small town indian lady seeking rhinoplasty

so i happened to meet this small town lady. she was a neighbour at a friends place where i was bunking in between work stuff. one day in the afternoon when i happen to be home, she walks in hesistantly asking me if i could answer a few questions for her. so i said ok. so she says do you know any thing about plastic surgery in Bombay??

! - no other symbol could explain my reaction better. here was this seemingl simple rajasthani lady come from small town india, who stays at home all day with two little girls and has no friends to speak of - here was this sterotype doing something completely unstreotypical. she was asking me about 'rhinoplasty' and saying she read on the net that nowadays girls in delhi and in bombay are doing this a lot. i have to say i was impressed.

till of course she told me her reasons.

Her neice apparently has a 'bad' nose and isnt getting any proposals despite being qualified working independant etc.. so of course, why not just fix the problem. anything to get her married , money etc no problem. and why not ask the 'bombay girl' for advice? its amazing hwo she compltely missed the irony of it all.

Anyways it was awkward for me. on one hand i kept thinking i should be discouraging her from thinking about surgery and on the other i figured she had a right to know if she wanted to. education never hurt anyone. so i decided that its best to give her all the info so at least she knows the risk.

and then the situation turned a bit. uncomfortably so. she asked me tentaively in slightly hushed tones about breast surgery. now she kept sayins its for some other neice but err one could easily see how the information could be used for her own benefit. well by this time i was kind of expecting this so i just helped her out.. even sent her some links ( yeah she has an email id, she surfs google for info , chats on yahoo with her sisters and soon im sure she willhave a twitter account)
apparently her husband likes women who are well endowed. sighh..

cant help feeling a bit queasy though about the whole thing.

100 years of

one hundred years of darkness later
the sunlight dances on my toes

one hundred years of despair later
i am moving slightly to morning music

one hundred years of scrutiny
& i discover everything is going to be ok

one hundred years of battles later
i am finally home

new blog!

ok i started a new blog

its called http://bornurban.blogspot.com
its about being born and raised in and by the city

please check and let me know what you all think. i got nice
header art also from deviant and a world clock across five cities!
i am very pleased with that one :)

also would like to invite anyone who reads this to
share their own on the blog. if youve got something to write about your city please get in touch and ill put it up with credits.

all these people

all these people.
who shrunk me with their
holier than thou

who kicked me harder when
i was down who broke me choked me
raped me , turned me out
into the cold

all these people.
i watch them from a distance
their miserable tiny lives
growing smaller by the second
caught in time's stranglehold

tighter & tighter
sharper & sharper
cut bleed gasp burn
veins peircing through the flesh
screams for anyone someone...

but im not there.
im not there anymore. no more

my newest find

pile on.. it a free for all here

i am home again in borivali after weeks. the new house is lovely and living with unnati is real nice :) there's a lot of lounging around in the front room, talking and playing something or doing nothing just sprawling on sofas .. very relaxing. my dark circles have reduced :)

but i am home in borivali today .. greeted by hyper the dog. which was superb having a dog in the house again! went a little crazy playing with him and then was getting ready for television ( since i dont have one in the andheri house, sundays at home are Tv days ) ..

but of course all this niceness was interrupted by uninvited guests. a regular feature in my house since i was a kid. if it was sunday it meant someone is going to show up. so the cupboards are promptly stocked with snacks. and the house is cleaned up in anticipation and im sulking as usual cause i have some sort of univited guest phobia , especially uninvited guests who im supposed to recongise but never do and realy dont care about AT ALL. pretending to be all nice and interested just bores the hell out of me.

well anyways, these people are still here., and its been about 1.5 hours. i usually shut myself out and everyone thinks im a real snob probably cause i am. but this time these fellows started talking about how 'the christians in your area are really quite unbearable' in that typical snooty stupid 'very marathi' air of superiority. women and men like that i really hate. its an intense sort of hatred. people who pretend to be superior when they have absolutely nothing to show for it. god knows how my folks can even stand to talk to them or reason with them.

besides i don undersatnd this coming over uninvited funda. is this a generation thing? i never ever go anywhere without calling first. why do people think its 'okay' to drop in on people on a bloody sunday evening? the day for tv and conversation and reading of TIME magazine and sunday papers RUINED. that too by self righteous bigots. superb i say. simply superb.

B.L.O.T

basic love of things. See them here www.blot.in and here www.blottin.blogspot.com

Discovered them through a friend who recommended the music. Found Blot on facebook and now i have a brand new DVD sent to me by them.  which by the way is supercool. I highly recommend. Not that anyone reads my blog.

Also have a fantastic poster which will sit happily above my work station in new chutney office.

All this connecting with the world through the web makes me very happy.

Thank you internet for my life.

Thank you Avinash for the DVD. Music and the movies are great. I loved discovering the cities like that. Come to Bombay and perform sometime soon.

Back to life

once again .. the voices come calling
and i think what a time it was, what a life it was. how ive changed . from that to now.

i am lack
of imagination
of joy
of secret ideas
of resolve


how do i go back into that secret place,below the bridge in the muddy water
here i was free lurking in the corners watching them go about thier business
and me making copious notes of eyes darting this way and that and feet slipping , hands outstretched reaching out to the moon


dancing girl
singing girl
hidden in the shadows of my
dreams
how do i talk to her now
how do i awaken those eyes
that went to sleep
and forgot about me


when did i decide to come out and be them and mingle instead of staying indoors, watching the babies playing in the snow. teach me how to build dreams on this song
to be surprised by the words i find hiddin in their breath under the smog inside drains over puddles, between towers & bridges and bliss

the unspeaking trees of far away call my name
brown wet dirt lies in wait to gather below naked feet

book buying adventure & the call of kari

so i went to landmark to kill some time and the mission of the day became instantly clear as i saw the gothamesque book city rise up in front of me (somehow everytime i walk past the glossy foreign magazines and step into BOOKS, i feel like im plunging head first into the brightly lit but still overwhelming unknown - ( i love to adventurize everything)

so the mission was - find books i had read & loved but lost somehwere inside my head and discover at least one new writer.

today was my lucky day. after a slow leisurely walk down "literary fiction" i found old lovers - bluest eye and brave new world and newest crush "everything is illuminated" by jonathan safram foer with elijah wood showing off the sky in his spectacles on the cover. New York times called it a wild indelible first novel. so of course i put it in my little red riding hood red plastic basket and happily strolled along to the graphic novel section..

this is something i always do. its like a ritual at landmark. the graphic novels have to be seen, touched, fantasized about and then given up on after you see the exorbitant prices. Batman & robin in monochrome for 1000 bucks. some new japanese graphic novel for 900 bucks..

sigh.. but then. i saw kari. sitting between batman & some other much too expensive comic book , somewhere on the side... where nooone would notice her.
i like to think she found me.

there was of course just one copy. very romantic :)

Kari is a graphic novel by artist + writer Amruta Patil. inside the book on the first page left is a synopsis. i cant explain it any better than that so i am just going to reproduce a part of it here..

With Angel, Lazarus and the girls of crystal palace forming the chorus to her song, Kari explores the dark heart of smog city - loneliness, sewers, sleeper success, death and the memory of her absentee Other.

I took to kari instantly. I dont know how to write reviews and i dont intend to. Its a personal thing. or more truthfully a selfish thing. im not sharing the inexplicable connections and discoveries i made with anyone. i love it, is all im going to say.

incidently the book ( probably cause its a graphic novel ) smells ever so slightly of paint. Intoxicating me as much as the writing & the art itself.

read more about amruta patil - the writer here http://amrutapatil.blogspot.com

home

im back from home and im headed home.
just got back from a 4 day holiday in goa courtesy my company who generously took us all for a much needed end of year break. for everyone else it was vacation time
for me it was like going back home. Goa is special.

But a lot of things are different now. the 10 pm deadline for instance. of course anywhere else in india its super strict but goa alwyas had its own set of rules for things liek that. ever since scarlet happened though, its all gone. The freedom is finished. terribly sad. killing off the free spirit of goa isnt going to solve the scarlet and related issues. any idiot can see that.

But even without the 10 pm deadline, goa tourism isnt doing much to improve the overall goa experience. for example , its almsot impossible to find a doctor in the night except maybe at panjim. anjuna has only ONE 15 bed hospital mostly filled with drug OD cases. Directions & street lighting is abysmally poor. ive gotten lost on those crazy roads many times and at night believe me its bloody scary. Although bikes are cheap and great , to travel long distances with luggage means hiring a taxi, which turns out terribly expensive. a taxi to the airport from morjim ( north of anjuna) cost us about 1000 bucks. pretty ridiculous and no amount of bargaining works.

plus the locals are real pain. try going to a rave. the koli ladies selling chai and spreading mattresses all over the only sitting space may seem 'exotic and charming' to the foriegners but they are con artists, rude, mean and really painful to deal with. plus the chai SUCKS. you end up buying the crap they sell just cause you want to shut the hell up and let you rest your tired legs.

wow. this has become a rants post. i actually love goa. i end up tolerating all the above mentioned nonsense only because the beaches are incredible and the feeling of freedom is unmatched anywhere in india. exploring goa on a bike is the next best thing to lazing on a sun bed all day. in my explorations with friends ive managed to uncover some amazing places and things to do.


here's 5 of the best

1. Morning at a rave
there's nothing in the world like sunrise at a good party. thats all i can say about that :)


2. English breakfast at Munches - Anjuna, star co junction
Fantastic juices , great frankurters
its open 24 hours too.


3. Lazing on Morjim/ Ashwem beach - north of anjuna , after siolim
these are some of the most fantastic north goa beaches. untouched , clean
laidback and lovely. whooever goes there, if i find out that uve taken a boombox
blaring bollywood music and ordered for paneer tikka at the shack, im coming after you with a loaded rifle. apparently you can hire a boat here, go fishing and also watch the dolphins and the sea turtles - if you can wake up early morning that is.


4. Biking it
There's nothing as fun as hopping on one of those deo's and riding away whrever
the hell you feel like. provided its in the day of course. dont try this at night unless you dont mind getting lost or you knwo the ways pretty well. the roads are designed for these bikes and its super super fun. try going all the way to south goa and lunching at martin's


5. Nine Bar from 6pm or Loodas
nine bar for electronic music in just the right setting
- a cliff overlooking the beach, try this on a saturday or friday - the DJ might be better than the one i had to endure.. but it dosent matter cause the place itself is brilliant.

or Loodes/ Loodas for pyschedelic live rock - a band that played original music for
hours non stop


this super long post is done. for photos visit my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/trippyhippy07/

will keep adding more there

peer pressure

its a saturday evening. i havent been feeling too well ( i hope my mother dosent read this ) . but there's nothign to do except write this post.

things are changing. a friend has left town. another has left work. yet another writes about me ( http://plasticgunner.blogspot.com ) . one is 25 today and another got married last week.

its liek the world is turning another color. or there's some imperciptible shift in the order of things that i can only sense but cant put my finger on. it scares me a bit. i am wondering what abotu me? am i supposed to change too? in some way?

hwoever old you grow i guess you always wanna fit in soemhwere. if everynone 's life is changing mine should too. no matter how great it is right now.

or is it?

i wrote a half of a story

so i wrote half of of a short story. its not complete yet. but its my first real attempt i think. i always have a tough time finding an ending for the story so i leave them like that and never finish them. i hope this one will be different.

i hope this one will be a first.

i got one bad review though from the one person i showed it to. that made me a bit unsure. but then i decided its not for the world its for me , in typical rejected writer arrogance. hehe

i think this is one of those ' here world, this is how dull my life is ' post .bbut i promise you on the 34th line your world will change. everything will ve revelaed. the truth is out there. stay tuned yahoo and all that jazz.

the truth is i am incredibly bored. people who know me have heard this much too often. i thought about it pretty hard one day. all the synapses in my brain were buzzing around like bees on ecstasy. and then i discovered. I am the kind of person that needs to wake up and have an adventure every single day, mental , physical , emotional any flavour will do. When i dont i get depressed, annoyed , angry , irritable etc etc.

so now you know. it came out lot sooner than the 34th line, but hey thats a good thing. i felt i had to write down my big discovery so i dont lose it inside my head.

so now you know.

many days later..

here i am. many days later. in the new year.

i had a new year party last night. a sort of spontaneous ,unplanned house party.
lots of indulgences into the night i started the usual 'propounding of nonsense theories' usually associated with consumption of large doses of things your mother warned you to stay away from.

here's the latest 'nonsense theory'
yknow Y2k? well the whole world thought systems would breakdown
but in actual fact, unknowingly people broke down. and THAT'S how "motherfuckers gonna drop the pressure" became a hit song.

yeah yeah i know. moral of the story: if you cant be the life of a party try not to be the fool. i narrated this very dramatically to an audience hoping for me to do soemthing really stupid and end up becoming one of those great 'new year party silliness stories' ..but the joke fell kinda flat ..hmm i wonder why..

anyway it was nice. friends , laughter, actually LOTS of laughter at nothing at all and a warm cosy sleep afterward. ive slept all day today. indulging in the one thing i usually get very little of. i love sleeping int he afternoons. its a family tradition. all holidays we eat a great full meal and promptly make the right arrangements for a very long very relaxing siesta. my aunts, parents, cousins , me all stand guilty as charged. and how we love it.

oh and by the by, i went to bangkok in december. work + holiday. work days i hardlky saw the city but after that i did a lot of roaming around. a friend with the common love of walking aroudn cities went with me to chinatown and the shopping mall (yes, malls are the new parks, its the only place to walk anyway )

chinatown was mad. i have pictures of unidentified eating objects hanging from street stalls looking strange but delicious, and of a bizarre HUGE school bus with the most fantastic japanese illustrations..!! ok im just gonna put up the pics now




weird food.



more weird food!



bangkog city. reminded me of bombay all the time



patayya walking street!!!! the sex street with all the mad shows . totally overhwelming monstrosity of neon , ladyboys, weird animals and live huge seafood



the awesomely cool japanese school buses


everyone who reads have a great happy happy new year!!!
ciao now dahlings!