Let's talk about buses. Public transport buses, I mean. And more particularly, Mumbai's abundance of them, and Vasai's desperate shortage in that department. Much like the dabbawalas, Mumbai loves its BEST buses. The fare is cheap, the buses are usually on time and besides, they arrive at regular intervals. And they are also a very good way to beat the crowds in the local trains. Vasai has no public transport buses. Not any that I know of. I think I spied a few State-run buses that connect remote towns and villages to Vasai (which is a remote village in itself), but none of the BEST kind. Besides, most Vasaikars seem to have only one destination in mind : Vasai station. Which is why there are a few private operators that ply buses between the station and the residential areas, but the services they run aren't as dependable as those run by BEST. I mean, for one, these people operate purely for profit. That means, they'll wait till the buses are fully occupied before they consider making a move. Even if these buses claim to operate on some kind of schedule, these schedules are often flexible; the buses will not move till the driver is satisfied that he'll be able to collect enough fare to justify the trip.
Buses remind me : its been quite some time since I taveled in one. Earlier, travel by public transport was inevitable. I lived in one end of Mumbai, my workplace was in the other end. So that entailed travel by train as well as by bus. But ever since I moved to an office closer home, I have been ricking it up to work. And the trip back home is made by car, arranged by the company of course. So it was like a ride down memory lane for me as I boarded the bus this morning, on way way home from Borivli station. And I know this is going to be a little hard to believe, but people who know me well will tell you that such sort of behaviour is pretty typical of me : I happened to park myself on the disabled-persons seat at the front of the bus, which is close to the driver's seat. And as we approached the W.E. highway, out of sheer force of habit, I blurted out 'yahaan pe right lena'. The driver looked at me, bewildered. I almost died of embarassment. I had grown so used to giving directions to rickshaw drivers, that I had forgotten there was no need to do it in a bus.
And as I was trying to hide my embarassment by looking out of the window, pretending nothing had happened, I spied one of those ugly BMC trucks, the olive-green ones that they use to empty garbage cans and cart away rubbish to some dumping ground outside the city. There were a couple of BMC workers supervising the entire operation, and they had worn green surgical maks to protect them from the stench. And I remembered what a colleague from my previous workplace had told me : on our way to Churchgate station from work, we had come across a similar garbage-disposal operation. And she had told me that most of the BMC workers liked to drink hard liquor before any such work. The stench could become unbearable at times, and the liquor ensured that they were too intoxicated to notice. I guess that that would make it the only job where workers were encouraged to come to work all sozzled. Which, incidentally reminds me of something I had once read on a colleague's tee-shirt (it was one of those one-liners that the 'tantra' culture made popular) : I started working only when my employers threatened to fire me. hee hee.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The beyond of nowhere
I've just had my first taste of what life in Vasai is going to be like. I landed there yesterday, along with the packers and movers, who were carrying the last few bits of furniture from our Borivli home and a bit of my stuff as well. I was hoping to be greeted by some warm tea (I can't have my tea hot or cold, it has to be warm, just so), a warmer shower and nice, hot ghar ka khana. Its been a week since Grandma and Mom moved to Vasai and ever since, I have been living on a diet of sandwiches, burgers and maggi noodles. My tummy yearned for some normal dal-chawal. But I wasn't prepared for what I got instead.
Vasai was plunged in darkness. Actually, that would be misleading. Most of Vasai had electricity; it was our residential complex that was plunged in darkness. A few enquiries later, all was revealed. It seems this was a normal thing in Vasai. The matter, from what I gathered, is this : Vasai has a fair number of industries along with residential areas. Now the electricity-provider, that would be MSEB, charges more per unit for the electricity consumed by the industrial set-ups than what is charged for the electricity supplied to households. And since they earn more revenue by supplying electricity to the industries than they would if they had supplied an equal amount of electricity to the residential areas, coupled with the fact that they have rather limited resources to begin with, they do the obvious : they supply electricity to the industries, and cut off power in the residential areas. And power can be off for anything between 6-8 hrs per day. Another intersesting thing that I learned is that the power cuts are even more drastic during summer. Usage tends to be higher in the summer months in industruial as well as residential units. In order to ensure that the industries have a non-stop supply of electricity, the home-owners have to part with their fair share of it. Now I am not sure how much of this is fact and how much fiction. But knowing the ways of our crook Government, I am inclined to believe, than otherwise.
I had always known Vasai had electricity problems. But I had never known they were so severe. To add to my woes, Vasai falls in Thane district and is subject to the whims and fancies of the Thane Municipal Corporation. And considering the fact that Thane too has its fair share of electricity problems, it seems a foolish thing to expect the Corporation to be able to address our woes. Normally, I would have launched into a tirade against the administration, and further attacked the policies that govern the MSEB's distribution of power. But I know that such complaints wouldn't alter the situation any. Yet, I have to vent : it is sad, not to mention, disgusting, that any administrative body would choose to dish out such preferential treatment. I mean, I know the industries are important and stuff, yet isn't it a little too ugly to expect to serve one set of clientele at the expense of another. And besides, the MSEB isn't supposed to be modeled after an auction house, where the goods go to the highest bidder. They supply electricity, godammit, which I consider as a basic right (I know, I know, you can quaff about my shallow, materialistic existence..I suppose most of rural India faces even more severe electricity and infrastructure problems, but I am a kid after all and I reseve the right not to think of grandmotherly-concerns-of-the-world-at-large and giving precedence to the problems of others before my own..all that will happen in due course, I assume). Besides, it seems unfair that the citizens of Vasai have to face such problems when just 5 railway stations away, Borrivli experiences uninterrupted supply of electricity. I am sure that isn't due to any efficiency on the part of the BMC or Reliance (or Tata, as the case may be). It's the same kind of step-moptherly treatment, I suppose. Mumbai is important, Thane is not. I am no follower of Marx (infact I am a through-and-through capitalist at heart), but the preferential treatment hurts. What else can I say?
Vasai was plunged in darkness. Actually, that would be misleading. Most of Vasai had electricity; it was our residential complex that was plunged in darkness. A few enquiries later, all was revealed. It seems this was a normal thing in Vasai. The matter, from what I gathered, is this : Vasai has a fair number of industries along with residential areas. Now the electricity-provider, that would be MSEB, charges more per unit for the electricity consumed by the industrial set-ups than what is charged for the electricity supplied to households. And since they earn more revenue by supplying electricity to the industries than they would if they had supplied an equal amount of electricity to the residential areas, coupled with the fact that they have rather limited resources to begin with, they do the obvious : they supply electricity to the industries, and cut off power in the residential areas. And power can be off for anything between 6-8 hrs per day. Another intersesting thing that I learned is that the power cuts are even more drastic during summer. Usage tends to be higher in the summer months in industruial as well as residential units. In order to ensure that the industries have a non-stop supply of electricity, the home-owners have to part with their fair share of it. Now I am not sure how much of this is fact and how much fiction. But knowing the ways of our crook Government, I am inclined to believe, than otherwise.
I had always known Vasai had electricity problems. But I had never known they were so severe. To add to my woes, Vasai falls in Thane district and is subject to the whims and fancies of the Thane Municipal Corporation. And considering the fact that Thane too has its fair share of electricity problems, it seems a foolish thing to expect the Corporation to be able to address our woes. Normally, I would have launched into a tirade against the administration, and further attacked the policies that govern the MSEB's distribution of power. But I know that such complaints wouldn't alter the situation any. Yet, I have to vent : it is sad, not to mention, disgusting, that any administrative body would choose to dish out such preferential treatment. I mean, I know the industries are important and stuff, yet isn't it a little too ugly to expect to serve one set of clientele at the expense of another. And besides, the MSEB isn't supposed to be modeled after an auction house, where the goods go to the highest bidder. They supply electricity, godammit, which I consider as a basic right (I know, I know, you can quaff about my shallow, materialistic existence..I suppose most of rural India faces even more severe electricity and infrastructure problems, but I am a kid after all and I reseve the right not to think of grandmotherly-concerns-of-the-world-at-large and giving precedence to the problems of others before my own..all that will happen in due course, I assume). Besides, it seems unfair that the citizens of Vasai have to face such problems when just 5 railway stations away, Borrivli experiences uninterrupted supply of electricity. I am sure that isn't due to any efficiency on the part of the BMC or Reliance (or Tata, as the case may be). It's the same kind of step-moptherly treatment, I suppose. Mumbai is important, Thane is not. I am no follower of Marx (infact I am a through-and-through capitalist at heart), but the preferential treatment hurts. What else can I say?
Monday, March 19, 2007
Mind your language
I just realized I have a very weird habit of using '...... ' whenever I blog. The titles to all my previous posts have the '....' sign affixed at the end. Most of my posts too have a liberal sprinkling of '...'. I must clarify : I use that sign to denote continutity, but I realise that it's high time I stopped using such substitution, and stuck to proper grammar and punctutaion.
Grammar and punctuation remind me : I am ashamed of my poor language skills. I come from a family in which every member knows to read, write and speak atleast four Indian languages, and one foreign language, fluently. For example, Mom speaks atleast 9 Indian languages extremely well. She can also read and write well in most. In addition, she has learnt German, a bit of Dutch ('cos a couple of her pen-friends are from the Netherlands) and is currently studying Japanese. Dad is fluent in about 4-5 Indian languages (but it's more the South Indian stuff..like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and stuff...so that don't really impress me much). His Hindi sucks big time, though. And his English ususally has a heavy dosage of Shakespearan language (that's another problem I encounter with South-Indians. When they speak English, they insist on using medieval English, with long, complicated words that somehow got lost when humanity made its transition to the 2oth century). But even he is linguistically-gifted, in the sense that he can learn new languages really well. My brother speaks English and Hindi reasonably well, and I believe he has also learnt a smattering of Arabic. Both my aunts speak really good Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, and one of them speaks both French and German extremely well. And ofcourse they all speak Tamil.
And in this family of linguistically-gifted people was born a cute little girl whose extremely poor track perormance in the languages department would leave the family wondering forever. I feel like a misfit; I guess the language genes underwent massive mutation in my body. I am capable of communicating well only in one language, and that would be English. My Hindi sucks big time, and ironically squeaks of a South-Indian accent, despite the fact that I speak no South Indian language and have never lived in the South for any extended period of time. (For example, if I eat any thing that I find pungent, I end up saying 'Teeka' even though I mean 'theekha'..Mom has tried correcting me innumerable times, but I have a real problem with the 'H' sound in Hindi) Strange, no? My Marathi is even worse. I did learn some of it at school, but that was pure torture. Hell, I used to cry before my marathi exam papers, because I was so sure I would forget the language altogether halfway during the paper. It was so bad that I had to learn everything in the textbook by rote; I couldn't be expected to reproduce anything on my own. Thank god I don't have to study the language any more.
And dolt that I am, I actually opted for French during junior college. But I really didn't have too much choice. There was Hindi, Marathi and Gujju. And school had taught me a bitter lesson, no more Hindi and Marathi for me. Needless to say, my French sucked. I flunked most of my French exam papers. It's a miracle I got the 80 that I did in HSC. And now there's legalese, which is a whole different language altogether. The notes are in the English script alrite, but they could be Greek and Latin for all I care. I mean I don't understand a thing. It's as bad as Marthi and French, no..even worse. Something tells me I ain't gonna make a pretty sight in a court of law.
And My Tamil sucks too. Which can get to be a bit of a problem when I am required to converse with my pucca Tam-Bram relatives. Most are well-acquainted with my language problems and either switch to English or Hindi when they are around me. I prefer the English, because when we start conversing in Hindi, it can be pretty hilarious..what with both of us struggling with the pronunciation..we often end up saying one thing when we mean the other..chuckle. And ofcourse, I have done the wise thing and learnt the one sentence in Tamil that can get me out of the most sticky situations. Whenever I find myself in such situations, I simply say 'Sorry, I don't speak any Tamil. Do you speak any English, or Hindi?'. Which can be pretty ironic, because I deliver those lines in perfect Tamil. hee hee.
Grammar and punctuation remind me : I am ashamed of my poor language skills. I come from a family in which every member knows to read, write and speak atleast four Indian languages, and one foreign language, fluently. For example, Mom speaks atleast 9 Indian languages extremely well. She can also read and write well in most. In addition, she has learnt German, a bit of Dutch ('cos a couple of her pen-friends are from the Netherlands) and is currently studying Japanese. Dad is fluent in about 4-5 Indian languages (but it's more the South Indian stuff..like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and stuff...so that don't really impress me much). His Hindi sucks big time, though. And his English ususally has a heavy dosage of Shakespearan language (that's another problem I encounter with South-Indians. When they speak English, they insist on using medieval English, with long, complicated words that somehow got lost when humanity made its transition to the 2oth century). But even he is linguistically-gifted, in the sense that he can learn new languages really well. My brother speaks English and Hindi reasonably well, and I believe he has also learnt a smattering of Arabic. Both my aunts speak really good Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, and one of them speaks both French and German extremely well. And ofcourse they all speak Tamil.
And in this family of linguistically-gifted people was born a cute little girl whose extremely poor track perormance in the languages department would leave the family wondering forever. I feel like a misfit; I guess the language genes underwent massive mutation in my body. I am capable of communicating well only in one language, and that would be English. My Hindi sucks big time, and ironically squeaks of a South-Indian accent, despite the fact that I speak no South Indian language and have never lived in the South for any extended period of time. (For example, if I eat any thing that I find pungent, I end up saying 'Teeka' even though I mean 'theekha'..Mom has tried correcting me innumerable times, but I have a real problem with the 'H' sound in Hindi) Strange, no? My Marathi is even worse. I did learn some of it at school, but that was pure torture. Hell, I used to cry before my marathi exam papers, because I was so sure I would forget the language altogether halfway during the paper. It was so bad that I had to learn everything in the textbook by rote; I couldn't be expected to reproduce anything on my own. Thank god I don't have to study the language any more.
And dolt that I am, I actually opted for French during junior college. But I really didn't have too much choice. There was Hindi, Marathi and Gujju. And school had taught me a bitter lesson, no more Hindi and Marathi for me. Needless to say, my French sucked. I flunked most of my French exam papers. It's a miracle I got the 80 that I did in HSC. And now there's legalese, which is a whole different language altogether. The notes are in the English script alrite, but they could be Greek and Latin for all I care. I mean I don't understand a thing. It's as bad as Marthi and French, no..even worse. Something tells me I ain't gonna make a pretty sight in a court of law.
And My Tamil sucks too. Which can get to be a bit of a problem when I am required to converse with my pucca Tam-Bram relatives. Most are well-acquainted with my language problems and either switch to English or Hindi when they are around me. I prefer the English, because when we start conversing in Hindi, it can be pretty hilarious..what with both of us struggling with the pronunciation..we often end up saying one thing when we mean the other..chuckle. And ofcourse, I have done the wise thing and learnt the one sentence in Tamil that can get me out of the most sticky situations. Whenever I find myself in such situations, I simply say 'Sorry, I don't speak any Tamil. Do you speak any English, or Hindi?'. Which can be pretty ironic, because I deliver those lines in perfect Tamil. hee hee.
Hate Blogger? Join the club..
I used to blog on blogspot. And then google went ahead and upgraded some features, which meant I had to use their new Blogger homepage to access my blog. And I HATE the new version of blogger. I am not too sure of the new, improved features thay they claim to have added; I blog because I enjoy writing and these new features really don't hold too much interest for me. But I must say that this new version of blogger is a major pain in the ass. First, there were posting issues : after the first few posts, the damn thing wouldn't let me add new posts. That happened for about a week. But now its all sorted out, magically. And now there are sign-in problems. The blogger homepage is sloooooowww. It takes like forever for me to sign in (and I know for a fact that that's not due to pc troubles. Other websites work just fine). I fail to understand why they went ahead and ruined a perfectly good blogsite. And yet I keep coming back..ever faithful to my fan base.
So despite the fact that I'm having a real hard time putting up these posts, rest assured that you shall have your daily fix of Consfuseius.
I wonder if they'll ban my blog for speaking my mind out here. But then I ain't doing law for nothing. Hahaha (evil laugh).
So despite the fact that I'm having a real hard time putting up these posts, rest assured that you shall have your daily fix of Consfuseius.
I wonder if they'll ban my blog for speaking my mind out here. But then I ain't doing law for nothing. Hahaha (evil laugh).
About a man..and his blog..
I am sure most have missed the subtle reference to the Nirvana song, but never mind..
For all those intelligent and discerning readers who do follow my blog on a regular basis, here's a link to the work of one of my favouritest bloggers of all time (also one of my favouritest people on the planet). He stopped posting long back, but his work, whatever little there is of it, is stuff that I simply enjoy..
www.blogusinterruptus.blogspot.com
Enjoy!
For all those intelligent and discerning readers who do follow my blog on a regular basis, here's a link to the work of one of my favouritest bloggers of all time (also one of my favouritest people on the planet). He stopped posting long back, but his work, whatever little there is of it, is stuff that I simply enjoy..
www.blogusinterruptus.blogspot.com
Enjoy!
Sunday, March 18, 2007
My LOL moment...
Last Sunday, at about this time, I was in Vasai, setting up camp there and preparing for the arrival of my mom and grandma the following day. For all those who haven't spoken to me in the last one week (and I'd like to know why..hmph..) here's a little recap..the home at Borivli is getting renovated..which will take about a month or so..and therefore, we have temporarily shifted base to our other home at Vasai. Now this place in Vasai has been lying uninhabited for the past year, ever since we purchased it. And consequently, I knew very little about the area. I got my chance to explore around dinner-time on Sunday. I had to eat, and the kitchen at home wasn't functional back then. So I left home at 8.30 pm and started hunting for a place where I could get decent dinner. And what a hunt it was! Vasai has no freaking places to eat! See, at Borivli, one can always be assured of a constant supply of food. One simply cannot starve there. But Vasai, that was a whole different story altogether. I looked, and looked, and did more walking around on that one evening than I would have done in the course of an entire month, normally. I came across quite a few shady joints and it was beginning to look like it would be death-by-starvation for me out there (though the fat reserves in my body would have ensured I died a slower death). Finally, I did the wise thing. I asked a couple of women passers-by if they could recommend a decent dining joint. And they did. Which is how I came across Hotel DreamLand.
Hotel DreamLand, situated a little off the main road, is a 'family resturant and bar'. Very ironical, I thought, considering I neither drink, nor was I with family. And so I sauntered in, my iRiver faithfully blasting music into my ears, for my first gastronomical experience at Vasai. I mistakenly wandered into the bar area at first, and felt pretty much like the rabbit let into the lion's cave, as a dozen or so heads snapped up to look at me. All men, in varying degrees of drunken-ness, wondering, no doubt, what I was doing there. Given my strong 'women's lib'-ish tendencies, I thought, at first, of boldly walking in, calling for a beer and displaying my 'who-needs-guys' badge, but 20 years of Brahmin conditioning ensured that I would never touch a beer bottle, and my innate 'women-ness' ensured my wariness of strangers in a strange land. And so, I beat a hasty retreat and this time, with relief, walked into the proper dining area.
The first table was occupied by this rather furtive-looking couple. My mind immediately went into over-drive. Hmm..looks like love on the sly, my mind whispered, probably a secret date, away from the prying eyes of parents. I am ashamed to confess that I thought it would be quite entertaining if one set of parents walked in (on a romantic date themselves, perhaps? or with secret boyfriends/girlfriends of their own?? hahaha..disgusting I know, but you know what they say about idle minds and devils) and caught the couple making out or something. The showdown that would inevitably ensue, would be good amusement while dinner happened, I thought. My eyes wandered to the second table, the occupants of which was this extremely call-centre type couple. See, that's the thing about working for call-centres. You can spot your kind from a mile away. The guy had T-shirt on with the name of some weird metallic/rock group printed in loud and garish style, and shorts. Unruly, long hair. Unshaven. Unmistakeably pav. The girl looked okie-dokie. I didn't expect much entertainment from this couple. Unless the guy decided to do something weird. Like waltzing to the 'kuch toh hua hai' that was playing on the restaurant's music system (I wouldn't have been surprised..pavs will waltz to anything. I, and a lot other non-pavs have come to the silent agreement that most pavs equate dancing with waltzing..and jiving..there's little else that they do on the dance floor..every song can either be waltzed to or jived to..if neither works, there's always is good ol' salsa, which most equate with shaking their bodies in slow, rythmic movements..like they are having a slow-motion attack of fits..). I know, I know..that might have made me sound a little racist, but really I have nothing against pavs. Quite a few of them are real good buddies, and past record shows that I have a history of falling for pavs more than any other class/community of people. But the fact remains that most pavs are into waltz and jive..not a bad thing, but tedious. You can send me hate mail later, if you wish.
Couple three, who occupied the table immediately next to mine, looked like a newly-married couple. Definitely an arranged marriage, I thought. Probably one of those after-marriage dinners when you get to know your partner, and realize that you have nothing in common. And so you decide to have a child or two. A kid would mean you have something in common, right? (I know, I know, this makes me look like an anti-arranged-marriage fanatic of some kind, which I am, btw..no offence to all those who've hitched their matrimonial tents on tried and tested grounds..but I am strongly intimidated by this whole 'arranged-marriage' scene and no matter how much someone tries to convince me that it isn't as sad as it was back in the ol' days, my revulsion remains). I am expecting hate mail on this point as well. Back to couple three. Husband was having beer, wife was looking on disinterestedly. They both looked a little bored. The wife looked a little lost in her thoughts. Probably wondering why she didn't run off with her lover the night before the marriage. But that's just my evil mind at work again. I wondered what fun element the couple could afford me. Unless the wife whisked away the whisky/beer/strange-looking-liquid away from the husband's hand and started lecturing him about the virtues of being a teetotaller (did I get the spelling right?) or better still, glugged it down herself and demanded some more, the fun element looked zilch. As an aside, when a little later, the husband left the room for a smoke break (the only reason I knew it was a 'smoke break' was bcos I spied him outside, lighting up), the wife whipped out her cell-phone and had this rather short, hurried conversation with someone. I allow people their privacy, so I did not eavesdrop, but my mind went into overdrive again. The 'secret lover' suspicion was confirmed. Unless she happened to be calling up her Mom to ask if there were any home remedies she could try to cure her husband of the persistent snoring.
Couple four was just two men, so that didn't really make tham a couple, unless they happened to be gay. One of them kept staring at me all through dinner. No doubt forming unsavoury comments about me, the way I was doing about the other patrons of that fine restaurant..but I am a bit of a hyprocrite. So I didn't enjoy the attention I was getting from those quarters.
I am a very slow eater. Anyone who's ever had the pleasuring of eating out with me will tell you that. So I had ample time to make these above observations. Nothing interesting was happening, so I wondered if I should just turn to my iRiver again, when entered this gregarious bunch of college kids. Three girls, four boys. I wondered if one of the girls was encouraging a threesome. But you know, these kind of huge numbers and odd pairings happen only when you are in college. Seldom do office-going people hang about in such large numbers, unless there's a team outing or so, and they looked too 'lukka' to be gainfully employed in a bpo unit. So college students they must have been. I would have dismissed the whole crowd without much notice if it hadn't been for the presence of a very good-looking young man in that crowd. Now I am a single chick and enjoy my 'boy-watch'. Fact is, there are very few men who I'd find interesting enough to go around with. And so due to this lack of 'good men', I have resigned myself to eyeing the cuter ones. And this guy was cute. Not someone I would have noticed normally, but in a wilderness like Vasai, he was prominently noticeable. The state of affairs became clear enough. It was evident that there were two couples in that crowd; the others were just 'lukkas'. And cutie was part of one couple. The chick he was evidently with, was this nice-looking girl, and I thought he'd done rather well for himself. But she looked a little uncomfortable with the cutlery. I thought it'd be great fun if she happened to jab the fork into her nostril or something...cutie would no doubt immediately dump the chick-with-the disgusting-table-manners and come to me, Ms. Manners herself. Chuckle. Gawd, talk of despos! But no such incident happened. Dinner proceeded smoothly, and the chick managed to eat most of her dinner without any accident.
Soon enough, dinner ended for me as well. I paid the bill and left Hotel DreamLand. And thus ended my very memorable dinner at Vasai. Btw, for all those who stay in Vasai, or find themselves in that vicinity, here's a rating for DreamLand Hotel, just in case you decide to pop in there for a quick bite :
Location : Sux, middle of nowhere
Food : So-so
Ambience : Huh?
Service : Huh?, again
Entertainment : Mind-blowing
Hotel DreamLand, situated a little off the main road, is a 'family resturant and bar'. Very ironical, I thought, considering I neither drink, nor was I with family. And so I sauntered in, my iRiver faithfully blasting music into my ears, for my first gastronomical experience at Vasai. I mistakenly wandered into the bar area at first, and felt pretty much like the rabbit let into the lion's cave, as a dozen or so heads snapped up to look at me. All men, in varying degrees of drunken-ness, wondering, no doubt, what I was doing there. Given my strong 'women's lib'-ish tendencies, I thought, at first, of boldly walking in, calling for a beer and displaying my 'who-needs-guys' badge, but 20 years of Brahmin conditioning ensured that I would never touch a beer bottle, and my innate 'women-ness' ensured my wariness of strangers in a strange land. And so, I beat a hasty retreat and this time, with relief, walked into the proper dining area.
The first table was occupied by this rather furtive-looking couple. My mind immediately went into over-drive. Hmm..looks like love on the sly, my mind whispered, probably a secret date, away from the prying eyes of parents. I am ashamed to confess that I thought it would be quite entertaining if one set of parents walked in (on a romantic date themselves, perhaps? or with secret boyfriends/girlfriends of their own?? hahaha..disgusting I know, but you know what they say about idle minds and devils) and caught the couple making out or something. The showdown that would inevitably ensue, would be good amusement while dinner happened, I thought. My eyes wandered to the second table, the occupants of which was this extremely call-centre type couple. See, that's the thing about working for call-centres. You can spot your kind from a mile away. The guy had T-shirt on with the name of some weird metallic/rock group printed in loud and garish style, and shorts. Unruly, long hair. Unshaven. Unmistakeably pav. The girl looked okie-dokie. I didn't expect much entertainment from this couple. Unless the guy decided to do something weird. Like waltzing to the 'kuch toh hua hai' that was playing on the restaurant's music system (I wouldn't have been surprised..pavs will waltz to anything. I, and a lot other non-pavs have come to the silent agreement that most pavs equate dancing with waltzing..and jiving..there's little else that they do on the dance floor..every song can either be waltzed to or jived to..if neither works, there's always is good ol' salsa, which most equate with shaking their bodies in slow, rythmic movements..like they are having a slow-motion attack of fits..). I know, I know..that might have made me sound a little racist, but really I have nothing against pavs. Quite a few of them are real good buddies, and past record shows that I have a history of falling for pavs more than any other class/community of people. But the fact remains that most pavs are into waltz and jive..not a bad thing, but tedious. You can send me hate mail later, if you wish.
Couple three, who occupied the table immediately next to mine, looked like a newly-married couple. Definitely an arranged marriage, I thought. Probably one of those after-marriage dinners when you get to know your partner, and realize that you have nothing in common. And so you decide to have a child or two. A kid would mean you have something in common, right? (I know, I know, this makes me look like an anti-arranged-marriage fanatic of some kind, which I am, btw..no offence to all those who've hitched their matrimonial tents on tried and tested grounds..but I am strongly intimidated by this whole 'arranged-marriage' scene and no matter how much someone tries to convince me that it isn't as sad as it was back in the ol' days, my revulsion remains). I am expecting hate mail on this point as well. Back to couple three. Husband was having beer, wife was looking on disinterestedly. They both looked a little bored. The wife looked a little lost in her thoughts. Probably wondering why she didn't run off with her lover the night before the marriage. But that's just my evil mind at work again. I wondered what fun element the couple could afford me. Unless the wife whisked away the whisky/beer/strange-looking-liquid away from the husband's hand and started lecturing him about the virtues of being a teetotaller (did I get the spelling right?) or better still, glugged it down herself and demanded some more, the fun element looked zilch. As an aside, when a little later, the husband left the room for a smoke break (the only reason I knew it was a 'smoke break' was bcos I spied him outside, lighting up), the wife whipped out her cell-phone and had this rather short, hurried conversation with someone. I allow people their privacy, so I did not eavesdrop, but my mind went into overdrive again. The 'secret lover' suspicion was confirmed. Unless she happened to be calling up her Mom to ask if there were any home remedies she could try to cure her husband of the persistent snoring.
Couple four was just two men, so that didn't really make tham a couple, unless they happened to be gay. One of them kept staring at me all through dinner. No doubt forming unsavoury comments about me, the way I was doing about the other patrons of that fine restaurant..but I am a bit of a hyprocrite. So I didn't enjoy the attention I was getting from those quarters.
I am a very slow eater. Anyone who's ever had the pleasuring of eating out with me will tell you that. So I had ample time to make these above observations. Nothing interesting was happening, so I wondered if I should just turn to my iRiver again, when entered this gregarious bunch of college kids. Three girls, four boys. I wondered if one of the girls was encouraging a threesome. But you know, these kind of huge numbers and odd pairings happen only when you are in college. Seldom do office-going people hang about in such large numbers, unless there's a team outing or so, and they looked too 'lukka' to be gainfully employed in a bpo unit. So college students they must have been. I would have dismissed the whole crowd without much notice if it hadn't been for the presence of a very good-looking young man in that crowd. Now I am a single chick and enjoy my 'boy-watch'. Fact is, there are very few men who I'd find interesting enough to go around with. And so due to this lack of 'good men', I have resigned myself to eyeing the cuter ones. And this guy was cute. Not someone I would have noticed normally, but in a wilderness like Vasai, he was prominently noticeable. The state of affairs became clear enough. It was evident that there were two couples in that crowd; the others were just 'lukkas'. And cutie was part of one couple. The chick he was evidently with, was this nice-looking girl, and I thought he'd done rather well for himself. But she looked a little uncomfortable with the cutlery. I thought it'd be great fun if she happened to jab the fork into her nostril or something...cutie would no doubt immediately dump the chick-with-the disgusting-table-manners and come to me, Ms. Manners herself. Chuckle. Gawd, talk of despos! But no such incident happened. Dinner proceeded smoothly, and the chick managed to eat most of her dinner without any accident.
Soon enough, dinner ended for me as well. I paid the bill and left Hotel DreamLand. And thus ended my very memorable dinner at Vasai. Btw, for all those who stay in Vasai, or find themselves in that vicinity, here's a rating for DreamLand Hotel, just in case you decide to pop in there for a quick bite :
Location : Sux, middle of nowhere
Food : So-so
Ambience : Huh?
Service : Huh?, again
Entertainment : Mind-blowing
Thursday, March 1, 2007
And now squiddly-diddly is a 'relationship wrecker'...
Those who know me and my activities well, will recall that squiddly-diddly was the avatar I had donned during my first blogging attempt. And those who've read the first post on this blog would further recall that squiddly has been laid to rest, to give way to the 'wiser' and more 'mature' Confuse-ius. But I feel neither wise nor mature now. Infact, I feel like Squiddly all over again. So I am sure you'll excuse me if I slip into squiddly-mode and muse on my personal life in public (which by the way, some people think I shouldn't do, because those people are my 'personal life', so to speak..hee hee). The matter is pretty simple really. Yours truly, yes me of all people, has been labeled a 'relationship wrecker'..not a bad thing, if you consider that Angelina Jolie was labeled thus once, and anything that puts me in the same league as that woman should be a matter of pride, I guess..but that's not the point, as usual.
I am having an extremely hard time believing that someone would actually think I could pose a threat to a relationship. I guess part of the reason is that the girlfriend has never met me and so does not realize how laughably baseless her fears are. I lack most of those feminine charms that endear menfolk to the fairer sex, and as a very good male friend puts it, I'm just like 'one of the guys'. But there's no-one to explain all of that to the girlfriend. And all this without even taking into consideration that her boyfriend isn't all that 'hot' himself (there's another cutie in office that I am currently eyeing, but who is to tell Ms. Girlfriend that???). So the state of affairs as I see it stand like this (and mind you, I use the term 'affairs' lightly) : a girlfriend who's upset because her guy has been a little too pal-ly with me in the recent past, and a bewildered me who is flattered on the one hand to be thought of as competition, while simultaneously wondering why anyone in their right mind would think of me as so. Last I heard, the boyfriend had been given an ultimatum : it was either me or the girlfriend.
The boyfriend asked me if I'd care to write a mail to the girlfriend, exlaining how things really were : I saw no point, she'd never believe me, and I simply didn't see the point in trying to justify my existence. I really don't see it as a matter in which I need to prove or dis-prove anything; I feel it's more a matter of trust between people, and that is something that only those two could sort out. So I chose to stay quiet.
I was on the phone with the boyfriend this morning and he was telling me how he thought it would no longer be possible for us to be friends. And so now, we aren't. It is as simple, or as complicated, as that.
PS : It is the 18th of March as I write this, 18 days since I keyed in the above lines. The friendship is intact (I don't know how the guy managed to 'patao' his girlfriend, but he did) and that means my Orkut 'friends' list is in no immediate danger of revision. So yay. And like Shakespeare chacha put it, 'All's well that ends well', non?
I am having an extremely hard time believing that someone would actually think I could pose a threat to a relationship. I guess part of the reason is that the girlfriend has never met me and so does not realize how laughably baseless her fears are. I lack most of those feminine charms that endear menfolk to the fairer sex, and as a very good male friend puts it, I'm just like 'one of the guys'. But there's no-one to explain all of that to the girlfriend. And all this without even taking into consideration that her boyfriend isn't all that 'hot' himself (there's another cutie in office that I am currently eyeing, but who is to tell Ms. Girlfriend that???). So the state of affairs as I see it stand like this (and mind you, I use the term 'affairs' lightly) : a girlfriend who's upset because her guy has been a little too pal-ly with me in the recent past, and a bewildered me who is flattered on the one hand to be thought of as competition, while simultaneously wondering why anyone in their right mind would think of me as so. Last I heard, the boyfriend had been given an ultimatum : it was either me or the girlfriend.
The boyfriend asked me if I'd care to write a mail to the girlfriend, exlaining how things really were : I saw no point, she'd never believe me, and I simply didn't see the point in trying to justify my existence. I really don't see it as a matter in which I need to prove or dis-prove anything; I feel it's more a matter of trust between people, and that is something that only those two could sort out. So I chose to stay quiet.
I was on the phone with the boyfriend this morning and he was telling me how he thought it would no longer be possible for us to be friends. And so now, we aren't. It is as simple, or as complicated, as that.
PS : It is the 18th of March as I write this, 18 days since I keyed in the above lines. The friendship is intact (I don't know how the guy managed to 'patao' his girlfriend, but he did) and that means my Orkut 'friends' list is in no immediate danger of revision. So yay. And like Shakespeare chacha put it, 'All's well that ends well', non?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)