Back-game-on

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For the past three days I have been at home doing nothing. The reason for my laid-back-edness is a twisted back muscle.
It all began on last Saturday morning. I got the josh to clean the house and T went “Gosh!” I wanted to usher the New Year to a squeaky clean house. So we spent most of the Christmas weekend fighting with cobwebs and reaching up to the fans with brooms, pieces of cloth, washing all the upholstery et al. Everyone at home thought I had gone clean crazy and were quite relieved when the whole exercise was over. But I only had to enter the room when I saw the missing tile of the clean puzzle – the attic! Though I did not share it with anyone a burning desire developed in me to clean this messy appendage of our room. Attics are a necessary evil I tell you. By Wednesday I couldn’t put off the cleaning another day and taking advantage of the fact that there was nothing much for me to do at office I called it a day off. With broom in hand and excitement in heart I started to unload all the junk which had gotten stored over many years. Most of the “junk” was books. I have to tell you that I really enjoy going through boxes of old books. I like making exciting discoveries among those old brown dusty pages. And this time no part of the junk was mine! I love to stumble upon books I would have never read. Bookmarks with doodles on them left wherever the reader got bored with the book forever. Hilarious comments in the margins written hurriedly in class and passed along. You can well imagine how long I would have taken to sort of the books to be kept back and the ones which had to go to a general book dump place (yes we have that too for wont of deciding what to do with them). The variety was amazing. I found books ranging from kids fairy tales to children’s knowledge banks to mechanical guides to quaint books which nobody would have ever read. It was like tracking through the growing years of T :). The best of them all was finding a book about the German Democratic Republic completely in german. I wonder who read that! I also happened to find at least 10 (yes you are seeing it right) dictionaries. If anyone wants to buy a new one just let me know! I found T’s college autograph book and chuckled through most of the entries. Sometimes old autograph books help in finding out what others think about a person :). I figured T was quite a popular joker even then as he is now! And so the story went on till I had put back essentials back up neatly. Then ofcourse I had to wash all the bed linen. During that I happened to have a nasty bout of cough while bending over. And immediately a muscle in my back got twisted badly! So bad that I couldn’t straighten for a whole minute, wasn’t able to walk easily, found it impossible sit and it was torture to sleep. That’s how I ended up for three days doing nothing but screaming in pain whenever I tried to get up after lying down or cough and praying that I don’t get a sneeze (am a pretty “sneezy” person. Walk me into any new room, shop, give me a new perfume or make me smell food (or a new person)and the first thing I do is Accchoooo!). It hasn’t been that bad because I was hooked on the Internet. One of my much younger cousins got me addicted to playing games and I have seen more cricket than ever before in my life.
But still when people ask me how I ended up with a muscle strain I actually find it sheepish to tell them that it was not due to any of the courageous heavy duty cleaning work I did at the beginning of the week!

Expressly expressing

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You know why I am writing this blog? Because I am amazed. Its 8:15 PM. Precisely 3 hours before, I left home to go see the 5:30 PM show of "Kabul Express". I came back home half an hour before! The home-movie-home thingy was so speedy that we had a tough time convincing my mother-in-law that we really went to see a movie and did not sneak away to eat out on that pretext! She thought we did not get the tickets :)
Kabul Express is a very well expressed movie. It looks awesome, it feels fine, it makes one feel emotional by telling us the story of the "enemy". No points for guessing that its Taliban. Afghanistan looks breath taking. Honestly I don't know how I would react in person to the muddy brown mountainous terrain in contrast with the bright blue skies kilometer after kilometer interspersed with shelled houses, buildings and tanks. But it looked beautiful through the camera of xxx. Acting is good but not great if you ask me. The meaning behind the movie is the biggest hero. All the characters get equal footage and they all do equal justice to their roles. Its funny in many parts and when you have Arshad Warsi you get perfect comic timing. John Abraham as the more mature of the two does not have really much to do except look serious. Most of the dialogues are delivered by Arshad! What I also liked about the movie was absence of songs and slick editing. The movie lasts 2 hours and I feel thats perfect to hold the audience attention.
The angrezi mem angle does not ring a bell for me. I don't know why she is there. But no complaints ‘coz like Jai (Arshad) says to Suhail (John) in the movie "Registhan mein phool kila hai aur tu poochta hai colour kya hai?" LOL. One of a kind movie. After Dhoom 2 a major relief for me and put back some hope in Bollywood fare.

Intimidation II

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In an earlier post I had expressed the generation gap between me and machines. Today I found out that it spreads to kitchen appliances also. Some of them flummox me! I have no clue how to handle them well. Take for example today morning's caper. Yesterday night I "benevolently" decided that I would make breakfast. Why this came to pass was because my mom-in-law is not in station. So in the morning with a happy tune on my lips I entered the kitchen. With full gusto I took out my enemy of all appliances to use. The pressure cooker. I know it was invented with "Simplicity" in mind but give me a vessel with water to cook rice in any day. If you haven't guessed it still I am terrified of and intimated by the pressure cooker. It stems from a "small" incident of the cooker bursting the first time ever I tried to use it. The phobia has stayed with me since. Just when I think I have made a slave of this appliance its evil face comes up to show me who is boss.
I am not the best judge of the measure of water that is needed for cooking a certain measure of rice. But I had started feeling a little more confident about it until today. I kept rice and water in the cooker and started doing other chores around the house. After half an hour I realized that the whistle hadn't blown off and at the same time also noticed a burnt smell permeating through the whole house. Rushing into the kitchen, switching off the stove and opening the lid showed me that due to lack of sufficient water the whistle was on Silent Protest and the cooker had burned the rice. No I had not. It was all the problem of the stupid cooker.
I am clued into Innovation these days. And you know what I think would be an awesome innovation in cookers? Measure markers on the inside for every litre till the full capacity. Now this would be something very useful for people like me who become life long sworn enemies of the pressure cooker!

Posterity or Nostaliga

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On Monday night while I was keeping back a few papers in a file I found a bundle of my oooold writings. From the solitude flavour to the poet in me to the comic sense to love I found them all in a brown paper cover. Testimony to the way my weird mind has developed over the years. Yellowed papers, smudged papers, papers with dried water drops on it. I used to love the idea of collecting whatever I wrote and doodled, however nonsensical it might have been. I am wondering if I should convert the writings into electronic form on my blog for posterity sake or preserve the stiff old pages for nostalgia sake.
What should I do?

Motherly times

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Nowadays I can easily classify my group of girl friends into the following 4 categories

• Experienced mothers
• New mothers
• Potential mothers
• Mothers-to-be-in-future

There comes a time in every girl's life when life takes on a new meaning. Literally. A new life comes into her life. There also comes a time in every girl's life when all around her, her friends are bringing new lives into this world. I have reached the latter juncture. Am pretty sure that soon most of our conversation will be dominated by the toddlers rather than on the next big thing at work or the husband or the latest book or the make-up ritual. For a simple reason that most mothers are deprived of personal time and when they get a chance to talk to their friends they easily talk about the topic foremost on their mind rather than scratch their head and try to make new conversation! And talk will only be a bridge over the waaaa and susu gaps. So I am getting mentally prepared to hear a lot about diapers and burps and other ejection of sounds from their bundles of joy.
One of my favourite friends has also been intimated about a visit from the stork and I am all excited to hear about the baby's progress. I dont know what it is with me but I had tears in my eyes when she was telling me over the phone about the head and spine of the baby developing. Am an emotional old fool. I pray for her and all my other friends of the previous categories.
I do have a unique category for myself - a Very-Scared-mother-to-be-in-the-future

Should I brag or should I not?

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I had an amazing week and end last week!
My name appeared in the Times of India newspaper twice in 5 days!
Oh am so excited about it! It was all about a presentation in a career seminar.
I felt like a celebrity coming out, getting mobbed by people showering appreciation and questions! I needed the "Red Bull" to keep my mind active which would otherwise have slept off because of lack of sleep the previous night. Yeah, ofcourse I was nervous. Am not such a natural yakkity-yakker as my husband :). The poor soul had to listen to me "olering" twice as I neatly put a veil of "preparation" over all the nonsense I was talking. But it was exciting I tell you. For a non-stage person like me to be up there addressing nearly a hundred people was a very proud (unlike most people who I dont understand how feel humbled) moment. I did falter on stage. I did forget words but the audience never knew, I covered up so well! And the piece-de-resistance was when at the end of the presentation I forgot to ask for audience questions. I got off the stage came to a halt in front of the first row-ers and said (yeah exact same) "Shit!". Then I climbed back on the stage and sheepishly asked the people to shoot questions :). It was funny I tell you! But I had already got the audience in a good mood so it was ok.
Its not like I have never presented before in a forum. But I have never presented to a crowd I dont knw (if you discount the Independence day speech I had delivered, in fourth standard in front of the whole school(all of whom minus 45 of my class I dint know),which my dad and mom had helped me write and memorise). Most times its been a set of people I know something about.
This week my dilemna starts with the question "Should I brag about it with all or shouldnt I?". I mean is it nice to tom-tom your own achievement? For me, getting quoted in the press is BIG. A lot of people are telling me to capitalise on this and not allow future event managers to forget me as a speaker. I am clueless about how to do this but I will learn the ropes soon. I dont know how this "learning the ropes" phrase got coined. Need to read up on it. But for now I have decided to publicly brag hence this post tra la la
P.S:- Thank you hubby dearest.