blind panic wondering if we could order in food to find that a house elf had been at work while I slept and all the veggies were cut and ready. So I basically had to just make the pulao, the paneer, the rotis and the raita. And we managed just fine!

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I think for the first time post our wedding more than a year ago KT and I went out without an agenda, without “The List”, without a hundred things to tick off. And where did we head? To Landmark. And there was the remnants of the sale that had happened and we found some pretty neat bargains..lovely classics for Rs 120 each, 15% off on The Enchantress of Florence, a set of 10 Wodehouse books for Rs 860, a lovely illustrated book on Friends (the show that is) with interviews and rare photographs and insights for just Rs 400. It was a book buying orgy alright as my brother eloquently puts it!

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I think John Abraham looks so hot in the promos of Dostana…Abhishek is very blah and Priyanka Chopra looks and dances badly in Desi Girl. Does any body else share my opinion on Priyanka Chopra? I think she completely lacks grace and the way she wears her sari doesnt help one bit, with one boob popping out carefully all the time. And her hair looks horrendous..almost like straw! No I have nothing against her..I loved her in Aaj Ki Rat (Don), but this song..no way!

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Do you read Aamir’s blog? I just love it. And the guy. And his Tata Sky ad with Gul Panag (Not the half man woman thing. That I hate.)

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Bomb blasts again in the country. Now in Assam. Why cannot we do anything about this? If a 9/11 happened, strict action was taken. If a 7/7 happened, again it was dealt with with an iron hand. Now we don’t even remember dates in India. Where are we going wrong? Why can’t we stop the madness. And surprise surprise, now we have Hindu terrorists. Now that can’t happen can it? That was the exclusive domain of them Muslims. This is surely a government conspiracy. Minority appeasement. Yes I heard this somewhere.

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I’m a South Indian and hence we do not have the practice of fasting on Karwa Chauth. If we did however I would have refused to do it on grounds of not believing in the tradition blah blah. But within a week of the festival I went without food the whole day. Not waiting for the moon to make an appearance but for a report to be finished at work. Nowadays good metrosexual husbands also fast along with their wives. But my colleague who was working with me went ahead and had lunch. And gave me this gem.

Me (at around 7 when the report was getting printed by my colleague D): Call me on my mobile if you need anything. I’m going to grab a bite, havent had my lunch.

D: Oh I’m so sorry

Me: Why are you sorry?

D: Because I ate!!

And with that idiotic story I leave you guys. Have a nice weekend!

Thought for the day

You know how men always say nothing can come close to their mothers’ cooking and how their wives take offence to it?

I don’t understand why. I’d much rather eat my mother’s cooking than my own or my husband’s for that matter. So why should he not prefer his mother’s cooking over anything else?

Go figure!

Edited to add:

Maybe I should explain what I meant! Three things happened in the past few weeks. I heard comments from three men.

One my uncle who is in a difficult marriage for so many reasons (most of which he has my support on). Now as usual when there are issues, even the smallest of inconveniences that arise from a marriage get magnified and one of these is food. Now my granny is a brilliant cook (as most grannies are!) and is definitely a tough act to follow. Now my uncle in a fight declared that his wife should learn to cook like his mother. My stand: Nonsense. He has absolutely no right to say that. His wife will cook the way she can. You try cooking like your mother if you wish.

Second, a colleague who got married in early 2007 is also not in a very great marriage with some fairly annoying compatibility issues, you know where neither the guy nor the girl is bad or evil, but they just can’t get along. Now this girl is a good cook, she dishes out pretty good stuff for him everyday and he has no issues on this score. He is quite a participative guy as well, sharing the cooking burden and all. Now apparently they’d gone to his place for dinner and he’d asked for a second helping of a vegetable his mom had made. She took offence to that, saying that he’d never asked for a second help of what she’d made ever and picked up a fight.

Now he is definitely not the idiot husband types who’d put down the wife’s effort and say his mother could make the same thing better. Yet all the other women at the table seemed to be touchy when it came to their husbands praising their mother’s food and they have nice spouses who arent the kinds to constantly compare at all and that left me bewildered.

Neither is my uncle for that matter, I’ve seen him appreciate his wife’s cooking and also have seen him make stuff for her..yet to even utter something like that was wrong.

The acid test for my real feelings came when we were discussing Diwali and the tradition in K’s house of having “The Feast” on Diwali eve. I could see the glint in K’s face with all the anticipation. Now we’ve been cooking now for the past one month and (unfortunately) I (with all my limited culinary skills) am the more experienced cook thanks to the fact that I lived alone for a bit. K’s contribution is essentially cutting vegetables (the toughest part of cooking!) and making the phulkas I roll out on the pan. So while I have ample help, essentially the taste of the food is dependent largely on what I do. And I know that what we come up with is pretty good considering the level of interest and experience we have in cooking (I entered the kitchen for the first time in Dec 06 and my cooking then was essentially vegetables dumped in dal – kootu that is for those on the know and rice, nothing complicated, bland and fit only for my consumption!). Yeah and coming back to the point, no I didnt feel annoyed that he was looking forward to eating his mother’s food (just as I like to run to eat what my ma dishes out!). As opposed to my colleague’s wife who took offence at his taking a second help and the other girls at work who thought that maybe she shouldnt have done it in front of her (wtf!).

Very random

I saw sparrows today, after god know how long. Are they becoming extinct? Pigeons on the other hand are thriving.

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I’ve been told by different people that I look like Tabu, Gayatri Joshi and Kareena Kapoor(sob!). I don’t agree with anyone. I just have traditional features that’s it. And I DO NOT have mannerisms like Kareena Kapoor. KT if you want our marriage to last, you will not say that another time.

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And oh! We complete 1 year of being married next week! So this year has seen my twenty fifth birthday and first wedding anniversary! Nice.

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Has anyone read The Zoya Factor?? Its chick-lit and normally not something I would have bought but someone gifted it to KT and I guess that person too thought it was more to do with cricket than being a breezy romance. Well in a nutshell its about a girl who was born the day India won the World Cup in 1983 and how she turns out to be a lucky charm and how India wins every match with her around at the breakfast table on match days. Of course there is the romance between her and the captain. Now my point here is that I was born a few days after India won the World Cup. The funny thing was that last year I had this fantasy that India would win the 2007 Cup as that was the next major event in my life – my wedding (after my birth in 1983). Twisted I know! And India crashed out so early in the tournament!!

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Was watching an episode of Dus Ka Dum..it had Katrina Kaif and Akshay Kumar in it. It just reinforced my hatred for Salman Khan (puke puke puke) and boy is Katrina Kaif dumb or what!! So incredibly stupid! And why doesn’t she find herself some nice hottie?? I mean now that she has used Salman enough can’t she find someone more her generation rather than someone who will soon be eligible for senior citizen concessions. But I lurvee Aamir Khan. Shah Rukh can be charming at times, but Aamir does it for me! Who is your favourite Khan? I don’t like Hrithik too much but I thought he was awesome in Lakshya, understated and hot! I really hoped that they would play it on TV for Independence Day but they didnt and chose Jodha Akbar which would have run for 8 hours I think.

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Been doing loads of shopping what with so many sales happening. We did go a bit berserk and I’ve been a bit guilty at blowing up money at the hands of several retailers. Till I met a friend and her boyfriend at Lifestyle. She proudly announced that she spent Rs 22,000 at one particular shop (no the zeros are fine!). And I jokingly remarked that her shopping for the next two years is complete and her boyfriend looked on fondly and said next two months (no he isnt Lakshmi Mittal’s son).

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My dream house will contain all of this: A nice Chettinad style door complete with ornate brass knockers and handles, those wooden pillars and a swing.

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Bachna Ae Haseeno looks good, I think I will hazard a watch. Everyone looks so good. I also want shiny straight hair and good skin!! I want! Rock On also sounds promising!

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Has anyone else watched MTV’s Splitsvilla? Its completely hideous. But I keep at it and have watched it regularly the past three weeks. Its some kind of a horrid fascination that I have towards the show. Of course there is the regular bitching, scheming and cat fights. But what I don’t get is how self respecting people would want to appear on a show like that. How do the parents of these girls and boys let them appear on the show. No I’m not a prude, but this is a bit too much for me to stomach. Or am I growing old?

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While on the topic of MTV anyone remember the old days when Rahul Khanna hosted Most Wanted? I loved that show and Rahul Khanna of course! And those days when Nikhil Chinnappa was just starting out doing Select! Sheesh I am growing old!! And I guess so are Nikhil and Cyrus Broacha…what are they still doing at these channels!!! 

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Twenty five year old hulk that I am I really need to get my act together and learn to drive. Ok I am putting it here on record that I will go over the course of next week and enrol myself for classes. Please to put pressure on me to do this. Thank you!

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Oh yeah I saw a trailer for Dostana. I have a nasty feeling about that movie. I may be mistaken but I have a bad feeling that Karan Johar has decided that his Kantaben track from Kal Ho Na Ho was very well received and has decided to make that the central theme of this new movie. The trailer went on about John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan being gay. Now I hope this is not the central theme because I really don’t think Mr K Jo is capable of handling the theme sensibly without it smacking of homophobia.

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I am in awe of Michael Phelps. I was watching him in action and he is on a different plane altogether!! Eight golds and seven world records! He is just twenty three!! Was watching a show on TV and apparently he eats a 4000 calorie meal three times a day and the normal requirement for a man in a day is 2000 calories. Go figure!

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And on that note I will sign off from this bizarre string of thoughts!

Busy

Been swamped with work…an information overload and too many looming deadlines! This is what comes after too much chilling out!

So V Day came and went and the only action with respect to it was to get a friend of mine a gift for him to give his fiancee!

Been a Hillary supporter so far…something just on a whim, not backed by any reasoning, but then watched an Obama speech and was floored, guys seems very idealistic but I liked him! So henceforth Obama it is!

I’m seriously considering joining a short course like Art of Living or yoga or something..need to get back some calmness in my life..let me see how that goes. Or I need to get some physical exercise at least. Something that will give me a change from the home and work.

My weekend looks like its going to be work filled..execution of my assignments, BD research and I need to complete that article I was writing.

Will run off and get cracking..

Of all the wonderful things

to get

Wouldnt hindsight

rank near the best?

Same difference

I really thought the days of coming back to an empty house were over..seems I was mistaken.

Now I have a bigger empty house, bigger TV, bigger kitchen, faster internet (wait I didnt have the internet in Bombay!).

My cooking hasnt improved much…yeah its worse for lack of practice..

And dear neighbour…next time could you please ask before chopping down that rose bush growing in my space? Thanks.

Oh and I can hear Christmas carols!!!! Just now….me have a good mind to go and join them..oh I miss college!!

This and that..

So I’ve been away for a bit..work, travel, general depression are all reasons for me not writing all this time.

The weekend was good..we finally went to Cedars for their Sunday brunch..Lebanese and Mediterranean cuisine…had a good meal and we went on to Landmark rubbing our bellies after a very satisfying meal. Those vouchers which had expired were deemed valid after all and armed with a basket I attacked the shelves with militant like zeal! Three thousand rupees later we were left with:

– A Thousand Splendid Suns

– The Inheritance of Loss

– A Fine Balance

– The Google Story

– Brick Lane

and another Wall Street fraud story – the name of which I cannot remember. KT then tore me away from there lest I spend away my entire salary there…oh and I also bought an illustrated book on M S Subbulakshmi for my mother..I haven’t read it yet, but the pictures are simply lovely.

Monday and Tuesday took me to Bombay and it felt real good to be back there and meet the colleagues. I stayed at a hotel called Astoria which I thought was an obsure hotel that no one would have heard of since it was cheap and easily available. Turns out that it was a name everyone had heard of because of an accident that had recently taken place!! In any case I have emerged in one piece. We drove down to Juhu to attend my colleague A’s wedding and spent more than 2 hours on the road thanks to a girl insisting that she would not take the train. I mean who lives in Bombay and refuses to take the train?? We were starved by the time we reached the wedding hall, after having eaten peanuts from a seller at the traffic signal, after pissing off a book seller (he held out a fake copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns..and I couldn’t resist showing him my copy..and instantly I felt bad). Now A has the typical Greek god looks and he looked radiant 🙂 …I know people normally gush about the bride…now she is a nice looking girl…but A simply outshone her!!

Tuesday arrived and I went out of the way to dress up for it!! Complete formals with double cuff shirt, cuff links and the jacket! I loved it!! The meeting went off ok..I was a little scared about it because the last time around it happened, it ended being a complete disaster and it turned into a shouting match. Now A (who was the manager on the job) was also absent and it basically fell on me to back my partner up…it went on smooth with my partner losing his temper just once 🙂

Wednesday saw pathbreaking research being announced. Well the reasons of the occurrence of cancer have been discovered…..drumroll….”The wife did not wear her mangalsutra in the nights”…drumroll. Yes it finally happened..I got caught without my mangalsutra..at home that is and my parents went berserk…it led to some extremely nasty words and the blame for my dad’s cousin’s husband passing away due to cancer was attributed to her not wearing the mangalsutra. I seem to be losing whatever remaining respect I have for my dad..i just wanted to walk out of there..the only thing that held me back was my mother who was being rather reasonable given the circumstances and her beliefs…where does all this self righteousness disappear when he happily pawned off my mom’s gold chains onto which she had strung her mangalsutra? Sick really, I don’t even want to look at his face…he literally spat venom at my face..the language he used really shocked me

I’ve also been shocked at the extent of hate and venom that’s been doing the rounds on blogs. The offending post has been now deleted, but I am shocked that harmless people can inspire so much hatred. Its absolutely sickening and I think the best way of dealing with them is to just ingnore them and not react to their nonsense…especially the one guy whose blog seems to thrive on “puking” on other blogs. Sick.

Senorita

is an innovative, patented product that protects your clothing from stains caused by excessive perspiration. Senorita perspiration pads are more than just dress shields – they prolong the life of a garment regardless of fabric and prevent stains and odours on your clothing.

Senorita has been patented (Patent No. 1981248) and can be used by both Men & Women

Hee hee….can be used by both men and women..the least they could have done is created a brand called Senor!!! 🙂