Dostana – A must watch for entirely different reasons

On the very rare occasions that I don’t have something to read I deign to watch a movie. Last Saturday I decided to watch Dostana – Karan Johar’s latest offering. The movie has been in the news for all the wrong reasons – the scorching hot opening sequence, the gay twist, the unexpected climax, etc.

What’s been lost in the entire dissection is the poignant portrayal of friendship in its multicolored hues. Dostana is not just about gay humor, its about finding friendship in the most unexpected places, its about dealing with love that creeps in and threatens friendship but most of all it proves that platonic relationships do exist between men and women.

Dostana made me realize just how much I miss my old friends, but then real life isn’t always as rosy as tinsel town. Watch it, for the best buddy movie in a long time since ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’

Marriage – Girls aren’t the only ones who are scared

Pick up any women’s magazine and you’re sure to find at least one article that tells you how to tell if a guy is interested or how to know for sure if he’s really into you. Pick up any men’s magazine and you’re bound to find at least one article that tells you how to make women think that you’re a sex god.

Since all magazines seem to believe in following set patterns and stereotypes you’re never going to find an article that explains things that you really want to know. Like how do you know when you meet the right person? Or for that matter how are guys supposed to know when the girl is interested?

Since I’m at that stage where everyone and their brother want to see you ‘settled’ and keep forwarding names/ numbers/ photographs/ biodatas of ‘good’ members of the opposite sex I’m in a quandary trying my level best to figure out what exactly constitutes ‘good’.

Consultations with my ‘Happily Married’ cousins/ friends/ sisters did not help. People bandied about things like – “you’ll know the minute you see her that she’s the right one?” Hello? How the hell is that going to happen? Magic? Hocus Pocus anyone?

The truth of the matter as I see it is that you really never know. I didn’t create any ideals in my mind because I didn’t want to be disappointed with life. But that didn’t really help. In a very short span of time I’ve got to go and see some people and make a decision that is going to affect my entire life.

The slightest slip up could leave me with a harridan who’ll feast on my soul and ensure that I never have a moment’s peace for the rest of my sorry life. Incessant demands will become the order of the day and keeping up with /ahead of the Joneses my sole reason for living. Pandering to her whims and fancies will suck away my essential life force, eating away the vitality of my youth while precipitating premature baldness. Not a pretty picture I tell you.

I could get lucky and find a girl who is actually normal and ‘sensible’ but then the chances of that happening are about as bright as my being crowned the King of England and ensuring a reign of peace that lasts for five hundred years. Get Real!

One thing I do know now is that boys are as scared of marriage as girls are, and surprise, surprise for the exact same reasons that girls are! (And thanks to me you do too.)

Any one with any sage advice is welcome to get back to me.

Management by exception – a rather interesting concept

B – School teaches you a lot of things, but probably the most interesting ones don’t really hit you in the face until they actually happen to you. Management by exception is a concept that we learnt as a part of strategic management, Operations management and even in HR way back in the first semester.

To be honest, most of us didn’t exactly take that concept very seriously. All we did was cram the flowchart that explained the process and regurgitated it in the exam. Case closed. I mean who actually cares about that kind of stuff?

But then life has a very funny way of making things come full circle. The other day I was faced with a rather peculiar problem that came up. I was going through my inbox when I came across a rather offensive mail from a short listed candidate marked as ‘Polite Reminder.’ Needless to say that since he’s been kept waiting for eons by the organization he was anything but polite.

Just to clarify, he’s been sending me mails regularly and I’ve been responding as nicely as I can while all the time sending frantic mails to my superiors asking for advice on what to say to him. I mean you can’t tell a short listed candidate who’s already qualified the first round of interview to fob off now can you?

When I got the ‘Polite Reminder’ I simply responded with a polite thank you and a smiley at the end. Two words and one emoticon. Not much right? Wrong. Especially since I’d marked a CC to my superiors.

My superiors swooped down on me like a pack of vultures on a dead carcass. I got a verbal dressing down for being, can you believe it, RUDE. I’m still not sure what was so rude but I sure as hell know what the management by exception means now. As far as I can tell, it means that as long as you are following “procedures” and not doing anything its okay, the minute you do something that looks remotely like you’re not following either “Procedures” or “Policies” you get a swift kick in the butt. Period. That’s management by exception for you!

Lauren Weisberger – an author par excellence fast sliding into a rut

Any body who has a passion for reading would probably be familiar with the work ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ – a humorous take on the inside world of personal assistantship to an inhuman boss. The main protagonist Andréa Sachs is a fashion unconscious college graduate desperate to become a writer who ends up taking a job as a personal assistant to one of the fashion industry’s most feared and revered icons – Miranda Priestly. A woman who gives the term ‘Diva’ an entirely new meaning altogether.

Andréa’s one year of assistantship ends in failure, but she learns enough to realize that she isn’t cut out for that kind of existence. Family values but in a modern avatar is how I would sum up the book.

The book was ground breaking, poked fun without overstepping into crassness and was equally good in celluloid form.

Lauren’s second book, ‘Everyone worth Knowing’ followed a similar pattern; basically honest and wholesome female enters into a job with a PR firm that is filled with glamour and goes through innumerable trials before calling it quits and living happily. As few changes included the main protagonists parents being the hippie types instead of the best friend’s but the whole best friend being neglected thing was repeated again.

The second attempt was like a can of coke that’s been left in the open for a while, sweet but the fizz was lacking.

Lauren’s third book was downright puzzling. While she did attempt to depart from the standard stock of characters that she had already rehashed in her second book she went too far out and served us fare that was like California wine being passed off as French Champagne. “Chasing Harry Winston” – a book that tracks the lives of three girlfriends for a year as they try to find the right man before they get too old.

It would have been a cult classic if only Candace Bushnell didn’t exist. As it is middle aged female angst is something that the ‘Sex and the City’ writer turned into a multi -million dollar empire.

So no prizes for guessing that the other two books didn’t do as well as the first. The first entertained, the second kept us interested while the third would have been something if it hadn’t been for the Déjà vu feeling.

Lauren, please get your act together. We miss the fabulously crackling wit of ‘Devil wears Prada.’ What happened to you?

Grease is not just a musical……..

Traveling by the metro gets more interesting by the day. One learns loads and amongst the various learnings that I have acquired over the past few months is this little nugget that I can barely type out because I’m laughing so hard.

When I got on to the metro today it was like any other day, packed with people and full to the brim. As usual there were people who chose to sit on the floor. Nothing new you could say but what was new was that instead of the usual college kids there was this exquisitely made up lady in a soft pink salwar suit sitting with her back to the wall of the carriage. She’d taken a lot of trouble over her appearance and seemed to be very conscious of the way she looked. So it was all the more incongruous that she was sitting on the floor. To each their own.

Any way, time passed, I got engrossed in my book of the moment and pretty soon the presence of the painted lady went the way of all mental trash. The next thing I knew someone was shrieking like a banshee and I looked up in surprise to find that the source of the noise pollution was the painted lady.

A closer look revealed the source of her agony – her soft pink suit was covered in grease stains the size of Africa on a large scale world map and her carefully made up face now sported black streaks making her look like some kind of tribal princess. Apparently she had cosied up a little too much to the wall and hence the result. A couple of tissues soon took care of the streaked face but the suit remained splotchy, a reminder to the world at large that expensive clothes should be treated with the care they deserve because grease is not just the name of a musical.

Moral of the story - Don't sit on the metro floor.

When truth mirrors fiction

I’m a strong believer in book - retail therapy and my belief leads to me the nearest bookstore where interesting works of fiction abound. There are very few things in life that can’t be solved or at the very least put into perspective by the sense of comfort afforded by the sweet new book smell emanating from a work of fiction. I’ve also begun to read more voraciously than ever before, partly because I now have the financial power to indulge myself when I want to and partly because in a city filled with teeming multitudes I am once again at sea.

I’ve just finished reading, “The Pregnant King” by Dr. Devdutt Patnaik. The novel is based on a lesser known incident of the Mahabharata of a king by the name of Yuvanashava who gives birth to his own son Mandhata. The novel traces the rise of king Yuvanashava and examines the circumstances leading to the novelty of his son’s birth.

The author expounds the concepts of ‘Dharma’ and ‘Niyog’ with as much ease as it addresses the moral and ideological concerns that are attached to the concept of a man giving birth. The novel answers with élan the question that is often asked in jest, what does a child born of a man call the man, father or mother.

The answer though difficult to digest is logical and the author takes into account the ancient Hindu concepts of Dharma and social order to formulate his arguments. Revealing the answer is easy but I’ll leave that for the more intrepid readers to find out for themselves partly because I don’t want to spoil the novel for them and partly because the answer deserves to be understood in its entirety and reproducing it here would be tantamount to plagiarism.

What I would like to point out is the uncanny exactness between the moral dilemmas posed by the novel and those that were highlighted by the media not so very long ago when a woman undergoing a gender transformation stopped the process midway to give birth to a child. The media roundly condemned the act and termed both the parent and child freaks of nature.

I shall respect the right of an adult human being to choose their own path but at the same time I should advise the parents in question to read the novel and prepare themselves for the rejection of identity that may come back to haunt them when they least expect it.

At the end of the day life isn’t a movie or a novel with a fairy tale ending. While the novel ends on a beautiful note with Yuvanashava finding peace, it remains to be seen how far the real life man who gave birth is able to go to find the same peace.

Just two more facts before I sign out – The novel is based on an incident that the majority of god fearing India believes to be true and it is a pity that it came out much earlier than the actual incident took place otherwise you would have heard of it before now.

Happy reading!

Greed in the guise of affordable housing

In case you’ve been reading the papers regularly there was a news item that made it to the front page a week ago highlighting the disproportionately high number of applications received for the recent DDA housing scheme. The newspapers used it as an excuse to lament the lack of affordable housing for the Aam Aadmi (as usual) and to paint the existing Government in a bad light (again as usual).

Since I am notoriously apolitical and frankly couldn’t care less about the Government, I am not going to use precious blog space in singing paeans about the ruling party, I’d just like to highlight the fact that if a study were to be conducted into the nature of the applications you would find the following break up:-

Most of the subscriptions would be in the name of people who already have at least one home and they are either going to sell off the allotment or they are going to rent out the property. In either case they couldn’t be bothered to live in that house any way.

The next majority would be people like brokers etcetera who would sell the allotment at a premium and are probably just deciding which allotments to pick because they are already hand in glove with the DDA officials.

The ones who would be in minority are the ones whom the paper highlights. The Aam Aadmi. These guys would be in such a small minority that if only their applications were to be considered then probably there would be no story for the press. Or the press would have to cook up a story about faulty construction to explain the phenomenon of left over flats.

The bottom line is that sheer greed has inflated the number of applications, not the lack of affordable housing. Ultimately, someone is going to buy the allotments in the open market and that is when the real Aam Aadmi will come to light. Until then, it’s the overbearing and rude Dilliwalla who’s going to rule the roost and the papers can be smug and self satisfied that once again they have been able to bring to public knowledge the apathy of the Government.

Dissecting the so called spirit of Delhi

With the bombs ripping apart parts of Delhi on Saturday life ideally should have come to a standstill. Paralysis spawned by fear should have set in and people with some spine should have done their bit for the wounded and the dead. The rest of the signs were bang in place, the police with their pathetic statements, the Politicos expressing grave concern over the tragedy, tightened security in certain buildings, the media tripping over itself to get the best shot and the best camera angles, hospitals overflowing with blood and gore, in short, every side show that you could expect in the circus.

What was missing palpably was the lack of concern that Dilliwallas showed for their fellow man. Tales of rickshaw drivers charging hefty amounts to take the wounded any where, not even a token mourning period observed by the people, security being as lax as ever in the metro, these were disheartening signs.

For the past three days Radio stations have been spouting nonsensical messages that state that the spirit of Delhi is indefatigable. What spirit? Does this city have any spirit to speak of? What spirit are we really talking about?

If by spirit they mean that Dilliwallas went shopping the very next day or that the shops were open in the very same markets that the blasts took place in or that people were reluctant to play it safe even on the very day that the blasts took place then all I’d like to say is that we had better look for a new definition for the word callous because the definition for that has been relabeled SPIRIT.

There is nothing spirited about going out on the day after a tragic event has taken place and enjoying yourself. It is even more pathetic that on should choose to do so. It simply shows a lack of taste and a lack of care and concern.

The day after the blasts was Sunday and by late evening the roads were packed with cars as usual. It was as if by partying harder Dilliwallas were trying to fool themselves into a sense of security that was as artificial as the pancake on the ladies’ faces.

When Jaipur was rocked by blasts earlier this year, Jaipurites stood up for each other, blood donation camps, supplies, warmth and above all a widespread concern for one’s fellow man dominated the city’s emotional barometer for days. The next day Jaipur wasn’t found partying, it mourned each death with dignity and compassion. Jaipurites showed real spirit – a spirit of that was woven with faith, hope, dignity and compassion.

Delhi’s reaction in comparison is akin to that of the young widow getting hitched within days of her older husband’s death. Dilliwallas have no sense of dignity. Loud, in your face, desperately trying to be something that they are not, they behave in ways that are completely antithetical to the very tenets of humanity.

Spirit is not defined by the way you choose to hide your anxiety; it is defined by the way in which you choose to react to the menace at hand. Jaipur chose to behave with dignity, Delhi with crassness.

Delhi, I implore you, get a heart transplant – put the Dil back in Dilli before you lose your soul.

Of the inexplicable link between Brownies and Bosses

My Boss whom you’ve met earlier and whom you know as Mr. Enigmatic at first glance has nothing to do with Brownies. For the uninitiated Brownies are the accidental invention of a lady who forgot to add a crucial ingredient to a cake that she was baking and the resulting flat bread instead of getting chucked into the bin got a solid drizzling with chocolate sauce and was served in the lady’s best china.

From such humble beginnings the brownie has traveled all the way to Delhi and is now served in a softer, walnut covered avatar at the Café Coffee Day outlets for 30 bucks a plastic wrapped piece. Eaten early in the morning it proves to be the best pick me up and gives yours truly the much needed strength to get through the better part of the day.

The thing is that the little bit of chocolate indulgence has turned into a sort of inverse indicator of Mr. Enigmatic’s moods. The days that the brownie is too sweet, Mr. E turns out to have a bad case of grumpiness in general, when my morning brownie is completely covered with nuts, Mr. E seems to be as calm and unruffled as a lake on a peaceful summer evening and the days when the Brownie is downright disgusting and inedible, Mr. E is at his jovial best.

I sometimes think that god has written my life in such a way that the only way that I can live it is by achieving that predefined balance that he’s set out for me. In this perpetual balancing act things that have absolutely no bearing on each other seem to develop inextricably linked bonds of steel that are seldom broken except by the absence of one or the other variable.

On the days when the Brownie is unavailable, Mr. E becomes my best friend and on the days that Mr. E is absent? Well, that hasn’t happened yet, when it does I’ll tell you too. But for now, I have an appointment with a cottage cheese and tomato sandwich that’s waiting for me in the bottom left hand drawer.

Bon appetit!

Rudeness – the essential ingredient without which Dilliwallas wouldn’t be Dilliwallas

I’ve been suffering from pangs of homesickness and the urge to break into tears quite a lot recently. Since my gender doesn’t allow for PMS and Menopause, it’s definitely not physiological.(And yes men cry too.) So what gives? I’ll tell you what, Rudeness, especially in that just below the surface, thinly veiled variety that Dilliwallas have raised to the level of an art form.

Take some sarcasm, add a very small pinch of wit, finely dice in a hint of contempt, stir some snobbery for flavor and garnish with the utmost amount of hauteur that you can manage and there you have the famous Dilliwalla brand of rudeness that is guaranteed to make any non Dilliwalla feel miserable.

It’s everywhere – at the gym, the restaurant, the office, the metro – any way you turn and come smack up against it. It’s enough to make anyone cynical for life. That horrible way that Dilliwallas have of putting you just a couple of pegs lower than they are and then talking down to you across an unbreachable chasm of neo social class hierarchy is truly unbearable.

For someone like me who was taught that everyone is worthy of respect, this kind of treatment makes one want to take a vow of silence so that I’d never have to put up with that unbearable rudeness again.

I’d always believed in the maxim that you should do unto others as would have them do unto you, and I’ve always tried to follow it even when I’ve known that I’m being short changed but this horrific rudeness is simply not done. It is enough to set me thinking that maybe its time that I changed my behavior patterns and started giving it back as good as I get.

The only problem in this entire scenario is that when I wanted to be rude to people I simply could not allow myself to do it. I did not allow myself that moment of perverse satisfaction because if behave in that utterly vile and loathsome way then I am no better than the Dilliwallas.

I had been told that people in Delhi are defined by their coolness. That’s not rue. Dilliwallas are defined solely by their innate rudeness and I’m truly glad that I’m not a Dilliwalla. I’m a small townie and I’m proud to be one. Amen!

JALEs - Joined at the left earers

It’s amazing how much a person can observe simply by virtue of having to stand perfectly still for exactly half an hour every day. I’m one of those relatively lucky mortals who get to take the Metro to work every day without having to face the horrors of a bus ride. Being in a state of suspended animation on the ride inevitably makes anything virtually impossible – reading, lounging or even texting for that matter.

The only activity for someone like me is people watching – an activity that is infinitely satisfying allowing for a daily dose of personality analysis sessions. Is the lady in blue chatting with her boyfriend? Is the guy in the pink shirt gay? Does that cute girl have a boyfriend? What are the husband and wife arguing about?

So you see the charade of so many characters of the world’s stage play out their roles for your benefit carries with it some kind of voyeuristic pleasure that is not beaten even by the newest offering on Colors- the one where a bunch of weird people are put into a house and then hidden cameras follow their orchestrated antics.

Within that little microcosm of humanity certain patterns of human behavior emerge that are seldom seen anywhere or can be seen everywhere. The two opposite poles of behavior patterns come together every morning and I enjoy the show.

An example of the omnipresent human behavior pattern is the banding together of girls for some kind of protection from numbers. However what kind of protection the banding together offers is anyone’s guess because the metro is jam packed and with tight jeans and tops even on the most misshapen of figures being de rigeur probably the eves don’t even realize that the uncleji rubbing past is having his moment of voyeuristic pleasure of a different kind.

Another thing is couples holding hands. The metro with its lack of space offers the most plausible excuse for all kinds of couples to hold hands with the dominant partner holding on to the handrail for support. Some even go to the extent of spooning their partners with the dominant one hanging on for dear life from the guard rail with both hands.

Then there’s the class of people who are LOUD. They shout at the top of their voices on their cell phones and don’t give half a flying fuck for any one else. So you’re treated to a long, unadulterated and rather racy account of just about anything under the sun which is pretty much everything.

But the thing that gets my goat and at times makes me laugh is the joined at the left ear syndrome. Being a joined at the left earer comes from the practice of using just one set of ear phones to listen to the music device held in the hand with each of the people sharing the device plugging it into their left ear only ( a fact established through days of observation.) The device could be an Ipod, a Discman, cell phone, whatever. The earphones are shared between two people who often have questionable aural hygiene. How they mange to avoid ear infections is a mystery to me.

The worst part is when they begin talking in addition to indulging their collective passions for music which makes it even more annoying because then they too begin to talk at a higher pitch adding to the cacophony of the metro. The sound of the recorded voice announcing the next station is often drowned out and with so many music players blaring out their music collectively it’s like being in a disco only you can just sway rather unrythmically to the movement of the train. I think that maybe the JALEs are people who are disco addicts. Otherwise they would either shut their music device or their mouths and in the process save tons of energy that is otherwise wasted.

Rajiv chowk is a huge relief. It acts like some kind of urban purgatory where every single weirdo gets off and only the serious office goers are left. Even then you have the perverts who use every opportunity to rub up against the body of their choice on their way in / out.
At the end of the day although there are enough irritants the most irritating remains the ones who are joined at the left ear.

Goodbye and thanks for the ride.......

Whenever a relationship ends its heartbreaking. Especially if you’ve invested some of the best years of your life in nurturing it and making it work. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a person of the opposite sex.

I moved to the Capital recently and I had to leave behind a lot of people, places and tons of things that I would have wanted to carry with me but there seemed to be no point in lugging around. So out went the broken discman, the old digital diary, the red refrigerator, the ceramic cookie jar, the borosil glasses and innumerable little keepsakes that were left behind as a reminder of good times once enjoyed and now fading faster than a favorite black t- shirt left on the washing line for three days (another addition to the pile of junk.)

I also left behind an old friend. One who had stuck it out with me through the seemingly endless grind of first job- MBA- Part time job and now had grown too old to stay with me. Once shining black with leather trimmings and a sweet little button that allowed self starting facilities, my dusty and trusty LML has now been sold for a princely sum of three thousand five hundred rupees. A lifetime of service that I once rewarded with regular cleanings, servicing and repairs has now come to an end.

Delhi is not conducive to LMLs and neither are the distances that close that I could find my way around the city. I wanted to continue but then circumstance made us part.

I just want to tell my dear old scooter. I’ll miss you friend. I’ll miss the fact that you’d never die out on me, I’ll miss your purring roar in the mornings when you’d start up. I’ll miss the feel of the soft leather that covered your handles and I’ll miss your comfort.

Goodbye and thanks for the ride……..

"All I want is a room somewhere....." (Eliza Dolittle - My Fair Lady)

Whenever my friends would tell me about their house hunting woes in Delhi or Mumbai I’d never pay attention. That’s because I would be too busy thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t live in either place. Maybe I should have paid more attention because I recently went through a very hard time trying to find a decent place to live. No doubt those tips would have come in handy.

I came to the Capital over a month ago and the first few days were a blur – new job, new clothes, new everything, hell even my socks were new. What were old were me and my mentality. I craved warmth and the sense of security that I’d enjoyed in small towns for the last few years.

I hated everything and to be honest I still do. But like everyone else I hug my cheque book / bank statements, tell my self that these scraps of paper make up for everything else and try to be happy but then back to my house hunting woes.

The first place that I landed up was advertised as a paying guest accommodation. The only PG that I could find that admitted men in its hallowed portals. The rest seemed to be exclusively for women. I walked into that deal with my eyes literally wide SHUT because I had to shift out of the company accommodation and no questions asked. Over night the nightmares of having to share bathrooms, being subjected to unnecessary chit chat and ridculous questions left my privacy loving soul completely and utterly shattered.

I decided that enough is enough the day I came back to an empty PG with no water anywhere, and this after being assured that we'd be given 24 hour water supply. I went to the first house agent that I could find and stopped short of begging him to find me decent accomodation.

A few days later I was able to find myself a small cubby hole of a room on the third floor of a house populated by the the most disgusting Punjabi Family this side of the Vindhyas. The worst part was that their dog would relieve himself on the roof twice a day. I 'd trudge home from the metro station to find a pile of dog doody right outside my door. Great. Polite complaints elicited the response - Shaggy really likes you, that's why he leaves you a reminder! Needless to say I did wonder what would happen if Shaggy hated me but then thats another story.

I left the second place post haste forgoing my deposit because the son of the house decided to get married to his long time girlfriend and lost no time in turning prodigal and demanding his share of the property. The father went into hiding, the sister went into depression and the mother used it as an opportunity to try and extract sympathy of the physical kind. Since my idea of sex does not include obese,middle aged Punjabi women, I left.

The place I manged to find the third time around has left me with leaner and tauter thighs and less of a paunch. How? It's on the fourth floor and does not have a lift. The room is freshly constructed and the family seems to be normal, although so did my last landlords but then you never know.

I have friends who think nomads are cool, but I'm beginning to understand just what they are all about. Since the only kind of lust that i'm ever prey to is sexual, I find this moving around horribly disconcerting and morally degrading.

Still, one must live and then at the end of the day there is always the cheque book......

Bottles anyone?

I’m seriously small town. I mean all the education at the primary level in the gulf countries aside I’m beyond small town. Why? Well you may as well ask that question. I just got back from a trip to the royal city of Lucknow. I entered the sanctum of the top floor to find my enigmatic boss in residence.

“Niki!” (Oh my god what does he want? Didn’t waste much time in letting me know.) “How was your trip?” (How was my trip? HOW WAS MY TRIP? Did the body snatchers walk off with Mr. Enigmatic while I was away? I mean just what is going on here? My boss never asks how my trip was. Never. Not even when I came back from a trip to Gurgaon having switched three buses and walked in looking like death warmed over.)

“By the way that trip to the resort that’s coming up? How do you plan to get to the station?” (Okay now this is freaky. If I quietly walk towards the door and back out slowly the body snatchers might not notice me.) “Because I’m going to have a lot of stuff and I’m planning to call a cab from the office for the same. I was thinking that I could pick you up.” (First things first. One Mr. enigmatic isn’t exactly all that bothered about my welfare. Two he wants something I can feel it in my bones, Three um, hello? There are office cabs at our beck and call?)

“How much stuff are you carrying sir? It’s a three day training programme right?” I blurted out before my caffeine deprived brain could kick in. “ Well three days is along time Niki. You should probably pack a few bottles yourself. There’s nothing much to do there anyway.”

Anyone sane would have said okay walked out. Not me. I said,” But sir doesn’t the Shatabdi provide individual bottles of water to all the passengers? Why do we need to carry more?”

Suffice it to say that I got funny looks from all the other mini enigmas for the rest of the day. Not to mention pathetic jokes involving baby food brands and milk bottles and the like.

For all the other slow brains like myself here are a few brands to jog your grey cells – Bagpiper, Haywards, Cobra, Fosters.

Cheers!

Sophie Kinsella - the way to jump in a puddle when life gives you a rainy day.

Sophie Kinsella is another writer that I find works like a charm when life gives you a rainy day. Her books are almost always written from a woman’s perspective and are seldom very serious in nature.

Although the plot line is fairly predictable usually consisting of madcap heroine who is relatively poor with fairly weird family manages to find her life taking a turn for the better usually because of the intercession of Mr. Right in the form of a successful financial wizard or businessperson who saves her from a lifetime of drudgery.

Part mills and Boon and part Barbara Cartland the books give you a taste of a slice of a modern day fairy tale that takes away from your worries for a few hours. Her books routinely make fun of business jargon and in her books successful women have a good life as opposed to a good career, a theme that has been explored rather fully by the lady herself in “The Undomestic Goddess.”

I love to read the books because of the way in which the sheer ingenuity of the heroine saves her every time with a liberal dose of help by the male protagonist. Although I’m a man, I manage to identify at some level with her heroines especially when they are surrounded by people who are all chattering away in business jargon and the girl of the book asks herself why she can’t understand a word that they are saying? I’ve felt like that quite a few times myself and I’m sure so have you. If you want a book that makes you feel that its okay to be a loser sometimes and that things do turn out right in the end, pick any of her books.

My personal favorite remains “The Undomestic Goddess” while “Can you keep a secret?” comes in at a close second. The Shopaholic series is a must for any one who feels that retail therapy is the way to go.

Do read it but then be prepared for similarities with Lauren Weisberger who seems to have lost her touch after “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Happy reading!

The indefatigable Janet Evanovich

Janet Evanovich is amongst my favorite writers. She's right up there with Agatha Christie, Alexander McCall Smith and J. K. Rowling in my book. The lady writes in manner that is laughable, breezy and possibly a little in your face but funny at the end of the day.
All her books are pretty predictable. The heroine will come out a winner through a sheer combination of grit, luck and good fortune. She makes the Sex and the City women look like amateurs and Lauren Weisberger seems to be a heavy read once you've read Janet.
Her Stephanie Plum series is an ongoing slap dash combo of humor, mystery and the power of luck. Stephanie has pretty large doses of good luck to her credit. She blows up cars, garages, homes, discovers dead bodies, has a crazy grandma, does her level best to choose between two men but is unable to do so. Some people might call it chick lit but this is an entirely diffrent genre in itself.
I got the first of the series "One for the money" free with some other books that my Brother in Law bought me as a gift and since then there's been no looking back. Her latest offering in paper back "Lean Mean Thirteen" was my companion on a recent bus ride that lasted six hours. Needless to say the hours simply melted into oblivion as I savored the book.
The old dilemmas continue - Grandma is as crazy as ever, Stephanie's mum is still busy being the bran muffin, Stephanie can't decide between Joe and Carlos and her cars still get blown up regularly.
The new twist is that Lula is getting pretty serious about Tank, ( whose real name is Pierre ) and in a fit of hyperventilation lambasts Ranger which in any other circumstances would be suicidal but since the exchange takes place in a hospital, she lives. And its not because she receives medical attention.
Read it if you like your heroines sassy, your heroes studly and a plot where inspite of the unbelievable everything turns out okay in the end.
Happy Reading :)

Metrosexuals ahoy!

Coming from a small town the term Metrosexual was just that - a term I'd read in a newspaper article that defined many other kinds of sexual as well. I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about, especially since the whole getting your arms waxed was something that girls did because they didn't want to look masculine, or that was what we grew up thinking.

Our concept of good grooming was restricted to splashing on a liberal dose of aftershave after getting rid of the minor fungal growth that grew on the face and stubbornly refused to lend itself to anything resembling a beard.

I recently took up a job in a metropolis. Here I came face to face with the real meaning of the term and in a way that branded itself into my psyche.

Over the weekend I decided that it was time to get a hair cut ( Don't ask about why I decided to do so, just let it suffice that I come from a really small town.) I walked into the local saloon thinking that I'd be out in no time especially since I couldn't see any one in the waiting area. Was I wrong.

The first thing that confronted me as I sat down was a huge bank of mirrors that ran all the way round the store. The feeling you get when walk into a swanky gymnasium and find your horrendously out of shape body reflected a hundred times over comes pretty close to describing how I felt at that point of time but the surprises had just begun.

Once my eyes had adjusted themselves to the horrible glare that pervaded the room and I was able to focus better, I did a double take. Why? Because all the chairs were occupied by people with multicolored faces.

I took a deep breath to calm myself and slowly backed out. Surreptitiously I glanced at the Signboard. It read "Smart GENTS Parlor." Hmmmmm........So I was in the right place. I took another deep breath and walked in and sat down.

Pretty soon it was obvious that the multicolored faces in red and black headbands were all men. I mean women wouldn't talk loudly on the phone in guttural tones now would they?WOULD THEY???????????? Imagine if you can a row of plush red leather chairs. Now also imagine those same chairs occupied by grotesquely obese, pot bellied, old (40 + classifies as old in any city) men wearing uniformly disgusting fluorescent shorts and jarring T-Shirts with equally disgusting messages on them.

If you haven't thrown up yet, imagine the same guys with beauty gunk on their faces yakking away on their mobiles about their latest sexual conquest with their garl frand ( girl friend ). ( Hey! Get a barf bag will you!)

Any way, the next thing that happened was that another pot bellied old gent came in and sat down next to me. The man in question took a good look at me and then said,"Which facial did you go for?" Oblivious to the shock on my face he carried on," You see we have the same skin type and since you haven't got a glow from the facial you went in for I thought I'd ask you so that I could avoid that one and get one that would give me a glow....."

As if this wasn't enough I had to sit through the indignity of watching another pot belly walk in, strip off his T-shirt and yell, " I vant a full bawdy vaks, full bawdy." To which the attendant without batting an eyelid at the bear in human form standing there and said,"Yes saar, of kawrse, pleeze to remove short and lie on the table at backside."

Before the poor horribly strained waistband of the "short" could move an inch, I hightailed it out of there. I decided that watching men get facials was bad enough, I didn't need to see the full monty. I suppose the term metrosexual could be applied to those guys but I think I'm happy being my old retrosexual self after all.