Which is your favourite?

I am usually a very blissful person. Anybody who knows me can vouch that I do not exactly fit into 'Man, The Thinker' shoes. I am not contemplative or introspective, not argumentative or critical, not opinionated or overtly analytical. I cant spend too much of my life scrutinizing and worrying about this or that - I do my best for the desired outcome and it usually works out well.

So I was very surprised when I found myself mulling over a ridiculously simple question that I got asked during the weekend. Not just plain thinking, I was thinking real hard. It consumed my mind for some time before I slept and also after it. The question was - which is your favourite perfume?

Now that is a very innocuous question. Something that most of the perfume-happy mankind (oh, have they changed it to personkind now?!) can answer in a jiffy. After all, it is your favourite - something you dig, something that makes you not just happy, but the happiest - the supreme feeling. And imagine the enquirer's (lets just call him Mr.Twister) surprise when I had multiple answers to what was clearly not a multiple choice question.

Now let me tell you something about Mr. Twister. He is razor-sharp, energetic and engaging. Can be somewhat aggressive at times, but has an amazing clarity of thought and an abundant capacity for dialogues. And oh, how can I forget, he is extremely clever with words.

So while Mr Twister questioned and cross-questioned and grilled and interrogated and probed me, my mind blanked out. Tried deliberating again and again. No answer to Mr.Twister's satisfaction. I felt dumb. Big time! I felt run over too, but that's secondary. The problem was I couldnt come up with ONE answer. How could I not! That kept me occupied long after our conversation had ended.

There is absolutely no problem in NOT having favourites, but I was kinda stumped as to why I could not answer the absence of one, especially in the perfume world which I know considerably well. I am aware of the ones that I have used. And I have already set my mind on which ones to buy next. In my humble opinion, that would have sufficed; but it clearly looks like you need to aggregate your thoughts (a la data warehousing), make a list of 'likes' in descending order and store it in some part of the brain ready in anticipation of a question like this!

Then realization struck (later of course). I have never bought the same perfume twice! Buying something over and over would automatically classify it as a favourite and I have never done it before. It is not because I hadnt liked the fragrances. It was simply because I like experimenting. My philosophy is simple - I hunt, I like, I buy. But never ever the same perfume twice. Why waste money on something that you've already tried. As simple as that. Which translates into - all the 20-25 brands that I have used till date are either all winners or there is none.

Well, the perfume talks ended amicably and are now behind us. And I am looking forward to spending more time with Mr. Twister and his tad-acerbic-tad-comic wit in the near future. Of all the exciting outcomes that will happen because of it, I am sure of one - it will make me start thinking about things that I have never thought needed thinking!

Now, is that good or bad?

Dadi - In memoriam

My dearest Dadi,

Came to know a little while ago that you are no more today. Am writing this post amidst uncontrollable sobs, because I so so so wanted to meet you again sometime, somewhere , hold your hand, hug you tight, make your snow white hair and tie the black ribbon around it, hold your hand and take you out for a walk, cook spicy food for you, feed you with my own hands, rub oil on your back and massage it well, cut your toe-nails, make your paan for you, introduce my husband (I know you called him 'Bappu'), watch you tell us the same story that you have been telling us since childhood ('ek hota raja, tyane khalla bhaja'), take good care of you and be there for you when you need anything, before this happened.

I dont remember the last time we met (must've been at Dada's wedding), but I distinctly remember the last time we spoke 5 weeks ago and your voice was no longer a slur, it had considerably improved. I didnt tell you then, but I had cried after we spoke, because hearing your voice after so long was very emotional for me and I wanted to meet you in person, especially after the last few years that have been so hard on you.

I know I too am a culprit because I havent done anything to improve your conditions and 'I am too far off' is a downright pathetic excuse for that. Realizing now that good intention without any real deed is of no use. For all we know, we may have had the fortune of having you around for more time, if I had been able to do something. I am sincerely very very sorry, Dadi. If possible, please forgive me for my inaction.

Strikes me now that there is no use crying on spilt milk and what remains with me are your precious untangible memories and an unforgettable bond of love. Wanted to let you know that you have been my most favourite grand parent and you will always be alive in my memory as that. I love you very much Dadi, and will miss you terribly. Terribly. Want to meet you again in my after life. Praying for your soul to rest in peace.

Amen.

Your grand daughter,
Sandhya

Confessions of a blessed Immobile

Three months on, I am better now.
I have come a long way. An unseemingly arduous, uphill way from the instant I slipped off treacherous ice on New Year's eve.

That instant is emblazoned in my memory. Or rather incinerated. And will remain singed forever. I must have re-lived it, replayed it and analyzed it innumerable times in the last 3 months. Picking my brains as to what could I have done to avoid it.

31 Dec. 2107 hrs. It was snowing outside. In fact, it had snowed almost daily since the past 2-3 weeks. All lanes, bylanes, walk ways around us were hard black ice. Inside the house, we were dolled up and ready to leave for the party venue. Our cab arrived. I stepped out while my husband was locking the house. Then began a 50-steps deceptive walk towards the cab.

I must admit, I have never been a very care-free walker on hard ice. Walking on snow is a cake walk, but treading on slippery ice scares the living daylights out of me. Perhaps a precursor of what was to come. There have been days where I have made almost military-esque strategies to cross sloped iced terrain to reach the bus stop.

I started taking measured steps towards the place where the cab usually arrives. In my intense concentration to keep my gravitational pull vertical on ice, I had failed to notice that the cab had slowly moved forward from the usual place and was no longer in the direction that I was progressing in . My husband, however, took notice of this and headed off in the actual direction of the cab. He even called out to me to correct my direction, but I was a tad too preoccupied.

My husband reached the cab first and was requesting the driver to reverse it in my direction (so that I could stop where I was and not take one step more). I must have been about 20 steps away from them when the unthinkable happened. I lost my balance and slipped a wee bit. Jerked off reflexively ever-so-slightly and I thought I had recovered. But it was exactly the opposite. The start of a head long tumble. Frantically tried to hold onto anything that I could find on the nearby car's bumper, but in vain.

One split second and one instantaneous scream later, I lay sprawled on ice, my handbag flung 10 feet away, its contents scattered. But that was not it. I immediately raised my leggings to check whether my foot was in order, when the most awful sight met me. Something the size of a huge lemon was jutting out from a very foreign place on my left leg and my ankle was nowhere to be seen. That was it. Sanity left me and I was shrieking uncontrollably or rather, hysterically. In fact, I could have sworn that voice wasnt mine. Trauma does strange things to people.

Well, we ended up taking the cab to the Accidents & Emergency unit in party outfits and I celebrated the start of the new year taking generous breaths of gas anesthetic, while Dr. Martin and his 2 assistants set my ankle right and draped a temporary Plaster of Paris cast over my leg. I had dislocated my ankle and had broken it in 3 places. My life, as I knew it, had abruptly ended.

Well, 1 plate, 9 screws, 8 nights in hospital, 100+ painkillers and morphine doses, 5 plaster casts and 3 months later, I can proclaim that I am now at peace with myself. No longer do the questions 'why me?', 'why again?', 'why so terribly'?, 'why now'? bother me anymore. In fact, I consider myself blessed to have broken only an ankle because I have seen much worse injuries and broken limbs in my hospital ward - broken hips, broken shoulders, broken knees - you name it and there were matching patients. Interestingly, one of my colleagues broke only his pinky due to a slip on ice. Now that's what I call freakin' lucky!

As I have realized, temporary immobility has its own advantages. You get treated like royalty. Well, if not exactly that, then, at least like a local baron. You get everything on a platter. Tied with a pretty pink bow, if you like. Hot super-healthy food without the customary chopping, grating, sauteeing, toiling in the kitchen, a warm finger bowl after meals accompanied by a dry towel to complete the 5-star experience. No household chores like cleaning up the house, doing the dishes or even laundry. It gets done automatically. Or if you are superlatively fortunate like me, then your significant other pampers you to no end. I think he is a sure candidate for sainthood!

You dont have to drag yourself out of bed every Monday morning to earn a living or fight the natural elements on the way to work. You dont have to spend any money on flowers; they come walking with your friends week after week. Friends suddenly turn into angels with glowing white fairy outfits and matching halos and voila, you have nutritious home-made food at your service, without as much as lifting a finger.

You have all the time in the world to watch the pristine white clouds go by or see new leaves sprouting on trees or even feel your fingernails grow. You can watch all the movies you had been waiting to watch, you can devour books faster than a bookworm, you can see all the daytime television that you never had a chance to see and what more, you can even devote as much time as you had always fancied for mindless addictive games like Farmville or Cafeworld. You can spend the entire day talking with your friends, catching up with the latest gossip or be online for practically the entire day on social networking sites. There you go! So much to do and so little time.

Well, did I mention that I am partially weight-bearing now?
Sigh, why do all good things have to come to an end!

The West Wing - A review

The West Wing - ah! To think that I had almost given up watching this much recommended TV series after the first 5 mins seems like a load of drivel now. I have seen the entire Season-1 now and my reaction is - I am wild about it!. It is fast paced, it is superlatively exciting and it sure is immensely watchable even if you, like I, do not have as much as a fleeting interest in politics. Below is an attempt to touch upon the main characters of the drama, while summarizing it ever-so-briefly.

The series is about the White House senior staff who work out of the West Wing led by the U.S. President Josiah (Jed) Bartlet. It depicts the frenzied day-to-day ongoings involved in running the administration of the largest super power in the world, while presenting a closer view of their personal lives, their working solutions to issues large and small, their joie de vivre, their personal sacrifices, camaraderie and of course, their political persona and their exaltation to serve at the pleasure of the President.

Though most of the main characters are impossibly smart, ultra witty, walking-talking encyclopedias who can quote the entire U.S. Constitution, its clauses, or even its Amendments verbatim if required, they do understand the moral rights from the moral wrongs and you can not but feel for them, episode after episode, after watching their trials and tribulations to run the country as efficiently and humanely as possible in spite of the real national and international pressures heaped on them.

Leo McGarry (John Spencer) is the White House Chief of Staff. A mature, dependable, no-nonsense ex-military man, he is an uncannily astute and a seasoned politician who runs the show in a firm, but friendly manner and can beat the crap out of anybody figuratively by his authoritative manner. Joshua Lyman (Bradley Whitford) is his young, witty and energetic deputy who has the kind of boyish charms and good looks that clearly make him my favourite of the lot. With a high regard for his debating and negotiating abilities, he is always the one to infuse some playfulness into a serious discussion. He is supported by his ultra efficient, but tangential secretary, Donna Moss.

Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) is the morose White House Communications Director who has an unmatched flair for all things literary. A good at heart Jew, rarely seen with a smile on his face, he can be arrogant, outspoken and snappy at times and is seldom sympathetic to his opponents. His deputy, the dapper Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is a well bred, high flying lawyer, who believes "oratory should raise your heart rate and should blow the doors and windows out off the place" (Oooh!). He too, like Toby, often composes speeches for the President, but is an idealist by nature which sometimes becomes the bone of contention between him and his more practical colleagues. Sam and Josh are close confidantes and often engage in witty banter or odd pranks on others.

Claudia Jean Cregg (Allison Janney), affectionately called C.J by all, is the frank, sharp and charming White House Press Secretary who plays her part of being the spokesperson of the White House for all news events to the hilt. She is constantly racing against time to keep ahead of the latest events and to break the all important news or provide details to the ever hungry media and in between this, she is fending off advances from a dashing senior press reporter, Danny Concannon.

You can not miss the very likeable, bright young black bloke, Charlie Young. He is the personal aide to the President who is initiated into his job by a strange set of events and goes on to become the object of affection of the President's youngest daughter, Zoey. Together they become an item and incur the wrath of white supremacists and get themselves and the President nearly killed for their inter-racial romance.

And last, but not the least, the First Couple themselves. President Jed Bartlet (much awarded Martin Sheen), a Nobel Peace prize winner, is a passionate and phenomenally erudite politician with a great sense of integrity. He likes quizzing his aides on general knowledge questions to the point of their exasperation but he sure does rise to the ocassion of state matters wherever required. Personally, I find him a tad too human for my taste or rather my idea of the President of the largest superpower. The First Lady, Dr. Abigail Bartlet (Stockard Channing) is a fierce advocate of equality for women and stands largely steadfastly behind her husband on most of the issues, but she somehow fails to impress me with her antics. Her role does not seem particularly etched out , she is mostly sullen and and her sing-song manner of dialogue delivery always manages to irk me.

So there! One smartly made series with crisp dialogues, an outstandingly convincing cast, a near-authentic glimpse of busy proceedings in the hallowed office and the various facets of the characters themselves. Thanks a bunch, P, for recommending this series. One heck of a package to resist!

Target next - Season 2.

The Assault of the thoughts

I am so excited about my new blog that I spent the entire last week thinking about and making up topics and titles in my head that could serve as future posts. Every new thought, every new feeling, every happenning, every dream was gift-wrapped and given a certain presentable avataar at the spur of the moment. All in my neatly blow-dried head.

It was a deluge - in the kitchen warming up porridge in the microwave, watching TV absent-mindedly, whilst waiting for my farmer alter ego to plough slowly on Farmville, while admiring the bright sunny cloudless sky through the window panes, while washing the dishes, while doing physio exercises, while sauteeing onions, while lying in bed at dawn with eyes wide open - the thoughts kept coming thick and fast.

My mind was often doing a 300 kmph but I seldom had a pen to hand or one in a pocket; which meant I had to shove these thoughts rapidly into my compartmentalized brain. Dreams here, Woes there, Fixations in another folder, Skirmishes could go in a sub-folder under Woes, and so on. And then, there is always the mother category - Randoms - which I have realized is also the hardest to remember.

Well, I am not someone who can boast of an elephantine memory for the mundane things of life. Now, I can recall names. I can recall faces of almost everybody I meet. And I can unmistakably tell whether any of my girl friends are wearing the same dress twice. (Ah, that part of my brain is uber developed). That should suffice for now. As for the rest, it does not hurt much to forget. I think He has configured my system RAM to hold a maximum of a 3-4 days worth of data of mundane things. Sometimes, it trips even after 2 days. So I will be surprised even if 10% of my last week's thoughts would get translated into acutal posts.

Fingers crossed!

Hark, I have arrived!

Okay, here am I - on a rainy, foggy Saturday afternoon, dishevelled, longing for the grey cloudy sky to clear up (hardly a setting for a bright new adventurous journey), with not more than a bowl of porridge in my tummy, wiggling my toes to recover from a stiff ankle post surgery, uninterested in the live IPL match going on 3 feet away, but with oodles of enthusiasm to create my blog and pen my first post, while my significant other is happily occupied in deciding which lowest fat pizza to order for his largely immobilized wife.

Well, what brought me up here? Interestingly, I have always had a high regard for my capacity to dabble in creative writing at will. And so did my friends. It went as far as writing beautifully rhyming poems, quick doggerels, clever emails or even lyrical invitations for parties. I had often toyed with the idea of having my own blog but, as is the case with us mortals, I was wary of the immense effort and dedication that it demands. And as my life trudged along, my commitment to voicing my thoughts on an open forum started dwindling.

However, lately, the universe had been conspiring to bring out this long awaited outcome described in the opening lines and which I consider a personal achievement, however tiny as it may seem to an observer. Since the last few weeks, my husband has been hammering the idea in my head to start writing reviews of the books and movies that I have been consuming at a furious pace. To add to that, my eldest sibling just kick-started his journey in the blog-world and another sibling questioned my lack of one. That nailed it. One sleep later, I was researching on free blogs and how to create one; the weather, the fracture or the hunger notwithstanding.

My first post is dedicated to my husband and my siblings, sin cera.
Thank you for putting me back in touch with my side I thought would never make a comeback. I promise to air my meandering thoughts on this and that and all things interesting, to the best of my ability.

Wedges, anyone?