Blog 2.0

Yesterday I decided to revive my blog. I had been toying around with the idea of reviving this space for sometime now and the blog has not been very far from my thoughts for very long. But even though I have never been a regular or prolific blogger, it still surprised me to log in and find that I had actually let this space drift for five years!

Five years is a long time and apart from bringing home the realisation that I am quite definitively marching out of a phase of my life where I may be called 'young',  it got me thinking about what I have been up to all this while. I have become a graduate student - twice over and got married. Each year, as if on clockwork, I have moved cities, countries and continents and with each move have embarked upon a new, exciting phase of life. So I suppose, unsurprisingly, blogging has fallen by the wayside though I do wish I had kept blogging as it would have been an interesting window into a period of much change and excitement. But now that for the first time in five years I have the prospect of stability, it feels like a good time to come back to this space.

But the next question was whether to revive this blog or to start a new one. After all, presumably I have changed in these five years and a changed outlook requires a changed blog address. No? Well, not necessarily.

Though it is tempting to wipe the slate clean and start afresh, I do wish to retain my blogging focus on.. well... 'Poetry, Books and Other Things'. Also, I think it might be fun to take a look back after a while of coming back to blogging to see if I really have changed much and having a single space in which to make the comparison seems easier. But most importantly, retaining this space feels like coming back to an old friend and there is some comfort in that. I don't want to make a new friend just because I have lost touch a little bit. I just want to pick up the strings of an old friendship, say hello, know that I am welcome and pick up from where we'd left off.

So, shall we...

On Poetry

As regards poetry, I have always believed,

That I could’nt write, but could well read,

For to write words that would rhyme,

Was as alien to me as dance or mime.

Then I chanced upon Ogden Nash,

He, with his rhymes, nouns n verbs all mish mash,

And yet there always was a fine poem,

Child, adult or beast, it had some’fin for all of ‘em.

Here at last was simple poetry,

That had done so well. Yippee!!

So did that mean, there was a chance?

For poetry even from me, a simple dunce?

But then, I began to wonder,

If I hadn’t made a blunder,

What if, and not vise-verse,

But ‘Ogden Nash’ had made the verse?

And then, for me there was no hope,

And all I could do was sit and mope.

The Wombat

The wombat lives across the seas,

Among the far Antipodes.

He may exist on nuts and berries,

Or then again, on missionaries;

His distant habitat precludes

Conclusive knowledge of his moods,

But I would not engage the wombat

In any form of mortal combat.

-- Ogden Nash
For the uninitiated, Wombat means, "Waste of Money, Brains and Time". This poem reminds me of this post I read recently. :)

Changes

I was just revisiting my blog today.. you know, getting familiar with what I should already have been familiar with. And I discovered this old post of mine. Made me sigh to think that there used to be a time when I used to have readers…:) The post also made me want to make some changes to my blog.. try out the new ‘template designer’ by blogger and generally play around with my blog. So I have spent a pleasant hour and a half painstakingly customising a template and just when it was about perfect, changing it into this off-the-shelf minimalistic version. Somehow I think I like this better now. I have also updated my ‘currently reading’ and ‘recently read’ columns, and have trimmed my blogroll too. Hah!! I have also removed a few redundant features and have basically cleaned out my blog. So, please, oh please dear imaginary reader mine, do stroll around this new version of my blog, and murmur appreciatively to yourself…

Reminiscence

Five years of college – fun, frolic and friends. One year of work – office, Mumbai madness and friends. Notice the commonality? After college, life changed sure…but some aspects were still reassuringly the same. Everyday, I had the luxury of being able to come back home to the same faces I had grown to know so well and love over the past so many years. It was like coming home to family. There was stability in that change. Then suddenly, I quit and moved out, and life has changed again. Only this time more definitely, finally and irrevocably. Of course, new places remain to be seen, new experiences to be had and additional friends to be made. But before I run off to begin the rest of my life, I thought I’d take a while to recall the best moments of this last one year. A countdown of sorts of the 5 most enduring memories of my year at Mumbai:

Domestic Life: Though hostel was communal, we had the luxury of single rooms and thus, the ability to shut out the world at will. So I had always wondered whether five years of life like that had spoiled me completely and rendered me incapable of sharing living quarters. That question was definitely answered when Bombay real estate prices being the way they were meant that three of us had to share a two bedroom flat. Sharing a house, setting it up, putting ‘systems’ in place which would work ‘automatically’ without daily mental and physical effort on our part, and maintaining them with all their myriad problems proved surprisingly difficult and also just as much fun. So living with the family is my Mumbai Memory # 5.

Mumbai monsoons: Last year, we din’t experience the Mumbai monsoons so much outside as we did inside. So coming home one rainy Saturday, (coincidentally, in the very day we had gotten our flat registered) to find our flat flooded, then spending the next hour/hour and a half trying to rid ourselves of the inch deep water all around, and then laughing over all the hassle, makes up my Mumbai Memory #4.

Tea and Toast: Well, the point of my Mumbai sojourn was to join the Banyan Tree Community, and I did spend a lot of time there. So inevitably one of my memories is of the BTC. For a while, a colleague and I had this ritual of ‘early morning’ tea at the office. We would begin our day with a walk to the pantry to get ourselves some tea and then chat with all fellow first years on our way back. Unfortunately, we both soon got too busy to spend even those first fifteen minutes fooling around and the tradition ended. But right about then, my cubie mate introduced me and a bunch of us to the heaven that was Zunka-Bhakar’s cheese toast. And suddenly we had ourselves a brand new morning ritual. So everyday, whoever amongst us got into office first, would order us these white bread, dripping with cheese and butter, wholly unhealthy but sinfully tasty cheese toasts. Even blue blooded founding partners and health conscious equity partners were in on the secret and though they berated us daily and told us how we would all die within the next week for what we were doing to our bodies, their hearts too were in those cheese toasts. So the perfect beginning to so many of my BTC mornings is my Mumbai Memory #3.

House: The medical series. My roommate introduced me to it and from the first episode on, I was hooked! So much so that for a while even in office, I would catch myself thinking of the last case we saw and wonder how the inimitable, irritating, yet wonderful Dr. House would deal with the newest conspiracy against him in the hospital! Those were still the times when all of us would get back home in time for dinner and thus we would have the time for atleast one episode before we closed shop for the night. I watched just the one season – the first one and loved every moment of it – as much the company as the series itself. Then, as usual, we got too busy for Dr. House and this tradition ended. This is however one series, which in my mind is linked inextricably with the company I had while watching it. Without that company, am pretty sure will never again watch the remainder of the series. So watching House with my roommate is my Mumbai Memory #2.

Friday Movies: But my best Mumbai memory is of the Friday Movie Routine. No so much the movies themselves as the process of planning for it. Nearly every single week, we would come up with a shortlist of movies that were to be released / currently running that we wanted to watch. Then would begin the debate about which one to actually watch. Diligent research of newspaper, internet, speculative and word of mouth reviews for almost each film and spirited debate would precede the actual decision. Then would come the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘with who all’ questions and research on what option would best take into account all permutations and combinations. Were we going to include others or was it just to be a ‘family affair’? And ofcourse wither dinner? Had we informed Anita before hand? Would we be wasting good dinner at home or was the home cooked dinner of the expendable kind? Many such complex questions later, we would actually land at the movie (usually PVR, Phoenix, night show). This tradition continued till the very end. Despite office pressures (at worst the movie plan would get shifted to Saturday), through the rush of LLM applications, and all other myriad household chores. Thus, for being the one thing that we looked forward to almost every week, for being the one thing all of us would always make time for, and for being so very much fun (both in the planning and in the execution), the Friday Movie Ritual is my Mumbai Memory #1.

Honourable mentions: Bun maska, Kulfi, and the five mins of nightly chatting sessions we used to have after the TV was switched off and the computers shut down, just before we headed to our respective beds, did not make the top five, but they definitely deserve an honourable mention. I enjoyed them as much as my top five and will miss them just as much.

Happy New Year !

Bombay / Mumbai really is a tale of two cities. One that lives on the central line and one that lives on the western line. The city on the central line is nasty, brutish, rude and forever in a hurry and cares two hoots about stepping on other people's toes, elbowing people in their faces, or shoving them off the train entirely if it suits their purpose. The city on the western line is slightly more soft, has more than a few manners, and even though it too is in a rush is a wee bit slower and more orderly. If it by chance steps on toes, there is always an immediate apology and a genuine effort to not repeat the toe-stepping. And as of my experience, there is almost no elbowing in faces and shoving off trains etc.

Of course this analysis is confined to the fact of my experiences in the women's compartments on the two lines...men I am told are the same species everywhere.

I have discovered that I quite like my own company - for extended periods too. So now I know for sure what I had always wondered.. T.V / books / laptop are all the companions I need for an idyllic weekend. :-)

Experienced winter a wee bit. Just a wee bit.. in the process discovered that the temperature difference between Mumbai and Thane on any given day is at least 5 degrees - easily. My first (and probably only) experience with non-AC induced cold this season.

Now that holiday season is over - was wondering what to look forward to - turns out... am going to Kolkata soon. Yipppeee!!!

Ooohh.. for the first time ever - bought myself a gift. :-) A lovely, super expensive, never-again-will-I-spend-so-much-on-a-pen kind of pen!! + got so many gifts from so many people. Loved it this year!

Read "The Little Prince" recently... really liked it... a profound children's book. If you don't understand what I mean, you will have to go read it. Will be worth it. Promise.

Also, heard the new LG Ad on radio - They ask us to pledge to make Mumbai and Thane 'Green cities' - by tying a leaf at any of the specified outlets in Mumbai. I wonder how many trees will have to die if every single person in Mumbai and Thane decides to make this pledge in this exact way!!

The onset of Winter

Winter is my favourite season. Always has been. The colder it is - the more I love it. Yes, I am also very susceptible to the cold, and the nails on my hands and feet regularly keep going blue, I continuously live with cotton wads in my ears so as to protect my throat from a throat infection etc etc. But I still love the season. [Dare anyone ask about or make fun of the cotton-in-ears thing. If you've never heard of the connection b/w ENT - go read up!!!]

So... getting back to the point...every year I waaaaiiit for the first signs of winter. Usually, a definitte chill in the air just before Diwali and the sun not making too much of a difference to the crackers that you despareately try and get nice and dry before diwali night - is the first indication. Then in places like Ranchi and Bokaro, there's the annual tradition of getting the warm clothes out of storage and putting them out in the sun to air them and make them wearable for the season. Then next to our house in Ranchi.. there is this tree which flowers just before winter starts and the flower has a sickeningly sweet smell. The smell in many ways heralds our winter. Then ofcourse is the fact that all the monsoon insects start dying out slowly and your home becomes yours again.

Then, as winter proceeds, I wait for the water to become so cold that it physically hurts to touch it, I wake up early to catch the early morning fog and then waking early is no longer necessary - the fog continues into mid-day, I wait for the fog that my breath creates every time I open my mouth, and I wait for the warm, bright colours that comes out of everybody's wardrobes in winter. Winter seems a laidback time. The world is sleepy, nobody really wants to do anythign except drink hots cups of chai and eat pakoras and bhutta. :-)

None of this is true in Bombay (or Mumbai for those very particular). And I knew to expect it. I fully expected to hate my fiirst winter here. But apart from the fact that my office seeks to recreate winter everyday...I have discovered to my intense surprise, that winter has it's own charm here. The air loses it's overpowering humidity, the merciless sun almost becomes a friend and you begin to enjoy the warm glow of the pre noon and late afternoon sun, and because you don't expect it, the cool early morning air and the smell of winter that it carries with it, seems extra wonderful...The beginning seems promising. Will have to wait and see if the 'bright colours and the lazy winters' bit follows...

High hopes did I hear you say? Ah but I am an eternal optimist...