This was NOT on my Bucket List!

"Is it going to hurt?" I ask naively, as if I'm only here to have a tooth removed, or to get a shot in my tushi.

The vision of gorgeousness who is a doctor here smiles at me indulgently. A well-practised and perfected smile that means 'Of course it is, you silly woman! We are going to cut you open and fidget around with your insides before we remove the offending organ. Of course it's going to hurt!' But what he says instead is, "Well, a bit. We'll administer anaesthesia, so you won't feel anything. And in case you get up during the operation, we'll have a wide-screen TV where you can watch what's going on." I look dumbstruck and horrified, and realising that I possess absolutely no sense of humour, he hastens to add, "No,no! Relax!I'm just joking" while he pats me gently on my shoulder. Swoon! Even in my mind-altered state, the Cuteness Quotient of the man has not failed to escape my attention.

In the 'orientation' session, they speak to me slowly, as if I am 4 years old, and they show me diagrams and POP models of the reproductive system. I feel like I'm a suicide bomber who is being explained the intricacies of my mission, or an astronaut, about to board the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle, never to return again.

On the day of the operation, they make me change into a robe that has no back and has only string tie-ups. I am required to walk into the operation theatre, which I do sideways so that the good doctors do not catch a glimpse of my (then) dimpled bottom.

While I am sitting upright on the operating table, the doctor, who I have met for the first time in my life, says, "Hi! I'm Dr. So-and-So, and I'm your anaesthetist. Please, be comfortable." He says this quite in the same way that a waiter in some la-di-dah restaurant would say,"Good Evening! I'm John and I'll be your waiter this evening. Here, let me seat you." What the doc really means is, 'Here, let me stick this terrifyingly long epidural into your spine and cause you excruciating and mind-numbing pain, while everyone else around you winces and thanks their lucky stars that it's you at the receiving end instead of them.'

Before the anaesthesia kicks in, all I can think of is-What if they leave something inside me? LIKE A PAIR OF SCISSORS? Or a hand-towel? I have visions of myself soaking up the sun, enjoying an exotic cocktail while on a luxury cruise liner in the Caribbean. This I will be able to afford once they pay me an obscene amount of money as compensation, after I sue the pants off them for leaving stuff inside me. I pass out with a smile on my face. Luckily, I miss all the action, and get up much later, when I am safely tucked in my bed at the hospital. Cute Doc visits me the next day, and I am trying to pretend that I don't look like crap under six layers of crap, and also that there is no cathether attached to my nether regions. All primed and ready to go, in case he wants me to pop out for a quick cup of coffee or something, you know?

The next day, I'm required to walk, unassisted, go to the washroom to do my 'stuff',and to roll over the 'correct'way when the physiotherapist commands me to do so, quite in the way a pet is housebroken. Mercifully, I am not kept on a leash, and my food is served to me in a plate, instead of in a bowl that reads 'Fido'.

I think I can safely say that there is not a single person on the staff of that hospital who hasn't in some way poked or prodded me, lifted my clothes up to inject me in the rump with something, or generally to observe how things were coming along down there. The only thing I didn't do was walk across the hallway stark naked, but, if each person sees a different part of my body each time he lifts my hospital gown up, then that's pretty much the same thing as seeing me nude, in instalments, isn't it? So by that logic, Cute Doc has seen me in the buff, but strangely enough (to my complete and utter bewilderment) no passionate affair has resulted. Go figure!

When I leave, I carry away with me memories of an enema, and a catheter, but I must say that the experiences involving these two objects were minimally traumatic, and have left no permanent scars on my psyche. My mother, instead of being a mother in the manner of good mothers from storybooks, told me a chilling story just before the operation, about an enema that involved a contraption consisting of a can and a pipe and warm soapy water, that was used many years ago on a friend of hers. This, I'm sure, was done in an attempt to scare the living daylights out of me, and to satisfy some sadistic streak in her. For now, I have decided not to bring it up in conversation, but am plotting to exact revenge on her when she's an old woman and hospitalised for some age-related ailment, and when she probably won't even remember who I am , because, hey, sadistically speaking, the apple really doesn't fall that far from the tree.

The one in which I'm Monica, no, Phoebe, no, Monica....no...wait!!

So after B took the facebook quiz that asks the life-defining question 'Which character from F.R.I.E.N.D.S are you?' I clicked on the link that beckoned me too. Of course, as all compulsive quiz-takers know, if there is a quiz on facebook, it must be taken, even if it's called 'What size of a mole on Brad Pitt's butt are you?', because to continue living a meaningful life, you have got to know whether you're a big mole or a little mole, don't you?

The F.R.I.E.N.D.S quiz asks me around ten seriously inane questions, after which the result proclaims 'You are Monica!' Hmmmm...I think, and I post a message on B's wall, saying, 'Hey, guess what! I'm Monica too.'

In about 5 minutes, my cellphone beeps with a message alert. It's B with 'You're Monica, huh? Weird. I'd figured you more as a Phoebe.'

Since B's Monica too, and she and I are not alike in any way, it would seem natural that she would be surprised. For instance, I do not have a nervous breakdown if the washing machine doesn't complete the washing by exactly 8.14 a.m., or if the cushions are not lined up exactly so. I can also live with the fact that one of my pillowcases is not quite the exact shade of pink as the others. B, on the other hand, treats that fact as if one pillowcase is actually magenta or something, and because of that, Martha Stewart's staff is going to track her down across continents just so that they can berate and humiliate her on international television for being such a pathetic home-maker. I, on the other hand, can live with myself if I've remembered to stock the fridge with food, have clean, ironed clothes to wear, and my apartment is more or less inhabitable.

To answer B, I message back-

D : Yeah, that's what the quiz said.

B: I'm Monica! You must be Phoebe.

D: Why? Do I go around saying things like "Hi! I'm D and I have babies coming out of me?"

B: Take the quiz again.

D: Huh? You're shittin' me, right?

B: Just take it!

So I took the quiz again and juggled with the answer options till I got the answer 'You are Phoebe!' though I didn't answer a single answer truthfully. I messaged B with-

D: Hey, I'm Phoebe!

B: :-)) Told ya!

Phew! I am now happy to report that by taking(and manipulating the answers to) a totally meaningless quiz, I have saved our lifelong friendship from going completey down the drain. If B has to be Monica, then she has to be Monica, else every time I display the slightest bit of (what she considers) quirky behaviour, she will say with a smirk "Isn't that just the kind of thing Phoebe would do?" On the other hand, every time someone says to her, 'You know, you remind me of Monica from Friends', she beams as if someone just compared her to the Virgin Mary. Go figure.

Me? I don't care either way. I'm just Monica Phoebe, and a medium-sized mole on Brad Pitt's butt.

Since my life doesn't have writers, it's tough to always be funny...

Apart from the (unintentionally) funny things that happen to me, I actually think and write of other things too. Here's the proof...

http://www.lifeinblankverse.blogspot.com/

Pat on the back, anyone?

"This event needs to be conducted as part of our CSR initiative" he says. "You know, Corporate Social Responsibility. We need to give back to society. We need to fulfill our responsibilty as an organization."

Wow! I think, feeling warm and fuzzy all over,the way only doing something meaningful can make you feel. Somewhere deep inside, there's always been a voice that's been telling me that I haven't been doing enough. Here is the chance to shut that voice up.

"What we have planned," he continues, "is an event on" (he pauses for effect) "Rain Water Harvesting," he says with a satisfied smile.

I blink twice, not sure that I've heard correctly. Rain Water Harvesting?

Yeah, well, okay.

It's been two months already since the monsoon has ended, so I was thinking of something more immediate and relevant, like putting one's hand in one's pocket and pulling out currency notes of large denominations, which could be put to good use, such as buying essentials like food, clothes and blankets, or pulling out a cheque that I would sign with a flourish. Not some gross activity that involves pipes and gutters and soak pits.

"We've asked Mr.Mehta, who's an SME, to conduct this event, and we need to complete this ASAP, within the TAT assigned by HO. We need everyone's participation, so please ensure that nobody's AWOL that day."

Subject Matter Expert, As Soon As Possible, Turn Around Time, Head Office, Absent Without Official Leave, my mind goes clickety-clack, clickety-clack, feeling like a battered old manual typewriter, picking out the abbreviations from his sentence and elongating them slowly and painfully.It's a whole different language, this Corporate-ese, where nothing is meant the way it is said, and you must never say what you mean. So, if you say,"We need to establish ownership of this process so that the concerned individual can liase with colleagues from other verticals to ensure that we achieve a synergistically effective outcome", what you would actually mean is, "We need someone to get this done and someone to blame when the shit hits the fan."

It's quite like SMS lingo---- do u undrstnd wht i mn?

While he's droning on about how it is the responsibilty of each one of us to contribute in whatever way we can to society, I'm thinking- Why don't you start the ball rolling, you supercilious snotbag, by not buying ties that cost roughly the equivalent of the amount it would take to feed a small starving country? Of course, I don't say that aloud. It really wouldn't be a very wise move, retention-of-job wise. It's a principle of a new kind of Zen I'm practising these days--The Art Of Holding One's Tongue.

On the day of the event, we've only managed to round up little kids who haven't learnt how to spell 'rain' and 'water' in school yet and will probably learn the spelling of 'harvesting' two grades later. Also present are their parents,who have only been kept around to rein in the kids in case they go wild with excitement (er...yeah, right).The kiddies sit transfixed by the moving images on the screen, probably wondering whether we'll play a DVD of 'Mr. Bean' for them next. But when people's eyes start glazing over,and one gentleman actually starts snoring, I am forced to adopt desperate measures, and ask someone to stealthily shut the power supply to the projector off. I apologise to Mr. Mehta profusely - there seems to be a technical snag that we can't fix, you see, Mr. Mehta, because we've hired this OHP and we don't know how fix it, so why don't you have a cup of coffee and a little something to eat while we start the quiz? Phew!!

One of the girls from my team has painstakingly prepared the questions for this quiz and has been rehearsing for it as if we have 59 countries participating and it's going to be telecast live internationally,bringing her unprecedented fame and fortune. However,a last minute dumbing-down of the questions is necessitated by the fact that none of these kids seem to be older than 7. She's a little flustered when she asks-

Q. Which kind of water is harvested in an attempt to recycle our natural resources?
a) Ground water b)Rain water c) River water

There's a little girl waving her hand frantically, and I'm really amazed that she would know the answer, till she says, "POTATO!"

????????

I mean, ????????????

So on it goes, till we have the requisite evidence proof in the form of photos, to send to the CSR team, telling them that the mission has been accomplished, things have been learned, information has been disseminated, and the event has been a resounding success!

We're having the next event in two weeks' time on 'Prevention of Pollution and Waste Control' and I'm looking forward to it as much as I'd look forward to having needles stuck into my eyeballs, but I'm determined to make it 'fun' or die trying. You're invited. Come on over and commiserate celebrate!

Happy Diwali, and pass the parcel!

Ahhhhh! Diwali's here! The mood is festive and there's a chill in the air, announcing the advent of winter, which is just around the corner. I love passing the shops where they sell the colourful lamps, all strung up like in Fairyland. The colourful 'rangolis', the deep-orange marigold flowers, the multi-hued clothes, the noisy firecrackers, the simple yet infinitely beautiful 'diyas', and the excitement and hustle-bustle in the shopping areas and malls.

In this season, the exchanging of sweets and gifts with friends and well-wishers is an area which requires the skill and finesse that is required, say, to steal the Kohinoor diamond, not to mention superior expertise in the recycling of resources. So, as a result, Mr. Sharma gets the box of sweets given to you by the Agarwal family. The elaborately-packaged box of dry fruits received from Mr. Deshpande finds a place in Mr.Patel's house. The Kapoors are the lucky recipients of ‘something’ you got from the Krishnans (don't know what since you didn't even open the wrapping).Get hold of a pen and paper if possible, because a flow-chart needs to be drawn here. One little lapse of concentration on your part can make this passing-the-parcel operation very hard to accept for the Nandys, who ended up getting the Haldiram's Festival Gift Pack from you today --yes, the very same one that they had gifted to the Patels. :-)

So many pedestrians, so little time...

To the Licensing Authorities who dole out driving licences very leniently to women, I'd like to make just one suggestion--Don't.

Don't get me wrong here. I love women, especially since I am one myself. I think they are brilliant and beautiful (except for the ditsy ones), but good drivers they are not.

This particular rant has been brought on by me having to spend about 20 minutes longer in traffic this morning than I should have, only because a woman driver, who came to a diversion, couldn't decide which road to take. She sat there, sans seat-belt, peering left and then right, and then heavenwards, looking for a signboard, I presume, or perhaps, a sign from God. Most normal people would, at this point, roll the window down and ask for directions. Note here that I said normal people, which naturally excludes men, since they would not ask for directions even if they were lost in the deep, dark recesses of the Amazon jungle, surrounded on one side by cannibals, and on the other side by a very hungry anaconda. It's against their male pride or something, as I understand it.

So this lady does not think of asking for directions from the half-dozen or so people surrounding her car and glaring at her angrily. She chooses instead, to call someone on her cellphone, to ask where she should go, gesticulationg the whole time she speaks, as if that person can actually see her. All this while there's a cacophony outside her car, to which she is oblivious, apparently, and even finds a few seconds to laugh at a joke the person at the other end of the line has cracked.

Impatience and rage has washed over the traffic like a wave, and I'm afraid the guy driving the earth-mover is actually going to mow her car down and flatten it like a bottle-cap. Finally, a traffic warden comes upto her car and knocks on the glass. She looks up at him and nods as if to say, 'Yeah, yeah, I'm going. Why's everyone having a baby about this?''

The warden shakes his head as if to say, 'Women!' and waves the traffic on.

So, my proposal is that we change the rules to ensure that women are required to pass a driving test every 6 months, just to check that in that very short span of time, they haven't forgotten a few vital things, like say, switching on the left indicator when they actually mean to switch on the left, or for that matter, switching the indicator on at all. Or trying to park their six-foot wide car in a parking space that is about five-and-a-half-feet wide. So, to my fellow women I 'd like to say--

Ladies, in case you haven't noticed, your car is not a sponge. You cannot squeeze it in to tiny spaces, and the space does not magically expand to accomodate the car.

It would really help if you could save the very important conversation with your daughter about what she did at school today till after you reach home and are safely within the confines of the four walls of your home, where you no longer endangering human lives.

Try to resist the urge to drive very large cars that make you look like you are a squirrel trying to steer the Titanic. At the very least, it will severely limit your visibility and cause you to create dents, scrapes and scratches on the car for which your husband/boyfriend will secretly hate you for the rest of your life, because the bitter truth is that, yes, he does love his car more than he loves you. Deal with it.

Another helpful hint is to try to learn the names of the parts of your vehicle. It's very difficult for people to help you if you say things like, "Oh, I don't know what's wrong. There's smoke coming out of the thingie with all the wires in it, you know?" No, they don't know. You wouldn't go to the Doc and say " I have a pain in the part of my body that digests food and has inlet and outlet pipe-like thingies." You'd say 'stomach', wouldn't you? Same principle applies here.

Before you ever dream of getting behind a steering wheel, learn how to change a tyre. Standing with your hands on your hips and staring at the flat tyre helplessly does not in any way cause the tire to repair itself and self-inflate.

Oh, and if your car starts making strange unfamiliar sounds, please call someone's attention to it, to avoid scenarios like--

Boyfriend (BF)   : What's that sound?

Woman              : What sound?

BF                     : That knocking sound.

Woman              : Oh, that! I don't know, really.

BF                     : How long has it been making this sound?

Woman              : Oh, I dunno. About a week?

BF                     : A week? Why didn't you tell me?

Woman:             : Oh, it slipped my mind! And anyway, I figured that it's something minor, because the car's still running fine.

Ladies, these kinds of conversations and logic usually cause BFs/ husbands to have minor brain aneurysms, so if you love the person in your life, and are a law-abiding citizen and care about yourself and humanity in general, do yourself a favour. Get a driver.

With friends like me, who needs enemies?

On Sunday, I call J and ask him if he wants to go to the Landmark bookstore. Yeah sure, he does, and I'm ringing the doorbell to his apartment at 11 a.m.


He opens the door, dressed in cargo shorts and a t-shirt that has four thin, disgruntled-looking guys on it. It reads the 'Dead Kennedys' but there's no picture of Bobby, Ted or JFK on it. I mention this to J, and he looks as me as if I'm a retard (yes, I know the PC term is 'mentally-challenged', but since I'm only thinking it in my head and not saying it out aloud, I'm sure I can get away with it without being burned at the stake). I have been, since birth, compulsively curious about facts that are totally useless and irrelevant to my existence, so I persist. "Look it up," is all he says.

He smells of last night's stale smoke and cologne, mingled with sweat and something unidentifiable.

"J, " I say (and I can say this to him because we're chaddi-buddies) "have you had a bath today?"

"No, of course not. It's Sunday" he says, by way of an explanation. I blink, taking a few seconds to digest this, because I'm sure it was said with the intention of making sense.

"So is that a religious thing?" I ask, "not bathing on Sundays?"

"No. It's a guy thing" he says. "It's a me thing. I don't shave on Sundays either" he says, rubbing his hands over his stubbly jaw rather proudly, and defiantly, I think. I should know stuff like this about a guy I've been friends with ever since he puked all over my dress at my third birthday party, right? I'm disgusted by this blatant disregard and total lack of personal hygiene, so the words tumble out before I can stop them. "So do you even not shit on Sundays? Is that a part of your 'guy thing' too?"

J, without moving a single facial muscle--"Nah, that I do. Sometimes even more than twice."

Ewwwwww! Information overload. I did not need to know that.

"Could you at least comb your hair?" I implore, and then squeak miserably, "please?"

"Sure" he says, and he runs his fingers thorough his hair. It looks exactly the same as before.

"NOW!" says a voice inside my head, and I let the words fall carefully, like dropping the last coin I have into the telephone slot.

"Oh, did I tell you? M called me earlier. She'll be meeting us there later. Is that okay?" I ask, my eyes widening innocently. I can see his ears twitch involuntarily, like a dog's, and then " M? No, that's cool, " he says nonchalantly.

M's this girl that J has a thing for. He's been completely and irrevocably in luuurrrve with her for about 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 6 days and, oh, about 8 hours. He turns into a blithering blob of self-concious jello everytime he's around her- a fact, he believes, that has totally escaped everyone's attention.

J hasn't stepped over the threshold as yet. He's considering something, and a voice in my head (one of the many that live there) says, "That was so below the belt!"

"You know, you're right" he says, heading back towards his bathroom. " Since we're going out and all, I guess I should change my t-shirt."

Splashing. Closet doors slam. Something falls. He curses. He emerges, dressed in jeans and an ironed shirt, with matching shoes and belt, and smelling of something divine. 'Joop!' I'm guessing. Total time taken -12 minutes and 53 seconds. The stubble's still there, but I have found it in my heart to somehow be more forgiving about that now. He's even combed his hair, and looks sweet, like Mama's little boy about to be taken out for ice-cream on a Sunday evening.

We reach the store, and he pretends to shop. Once I have picked up whatever I want, I give it to him to hold, and go to the washroom. I hold my hands under the dryer and dry one finger at a time, brush my hair, re-apply my make-up, check if there's anything stuck between my teeth. Nice and slow. I come out eventually and say, "Let's bill this stuff." He can bear it no more, and he bursts out with " Er...did M call?"

My hand flies to my mouth and I roll my eyes. Ladies and Gentlemen, and the award for Best Actress goes to...

"Oh, she called while I was in the washroom. She can't make it, because she needs to do some stuff for her mom. I told her it was okay. Maybe next time." There's a loud crash, and invisible pieces of his shattered heart fly everywhere, scattering all over the floor and hitting other shoppers in the eye ( I imagine). "But, since we're here and you're looking so good" I continue, as I link my arm through his and walk out of the store, "why don't we go for lunch to someplace nice? My treat."

He sighs. 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 6 days and 11 hours now. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I'm breathless!

I've been really breathless the past couple of weeks. Not the ditsy, 'Breathless-Mahoney-from-Dick-Tracy' kind of breathless. The actual 'unable-to-inhale-oxygen' kind of breathless. At once, I jump to the conclusion that I have Swine Flu, though I display only one of the ten or so symptoms, and am convinced I am going to die, so the doctor tells me to go to the Chest Hospital. Chest Hospital? They have a hospital for chests? Okay, I say, and troop off. In my state of oxygen-deprivation, I can't help thinking that if you went to the doc and she asked you "What's the problem?" and you said "Well, my chest's a size 32B but I'd really like it to be a 36C", would she look at you strangely, or would she just laugh? As you can probably tell, the oxygen supply to my brain is depleting really fast and I'm shortly going to be pronounced brain-dead.

I'm wearing an N95 mask in the hospital, and the particles from the mask are tickling my nose and getting into my mouth, and making the situation worse. I'm scared to take it off, though, because this looks like just the place to be attacked by primed and ready-for-action specimens of the virus.

They're quite courteous and all, the staff, which I find very surprising indeed, considering that this is a Govt. hospital (one of the few authorised to treat Swine Flu cases), and everything's where it should be. The departments have neat boards outside them, and the counters, files, vials and everything else is numbered. 5S, I think. They've been subjected to 5S too! They take a sample of my blood and put it in a little vial. They label it. They have a problem with my name. Most people can never spell it or pronounce it right. I help them with it. Yes, yes, S-W-I-N-G, I say, like in 'jhoola'. The x-ray technician makes me turn around and press my chest to a metal plate (yes, it's one of those old-fashioned things) and for a moment I feel like I'm going to be executed, western-style, where the captive is told to turn around, and is then shot.

They ask me to come back for my reports the next day, which I do. My blood's OK, it says. My Hb's 13.8. Healthy as a horse. All the other numbers on the report are in blue too, and nothing is in red, which means that all's right with the world.

I take my chest x-ray and look at it. Hmmm...I tend to think my chest is the size of a pigeon's, but this looks more like the x-ray of, say, an eagle's chest, perhaps. I bring it to their attention, that this looks a bit...large. The technician's assistant looks at my chest and then at the x-ray, as if to confirm. The assistant's a woman, which is a good thing for her, else she'd have been missing a tooth or two, by now. She checks and comes back with another x-ray, with something scribbled onto the report. I hold the x-ray up. Yes, this looks more like my rib-cage. I take it to the doctor, who peers at the unintelligible scrawl on the report. She mutters under her breath, something on the lines of "What the f*&% does this mean? Why can't they write more clearly?" She thinks perhaps that I don't understand what she's saying, because I've been speaking to her only in Hindi and English. She assumes therefore, that I don't understand Marathi, and swears some more. She holds the x-ray up in the light for a little while longer, and I look too. All I can see is an uneven patch in the middle of my chest. She decides that the report, which reads 'Mo chger mendutir +' or something to that effect, DOES NOT say 'H1N1 infection' or 'Swine Flu', so she prescribes me enough medication to kill a Great White Shark, and smiles when I leave. I am relieved ( I think).

So here I am, five days later, drugged to the eyeballs, and still unable to breathe. I just took my last dose of the medication this morning, and I noticed that this is the same as the medication they give Swine Flu patients. Yikes! So if I had it, it's now gone. I'm going to another doctor today who will, I'm sure, insist on another slew of tests, but this time, I'm going to insist on typed reports in English, not in Klingon. So there!

Miss Cranky 2009

What I don't understand is----
How M, my girlfriend from school (you know who you are, you gorgeous thing), still manages to look like a sixteen year old, even after she eats thick chunks of mountain-goat cheese and wolfs down sandwiches the size of whales. And to add insult to injury, her job involves travelling around the world AND she gets paid for it. There is no justice in this world, I swear.

Now that the eclipse is over, I'm waiting for the changes. 'Financial gains', it said. My feet are going 'tap-tap-tap'. I'm still waiting...My bill at the checkout counter says 'You have saved Rs.53.09 by shopping at Big Bazaar.' Is that what 'financial gains' means? Hmmm....this could take an entire lifetime.

I'm having one of my 'WHAT AM I DOING HERE?' days at work, and generally in life. I should be doing something EXCITING, spectacular and meaningful. Instead, I'm daydreaming.

I SO want to go on a holiday, but that is not an option right now, so I'm living vicariously, looking at other people's holiday pictures on facebook (yes, all 539 of them in the album) and being patient.

I'm way behind on both-the book I promised myself I'd write, and the body I promised myself I'd have this year. I am also finding it difficult to kick myself on the butt, as you can imagine. I've never met anyone who can actually do that.

So if you've had enough whining for today, I'll go and read other people's blogs now look at the 231 photos I've missed. Oh, and if you happen to go on a spectacular holiday, please feel free to send me the link to your album and rub it in!

Embarrassing moments..and momentous ones!

If we're going to talk about pet hates, then here goes-

• People who have no idea about things, but talk incessantly, as if they are authorities on the subject, like, "Yeah, I expect that the markets should reach 20,000 by December and then it's gonna crash like never before." These, mind you, are not people who have been studying the market. These are just people who have been listening to other people talk, and these other people are just about as ignorant as they are.
• Having to wait in queue and finally reach the counter in a bank or office to be told that this is the wrong counter or queue, or I have filled in the wrong form, and there are no signs anywhere to guide me to the right place, and the people are unfriendly and unhelpful (and downright hostile)and behave like they don't even know what you're talking about. Next counter, please!
• Packing and padding myself in rain gear to step outside and discover that it's bright and sunny and I'm sweating bullets because I've wrapped myself in frickin' tarpaulin (am I allowed to say frickin' here?) and conversely, also convincing myself that it's not going to rain, even though the sky looks threatening, and walking ten steps before a rain cloud follows and unburdens itself on me (just to teach me a lesson, I swear). Having to go home and then peel my clothes off my body is, by far, the worst thing ever.
• Having to paste a fake smile at a family get-together where some 'Aunty' that I haven't met for a zillion years or so, sees me and shrieks loudly enough for everyone to hear, "My God, look at you! You were this little the last time I saw you!" and she holds her hand about two feet from the ground to indicate how tall I was when she last saw me. Multiply my embarrassment by ten if she knew me as a baby and (God forbid!) I actually happened to poop or pee on her. She then goes on to describe that incident in excruciating detail (interspersed with chuckles in the right places) while my mother (traitor that she is) beams from ear to ear as if it were the cutest thing ever!
• Having to wait till I reach the counter at the end of a long queue at the supermarket to be told that the POS terminal (card-swiping machine) is not working, and I'll need to pay cash instead when I'm not carrying enough. Arrrrgggghhh!!!
• In the same vein, having to look interested at a boring meeting, when the boss is droning on about something that I have zero interest in. At that precise moment I'm thinking, What movie should I watch this weekend? No, wait, I've been meaning go to that sale forever, so I'll do that instead, and I really need to get a manicure...while I look down at my hands, and the boss thinks I'm looking at my notepad to review my notes which consist of the pearls of wisdom that he's just spewed.

Well, okay, this list is not exhaustive, but since this is turning into a gripe fest, I'll continue this list later. Maybe if my mood changes later, I'll write my list of things I love (that list, I'm happy to report, is considerably longer :-)

Tomorrow's the solar eclipse and I'm excited & nervous. Don't ask me why. I barely even understand anything about astronomy or astrology, but great things, they say, are about to happen. Well, see you on the other side of momentous moments!

Yeah, yeah, that girl.

I know this Sec 377 thing has got everyone's knickers in a twist and people are delirious with the ruling and all, but you know, after a certain point, it's like, get your celebrations off the street and get yourself a room, you know? I don't parade around on the streets and flaunt my heterosexuality in your face, do I? Please extend that courtesy to me as well.

I ordered J. Randy Taraborrelli's 'The Magic and the Madness' as soon as MJ passed away, and I was so relieved that the website seemed to have it in stock, but my happiness was short-lived, because now I guess everyone else wants to read it too, and after a few days, Rediff showed it as 'Out of Stock'. :-(

It's been raining buckets for the past few days, and this morning, the wind was so fierce that I thought it would blow the roof off the balcony. I think I have some kind of monsoon SAD (Season Associative Disorder), so the rain is not helping things much. Every day, I come to work and waste time daydreaming, looking outside at the palms sway, and wondering what I want to do next. It doesn't help much that I have the attention-span of a goldfish and am incapable of sticking with one idea or thought for more than a few hours at a time. As a result, I have crammed my 'to-do' list up with so much that I actually spend all my time thinking of what I SHOULD be doing and very little time actually DOING anything.

I've also eaten far too much over the weekend and I'm having a 'fat' day. The days of patting myself on the back for losing the equivalent of a small child in weight have long passed and I'm back to feeling fat. My knees, however, refuse to co-operate with me when I attempt to go all-out in one of my frenzied and OTT attempts to make up for lost time by over-exercising, or when I'm feeling particularly perky and decide to exercise for two hours at a stretch. I usually give up after 1 hour and fifteen minutes.

And now it's raining and I need to fight traffic to get back home. Coming to work and returning is an adventure everyday. So much for progress and advancement. This is so not fun.

You know the kind of girl who has lived x number of years thinking that life should be a particular way because that's how it happens in books and movies and in other people's lives, ergo, that's how it should be in mine, and then watches helplessly as it all falls down around her and there's nothing that she can do to stop it, because how can you control what other people think and do, right? The kind of girl whose life is so regular, but dreams that it can be, and will be, so different, and the best life she could have imagined. The girl who wakes up every morning thinking that this could be the day when everything changes. Yeah, yeah, that girl. That one. That's me. I am that girl.

I miss you so!

Okay, so I know it was almost a month ago, but it was never my intention to jump on the bandwagon earlier in any case. I was too overwrought with grief. Yes, I was. No, I didn't know him personally. Never met him in my life. No, I don't think he was a paedophile. I also don't care about whether his children were actually fathered by him or not, and who Blanket's real mother is, and whether he was having an affair with the children's nanny, or whether he was gay, and had a string of gay lovers.

I MISS HIM! Nobody can explain it. MJ-lovers know EXACTLY what I'm talking about, and non-MJ lovers are scratching their heads and going,'Huh'? B(my best-est friend) has threatened me with dire consequences if I hang a picture of anywhere in the house. She remembers the time my Mom put up a picture of Diana (the Princess of Wales, not me) after she died, and it hangs there till this day. It's unhealthy, B says, this obsession with dead celebrities. But what does she know?

If the truth be told, I have been scouring the net for snippets on MJ, ever since he died. I cannot say I'm shocked at the lies that people will tell just to get in the news, and yes, I was so relieved that no-one knew where they'd taken his body, because that meant he'd finally have at least a moment's respite. RIP, Michael.

But now the snippets on Google have disappeared and it keeps throwing up the same old news. Does this mean we're leaving him alone? Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing, but I somehow feel a little lost without my daily fix of MJ. I satisfy myself now by reading old articles that I hadn't read before, because I was too busy thinking that MJ was a weirdo and all that they were saying about him was true. Shame on me. Oh, MJ, I wish you could come back. I miss you so!