Posts

Fair maidens or plain slobs?

To most people, I come across as a calm, collected and level headed person. My childhood and college friends know me as a very different person . I was notorious in my neighbourhood as a gang leader of kids. I was a fair leader, broke up fights, and introduced new games. I always had the passion for directing plays and even script writing. I made all my young friends perform in the plays I wrote. Unfortunately, the only bit of direction I now do is, 'try' to make Hubs do the dishes (mostly things don't work as per my script now). I stepped out of my hometown after my graduation and moved to another city for my post graduation. That was my first taste of freedom and I managed to have a good time in spite of my elder sister watching my every move. After graduation, I moved to another city for my first job. Soon I came back licking my wounds after having been made redundant after the dot.com crash in my first job. Soon after, I started living in an apartment shared by six othe

Wake up Sid- A Movie Review

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I saw this movie last week. It’s such a rare experience for me to watch a Hindi Movie in a cinema. Most of the times I am left with watching grainy prints on the web trying to decipher the faces of actors. The movie revolves round a character called 'Sid' played by Ranbir Kapoor. In short, he is a spoilt brat whose father has sacrificed and worked hard and is now loaded with money. Sid is oblivious of the hardships his parents had faced and is completely pampered by his mother and father. His life revolves round his friends a geeky guy and an overweight girl. He spends his time loafing around and blowing cash. He meets a girl called 'Aisha' played by Konkona Sen-sharma at the college farewell party. They become friends in spite of having nothing in common. Aisha is new in Mumbai and is here from Kolkata to become a professional writer. She is older than Sid and is mature. She finds Sid as immature and without any aim in life. Sid is good hearted kid who has lost his wa

Highway Glory

It started as a usual lazy Sunday morning. Getting up late and having breakfast at a leisurely pace. I was trawling the Internet looking for entertainment and found that 'Wake up Sid' the new Bollywood movie was running at a cinema in a nearby town. Anytime we want to watch a Hindi movie, we have to drive to another town which has more of a Hindi speaking population. This time it turned out to be a town called 'Blackburn', around 35 miles from where we live. We made it to the movie and found that there were only two other people besides us to see the movie. After the movie, we decided to head to another town called 'Bolton' another 12 miles from 'Blackburn'. My boss owns an amazing restaurant called 'Sizzling Palate' in Bolton. After having skipped lunch, I was looking forward to a well deserved Sizzler. Working for the boss does have some privileges. Hubs and I were bombarded with special treatment and yummy food. Never have I tasted such delici

To Catch a Thief

This was one of the two nerve-wracking incidents that still gives me the heebie-jeebies whenever I flashback to that day. It was the same apartment with the water issue that I had mentioned in my earlier post. One fine day, I had stepped out in the afternoon for a few hours in search of gainful employment. Hubby having left early in the morning, the apartment was left to amuse itself. As usual I had locked the door with a heavy brass lock from the trusty 'Godrej' brand and had left with my mind on more important things. I came to the apartment with its door ajar and I thought I must have forgotten to lock it... one step inside our bedroom and my whole world came crashing down. Both the hand me down cupboards were ransacked and our beds were littered with our entire possessions. The thief had broken into our stash of gold trinkets and that too he had forced the doors open with a pair of steel tongs from my own kitchen. With shaking hands I had called up hubs and he in turn had

Punch Drunk on Water

As I wrote in my previous post, Hubs and I have moved to a lot of different cities and houses for the past 10 years. Our first move was to a city called ' Pune ' in Western India to a one bedroom apartment owned by one of hubs aunts. Being on a frugal income and me being unemployed, we had to adjust in a very limited budget. It meant being without a refrigerator, television or any decent furniture. The apartment was comfortable but it had a very peculiar and exasperating factor, Water !!! Every apartment used to get water supply for exactly 20 minutes for the entire day. This water was to be used for bathing, washing clothes and flushing the loo etc.. The water pump started at unearthly hours every morning, which meant getting up and making sure that every pot and pan, tub & bucket in the house was filled to its brim with water, which would then be sparingly used for the entire day. Everyday without fail at that unearthly hour, I would manage to rub sleep from my eyes and

Close to my heart

Hubby and I will be celebrating our 10th Wedding anniversary this December. It has been a ride full of ups and downs, exploring new cities each year ( hubby had a transferable job), new people to meet , settle down for a brief period and to be uprooted again. I tagged along, albeit with a bit of screaming and cussing. In spite of moving to different cities, the quintessential nature of an Indian has remained the same. An Indian by nature is an inquisitive person and the intrinsic good nature can be perceived as being nosy. They will never falter while asking you about extremely personal things, right from your salary to your relationship with your in-laws. There is no malice in the way the way we Indians shoot straight questions without missing a beat. Its just a way of showing concern and making the other person feel comfortable. Sometimes this well practiced art of shooting straight questions can be extremely annoying. Countless number of times I have been at the wrong side of this

Misleading Mannequins

My everyday walk to work takes me through the High street in Lancaster. The street is lined by shops selling branded clothes. Each of them have a display window displaying , dressed up mannequins. Are these shops selling a dream or merely making us depressed. You ask me why depressed?? Oh I promise, I have never ever been envious of any inanimate objects in my life to be termed as loony. But then why do I have this sudden desire to smash the display window and wring the necks of these wooden people ermmm... actually break it with an axe? Before you think I've gone totally mad... let me take some deep breaths...and continue Next time you are out shopping...please do observe a mannequin. The slender figure, the perfect body...the perfect posture...no wonder any outfit looks amazing on it. The same dress will make you look like a sack of potatoes. If you will see all about you, you will very rarely find women with the perfect curves. All of us have unwanted curves and the curves we ha