One of the weekends last month, beau and I went to Inorbit in Malad, as I walked by the perfume section, I sighed when I looked at Davidoff's Cool waters. I have been wanting this perfume (?) for a very long time now. But somehow my mind is not tuned to spending for this one. I pay almost double that amount for anyone to do my hair *gasp* but no for the parfum somehow my purse strings won't loosen up. So I stood there watching it and sighing for a longish time almost on the verge of being physically dragged away from there by the security personnel when suddenly I had this brilliant idea.

Say I were to buy this parfum..perfume..whatever(!) still I would not really be happy as I am not comfortable spending that much for it. So that would mean I would be miserable even if I bought it. Then why spend that kind of money and be miserable? I thought Diwali was around the corner and if I choose to give away that money or buy gifts for people out of it, people I don't know and people who don't expect a thing from me, 30 strangers.Wouldn't that be great? So thus I began. I had to find 30 people and gift them either money or some gift each and I am sure their smiles would make me way more happier than owning cool waters :) This decision made my mind is off buying cool waters( for now that is). I thought how would I decide who to give the money/gifts to, as in how do I decide who deserves a surprise buck but then I realised what an ass I am being, it's just a small sum of money, I mean frankly I am quite lucky to be living a very luxurious life and I don't know if I have done anything per se to deserve it, yet God has been kind enough, so even I would just give away the gifts without analysing who deserves it or some such bull.

The first person was the delivery guy from a restaurant close by, this guy is a teenager, quietly he delivers the food, collects the payment and leaves every time without even looking up. This time when I tipped him, he looked blankly at me, I wished him "Happy Diwali" and there in his smile, in the way his face lit up, I knew cool waters can wait, these smiles are much more cooler. My Diwali was mucho happy that way, such are the virtues of selfishness because I didn't do this as charity or out of kindness but out of pure selfishness to be able to buy a lot of happiness from my money which otherwise would have been spent on some perfume and best part is I have only begun, I am down with six smiles, there are twenty-four more to go *does the hippy hippy shake*.

I hope all of you had a great Diwali too.

No. This isn't a review of the movie. Actually this post is not about the movie at all. The Saturday beau and I went for this movie, we choose to go for the last show (11.15 pm) so that we could have an unhurried dinner and catch the movie at ease. But no, thanks to the rising number of insensitive parents it was not to happen.Right behind our seats was this couple who bought their barely-one and a half-year old kid! Throughout the movie the kid kept screaming and kicking our seats so we missed some of the dailogue and kept shifting uncomfortably. The beau suddenly yelled a 'Susssssh' to the kid and I yelled at him, the kid won't be able to sush specially if he is to sit in one place for about 2 hours in the dark watching a very violent movie. An irritate beau replied the sush was for the parents * rolls eyes *.

I tried my best to let it be but I have had enough of stupid parents bringing kids to late night movies which are totally not suitable for kids, so I decided to take this up with the parents during interval. Here is the conversation:

The first thing I asked them was, "Forget about how much it's disturbing us, but isn't it unacceptable to bring a two year old for a violent movie like Body of lies and that too for a late night show, shouldn't the kid be in bed or atleast at home at this hour?"

Stupid Father replies "No, No, No, he is not even two, so we bought him." My jaw dropped and at that point I felt like tying him up and torturing him but his wife was even more irritating (match made in heaven, I say) and torturing two people in a short span of 10 mins( the interval time) would be difficult so I let go.

Stupid Mom (Making a sad face): "There is no one to look after him at home, so we bought him, we see very few movies." ( I'm sure thats such a huge sacrifice. *sniff sniff*)

Me: "But then why don't you watch them on DVD?

Stupid and Mother both Father start rambling about how they totally have the right to torture their kid and disturb other movie goers. Stupid Mom: "Are you trying to tell us that we should not see movies in a theatre."

Me(Without skipping a beat): YES! Do you even have to ask!

At this point the interval ended and we ended the discussion there. During the second half of the movie we actually played a bit with the baby, what to do * sigh * you can't beat(quite literally) these insensitive parents atleast you don't take it out on the poor kid, such a deadly combo of parents he is got. I swear one more time I encounter parents like these I am going to snatch their kid from them! After all loony parents should be anyday better then stupid parents! HMPF.

Early morning I received an sms from a friend wishing me a Dhashera free of all evils, I read it as free of Elvis and wondered did Elvis ever sing some bad dhashera songs, of which my dear friend wants to free me, only to realize that it's evils he was taking about. Heh, thus began the whole fusion on my Dhashera 2008. Our house has lots of Ganesha idols and generally people remark that as per vaastu there should just be a single Ganesha in the house, so we decided to unite all of them and pray to them for helping us loose weights and the terrorists to gain immense weight. Since weight loss is such a tough and time consuming task we figured if the terrorists gained weight they would have no time for terrorizing junta. My friend remarked looking at our make shift temple "Isn't it Dhashera today?" Well what to do! As kids we were taught that all Gods are one, so instead of Durga Mata we worshiped our dear Ganeshaji and we seriously hope our prayers are answered.

After that thanks to the punju roommate who cooks sexy Italian food we ate a lovely Italian lunch (pasta, garlic bread et al). We did get white wine to go with the food but well er, we didn't have a wine opener and ended up having cranberry juice instead. The wine sits nicely in our fridge and to honour it we will cook a deserving meal this weekend I hope.

She had a long shower. It was a lazy Sunday after all. Coming out of the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the huge, full length mirror on the bathroom door. She had always hated that mirror, suddenly she realized she hated mirrors in general. They told her more than she needed to know. She was never a looker and then she slowly became too fat, too ugly, too old. Sigh. But she knew she was beautiful, her eyes made her that.

As she looked closely she realized that the eyes that stared back at her from the mirror were not hers. It was unnerving. She looked again, closely, those were definitely not her eyes. In school one of her class teachers always scolded her " I know you are up to something I can read it in your mischievous eyes." on some other days when she was quietly trying to grasp the formulas being dished out by this very teacher, suddenly she would look up to the teacher and the teacher would complain " You have such mischievous eyes!" It was so funny to watch her teacher fume like that.

She knew she could talk through her eyes.She felt betrayed by the display of her emotions sometimes, her eyes told everything like it was. Her eyes would laugh when she was thinking of something funny, her eyes would drool when she saw the guy in office she had a crush on for the last 5 years. When she was angry the fury in her eyes was unbearable. But her eyes were most beautiful when she saw him.They danced playfully, sang happily, giggled joyfully and were dizzy with the happiness.


But these eyes staring back from the mirror were not hers. They were hollow and still like death. She suddenly wanted to scream at the person staring at her from the mirror daring her, challenging her 'We'll see who blinks first'. To be able to stare at a person and not blink for hours was her talent. She remembered in college she had dared everyone and no one could beat her. This was her game. She would command the person she challenged to blink and till date everyone had obliged.

The person in the mirror stared back, for a long time neither flinched, then suddenly there was emotion in those death like eyes,instantly tears rolled down her face and then, then she blinked, defeated at last, by self pity.

Last few days have been the worst days of my life. Bad enough to drive me do try crazy stuff. *shudder* I have become bitter, sad and gloomy but then, I sadly smsed my beau "Please try and remember me as I was, and not as the person I have become." I guess it's then I realised it might be a good idea if I tried the same. I was a loony happy hippy person. I can't randomly decide to be happy, but then then I can try to not be gloomy and bitter. The problem in the whole situations is no one intends to hurt other so thats what I will do now on and I hope to God some of you still read this blog, because this was the happiest part and I plan to revive it back again!Right now I feel I am blessed to have my current roomies, Raji and Swapna. They barely know me but have been very very sweet. Making exemptions for my behavior, trying to lift my spirit and best of all just letting me be.

Last weekend the pilot babe roomie and I decided to go to the very famous Mohd. Ali Road to try out the delicacies dished out on this place during the month of Ramadan. As we neared this road a warm wind blew into our faces bringing with it the mixed smells of kababs and burning oil. I was surprised that in all the places that I read about the Minara Masjid lane I no where read about the local flea sort of market which is open till dawn. It was my dream come true! Being a total shopaholic I ofter crib about the fact that the malls aren't open all night. Going through rows and rows of stalls selling shoes, bags, dresses without having to worry about them shutting down was so great that I almost forgot that we were there to sample the food! Since I am brainwashed by the brand brigade I couldn't buy much from these markets but it sure was fun doing window shopping in it's truest sense for once.

We walked through the entire lane, picked up a stall called 'Status' and sat down to begin our gastronomic journey. The one thing that kept distressing me was the sight of caged 'teetars' kept on all these stalls. While I thought that the chicken tawa was good, the other dishes chicken tikka and kheema masala were not to my liking as they had toooooo much oil and spice in them so I was a little disappointed and I feel the food at Badhe Miyaan would have been better anyday. But after this disaster we surprisingly found a great place named 'Chinese and Grill' if I am not wrong, we didn't expect the iftaar specials to be good but strangely we ate the best brain masala there, not too oily nor too spicy, everything was just right.

The place that made this visit totally worth it was 'Suleman Usman Mithaiwala'. Between the two of us we tried their rasmalai (which was to die for, fresh, not too sweet and melted in your mouth) black current phirni (which was gooood) and regular matka phirni which is in the fridge humbly waiting to be eaten. I am yet to try their double malpua which I couldn't since the chicken and brain were already in a massive fight for space in my tummy. Next time for sure that delicacy will also be alloted some space.

If you are wondering about the title of this post well, the place was so hot, humid and crowded that I felt I was being tandoored and the spices in the air obviously stuck to me. If I would have waited for some more time I am sure I would have been cooked just right and would have made a great food experience for the crowd there!

Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. I guess this is the tittle of a book, but thats how my relationship has become for the last one year. Long one year. A time in which I have turned bitter, sad and am not myself. A time in which I have lived what would be a dream life for anyone, living my life on my terms, making the best of everyday, but have wept almost every night. A time when I have been more confused than ever.

Generally I am never indecisive, in fact most of my friends think I make impulsive decisions, but to me my instinct knows better. So I let my instincts guide me and take all the decisions. But this once, have been suppressing my instinct for over a year now, hoping to God my gut feeling is wrong this time, knowing very well it's never the case.

Almost a year back, one of my closest friend came home to invite me for her wedding, a wedding which was doomed from the beginning. That day I advised her, to ditch the wedding, come and stay with me. I offered her my place and support till she is independent. But she got married and is sad and miserable ever after. Till date I nod sadly thinking that if only she were strong enough to walk away when she could.

Now I am here. In her shoes. And I am worse than her, I am independent, I can take my decision and for a year now my decision has been to put up with the totally unfair, manipulative, paranoid parents of my beau, my decision has been to put a brave front through the day, to laugh to joke and to smile when people ask me so when are you guys planning to take the plunge and then home and cry myself to sleep, to look longingly at children and bite my lip and drink a ton of water to avoid myself from weeping in public. It has been my decision to let my heart ache when I start to think of how this is affecting my parents. It has been my decision to put up with the fact that his parents get to decide if we marry, if we get to be happy or if we get to be a normal couple and reach the point when we wonder what the hell got into us to have married in the first place.

It's been my decision, to ignore the fact that as right he may be in not wanting to dessert his parents, he is equally wrong in letting me suffer for their unfair judgment, it has been my decision to let his parents insult me, my father and still want to marry into that family just because I love him.

I am walking out of it now. And this is here, for the day when this will be over, for the day when there will be peace, for the day when I will have grown out of this pain. For a day when, I can read this and kick my butt, for the day when I will read this and smile at my weakness, until then, my feet hurt from being in her shoes and my heart aches with all the love lost.

Yup. That's what I have been rechristened as, thanks to my sweet delusional new roommate. I finally have two new roomies, one of whom is a hot Pilot babe *tries to hog undeserved limelight as always* . Now we all are reading about, crying about and trying to fight the monster called 'inflation' and yesterday we three women like desi charlie bhaiya ke angels beat it to pulp. For under Rs.200 we saw a play and had dinner at my most favourite theatre Prithvi.

We went out for the play 'The Crown Prince' all I can say is it's the best comedy play I have seen in a long time, we all hooted wholeheartedly when the play ended and came out with our jaws hurting and eyes watery from all the laughing out loud. Even now I am shaking like unsettled jelly thinking about the play which is not a real good thing considering I am in office and I am sure that it's common knowledge that no one feels particularly happy working with excel so people around me know what I am up to. Enough said I will now take my re-christened self seriously and order all of you to head to the lovely and cozy Prithvi in Juhu. Go to it's lovely cafe and enjoy a hot sulemani chai with masala 'Amlet' before the play, even their now-torn-and-tattered menu cards are innovative and interesting. After that watch the play 'The Clown Prince.'

Since I am sure you all will thank me for this advice I will also advice you to send me some entertainment charges in Euro and not dollahs and if you come back from the play dissatisfied then you should probably take your doctors advice seriously about not missing your meds or therapy sessions.

Yup! Thats what I am turning into. All because I have this lucky (?) charm because of which whoever shifts in with me, gets married within few months of living with me. Really. You don't belive me fine, let's see how many women has it been.

1.Pranati Mohapatra.
2.Rubina Chowdhury.
3.Prachi Mohapatra.
4.Swati Nanda.
5.Hafsa Noorie.
6.Vidhi Malhotra

Phew, all of them in less then two years! Which means every few months I am back to my 'Looking for a female roommate' stage! And you guys have no idea how bleedhy difficult it is to find a good roommate, I have been stuck with horrible roommates. Now before I take in any new roomie I try to ask them as many questions as possible which means I end up spending a lot of time trying to know these women *abruptly stops blogging and runs off to meet another woman hoping this one is 'The one' *