Livinghigh was here at 10:50 AM / (9) Comments

So, what's new?

I'm upset. Am searching for a cute sad face, but quite halfheartedly. I probabaly shouldn't even blog about this, but I will. Because it's my blog. And because it doesn't matter that the majority of people who read it also know me in real life. I'm damn upset.

When I make plans, I like to keep them. Twice made, in a row. Twice broken, in a row. And it doesn't really help to hear excuses like wanting to stay home to see a movie, or Diwali shopping with cousins. I hate being ditched by my friends. Why'd you get me high on the plans in the first place, then?

Childish, perhaps. Self-centred, very likely. But I hate my high being punctured. I hate it most when it comes from people who know me the best. So I'm upset.



O, I found a nice picture.

Livinghigh was here at 8:44 PM / (6) Comments

Hey, the name's Art

Baked beans for breakfast at the artist's house. Memorable for two reasons:

1. I haven't had breakfast (official breakfast!) in ages!

2. I haven't had baked beans in eons!

So, thanks artist... though the coffee could have used a bit more sugar. ;-)

****



So let's talk about art... and my funny relationship with it. I can't understand much of it, but I like to think I appreciate it. I have a profound respect for artists, though I find their airs silly at times. Would it be art, if it was a bit more grounded in reality? Conversely, would it be real, if it were artistic?

Now there's a googly for you.

The funny thing is: there are people who are even less comfortable with the concept of art than I am. Some Sundays, when I visit my brother in a kurta, jeans and a coupla beads, he says I look all Colaba Causeway arty-farty, and I can't help but laugh at that idea. I had no idea who Jitesh Kalat was, till the artist and a colleague at work informed me. I still think the name Naina Chuddasamma Whatever sounds extraordinarily funny, and should be misspelled with an O instead of the U.

;-)

Yes, yes, I'm quite a cave man.

Livinghigh was here at 8:24 PM / (5) Comments

Chatterati

Chatting online is a strange situation. Being invisible is another strange option. Scores of people in a tiny chat window, it seems like a little chat room, and not all of them you want to talk to. Or, that's just anti-social me. That's where being invisible comes in. So that you can pick and choose... I mean, not that you don't like the people... it's just everybody and everyone has a time and a place... and a mood to be in.

And of course, there are the people who you just can't stand, but can't delete cuz that would make things obvious.

;-)

And of course, there are the people who you just can't remember from adam, but they're there staring out at ya from the chhotu screen.

So, that's when you try your luck, and say, hullo, who the hell are you....

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

John Doe

John Doe who?

John Doe Re Me Fa So La Ti Doe

;-)

Livinghigh was here at 1:59 PM / (9) Comments

Speeding trains and hotel towers

Returning home from one gathering last night and on the way to another. Train goes chug-a-lug-lug, and phone rings tring-tring. Hey Mum, how's you doing? Yea, I'm fine, just had dinner with some colleagues at work, amazing rabri, and now going to see a movie with brother. Crap movie, but brother, he drags me to see crap movies only. All in the life of me.

And that's when you see the tower again. I've passed that landmark a zillion times in my lifetime in Bombay. That used to be the place where I used to walk past to go home, once upon a time. The fancy hotel, the not-so-fancy chawls, bastion of Marathi pride: the newspapers call them, the woebegone mills of central Mumbai. Welcome home. And through all this, rises that single tower, shining lights, and you could imagine the people inside, in bed, reading, eating food, glittering crystal, rich people whom you wouldn't mind joining some day.

And whenever the train used to turn the bend and the tower used to come into view, I used to think... Not long now, am almost home, now there's just the walk down the station-road, and then past the tower, then up the hill to my home and bed. To bed.

And so I smiled last night, when the train chug-a-lugged past the tower, and sped on towards Churchgate.

Livinghigh was here at 11:15 PM / (5) Comments

Rattle rattle, shake shake

Black onyx. Songs of Sacrifice seeping through, from a corner. I'm not one of them who walks about the workplace late at night with a mirror in hand, but I'm quirky in my own way... I ingest cubes of sugar. Lots of them. One after the other. I'm a diabetic's nightmare. A sweet boy, they say.

Ok, so you saw that one coming. ;-)



Other silly things I do: sweep my room clean every night after coming back home, however late it may be. Try sleeping on the floor on a mattress and you'll soon find out that you want to do the same. Then there's me breaking into the bhangra, fingers pointed towards the sky and all, after the seven pm bulleting passes through. I also chatter. Endlessly. Prattle is the word.

But I've strongly resisted writing a 55 word story. I guess I'm just stubborn.

Livinghigh was here at 7:05 PM / (9) Comments

Happy, happy, happy birthday!

So the other night was time to sing Happy Bud-day to a friend. He had kebabs and expensive liquor. Yummy. He has a lovely flat. Yummier. Nice people, and I was happy. Beatific smiles and all. A couple of cute people, but I didn't even try flirting with them. Was kinda happy just passing stupid jokes and snide remarks with a stupid joke at the end. And getting drunk.

It was nice getting drunk.

But, of course, I closed my eyes, resting my head on the beanbag, and promptly fell asleep. The rest of the people probably thought I was a baby who shouldn't drink too much. I really don't care. I had fun. And I had a nap. Let me repeat: I had fun! Hehehe...

So they woke me up, after everyone else had left, and we bundled into a rick to go home. The party was fun and the booze was great.

Happy bud-day, X.

Livinghigh was here at 7:56 PM / (5) Comments

Hurricane Who?

So my life is pretty much a race against time now. It's about running away in the afternoon to get the byte. Running back to get the byte logged, ingested, package written, package edited, package cut, and a myriad of terms which I had no idea of before I joined TV land. Then there's the odd cup of coffee and the odd hour of bitching before I cut an ED/VI and byte for the next morning. The race downstairs to have dinner. The race back home to listen to Don Williams before I doze off to sleep. The race in the morning to get to the office to run off to get the byte.

So, why have I still not got rid of the extra two inches around my middle?

Most unfair!

Livinghigh was here at 4:03 PM / (4) Comments

Doodling



Winding stairs stifle screams. All of it seems like something out of a Grimm fairytale. But then, I always did like Grimm. Thought SnowWhite was a bitch. Liked the Witch. But hated red apples in general. And then of course, came Prince Charming. Grotesque old man chained like Prometheus. Wanting in brains, so decided to steal fire.

How dumb can you get?

He should have installed an elevator in the silly castle. Maybe that would have kept the vulture from his liver/ lover.

Livinghigh was here at 11:19 PM / (4) Comments

Shoshti on a Sunday



It's not the same. I sound like an ingrate saying this. That it's simply not the same thing, being a Bong expat in a city called Bombay, and celebrating Durga Pujo. I've read about Bollywood starlets saying the same thing in Bombay Times, and I've laughed at them, and here I am, saying the same thing.

Why do I feel like sighing and sniggering, when I see the Bong expats in joints like RK Mission and Bandra Park and Shivaji Park, clustered around a Durga murti? It strikes me as a cheap imitation of a Baghbaajaar or a College Square or a Maddox Square in Calcutta. I always knew I was a snob, but so much a Bengali chauvnist snob, I didn't guess.

This really shouldn't come as so much of a surprise... given that even last year, I was bitching about Durga Pujo not being the same. It's the thing all Bong expats do, perhaps. And feel strangely happy about it, too.

Livinghigh was here at 11:49 PM / (1) Comments

Cough, cough

Just an interruption to state that I have the cold, cough and fever once again. And that there's a new story on at Gabbles, called Blue.

The customary teaser goes:

It's a gay ball. Streamers. Balloons. Heart shaped ones at that. How tacky. Laugh. Drink like a fish. But you're burning up. So fast, and the image of the blue lens in your fingers comes back over and over in your mind. How did you manage that, you wonder. Somehow, you did. Somehow, you grasped that slippery blue half-orb in your artistic fingers and touched your eye. Somehow, you could see again, though it was through veils of water. Veils that kept on flooding your eye as you rushed out of the apartment, past the bus stop where the man who bit you stood earlier in the evening, and you rush into the cab.

Goodnight.

Livinghigh was here at 9:08 PM / (3) Comments

Interval

Navratri begins. Crowds of people dancing in the roads at night. The compound below my window plays songs. Terrible, because I can't contain the songs. I would normally like them, but I can't control them. And then they have ghastly ghazals and sermonising. Jai Jai Ram, somebody croaks down there. And I have to pay for all this shit, too. With a smile. I must smile and fork out Rs 120, and pretend that I love what the society wallahs are doing for God, and I believe in Jai Sita Ram. Whether or not I actually do, is another matter altogether, now.

Ho hum.

So I stayed at home all day. Slept like a log. I can't remember the last time I slept like this. Lay in bed all day, staring up at the celing, at the blue Dilliwallah curtains on my window, the sunlight peeking through the edges. Yawned and closed my eyes. Opened them again, and then turned to trace patterns on the wall with my fingers. Slept again. And now there's the comp. And the crappy bhajans outside the window. Will head off to sleep sometime soon. And tomorrow, the grind starts again at work. The twelve hour (and perhaps m0re) grind.

No blue curtains at work.

Livinghigh was here at 10:24 PM / (4) Comments

Came back home from a crappy date last night... again!

I've decided that I whine too much. Of course, it's not too much of a surprise to you, the ones who have been shouldering the incessant whining for some time now. (If you have been paying attention, that is....!)

There are other things that I do too much: look for people to end up happily ever after with. Bah! Humbug! I may turn out to be a Scrooge after all. O, wait, I promised not to whine so much, after all. I almost forgot.

I want to go to Goa. The other day, coming back past Marine Drive, this cameraperson I'm with remarks about how he spent 16 days in Goa, and of course I turn green with envy. I whine back then, how I keep cancelling plans to go to Goa. And Pune. Though I have people there who would put me up and take me to some of the best nightclubs in the city-town. City-town. Hehehehe. I tend to get derogatory at times That's the whining little fart in me, too.

I wish I could pout. I can't do that, though. Now, why on earth would I need to pout if I've just made up my mind not to whine so much?

*sticks lower lip out in attempted pout*