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.