ramblings from october 2007

Thursday, October 18, 2007

pachyderms plod
ok, here is the truth, i am bored out of my wits. i am not even inspired enough to write. which is a rather sorry state of affairs. apart from reading like my life depended on it, all i am doing is indulging in ennui.
i have finished both the second and the third of jonathan stroud's trilogy of nathaniel and bartimaeus (oh! a must, must read, though the first is really the best), and i am now reading bill bryson's 'notes from a big country' (scathing, sharp and tart and quite hilarious), mark gatiss's 'the devil in amber' (a bisexual criminal investigator combating satanic forces!) and john le carre's 'the honourable schoolboy' (both times that i attempted it, i fell asleep on the first page). yes... i read about three books at one time, unless the book is of a particularly gripping nature and has my eyeballs pinned.
the job hunt has finally begun... and it hasn't been all that dandy and promising yet. got two offers so far, both willing to pay the worth of about a nice paper cone of fresh peanuts. sigh. the search continues, and i have made up my mind to wait for something meaningful... but as ironic as it is... jobs that satisfy your soul and give you meaning, pay dirt... dumb jobs that require only your head and abject slavery and benumbing of all creative juices pay trillions.
the husband still gallivants on foreign shores stuffing his face with steaks and buying enough gizmos to give bond a run for his money and good looks both, though i must grudgingly admit that i do sort of miss having the bloke around (i mean the husband, not bond... on second thoughts bond's ok too... i mean pierce brosnan with his nice, pert rump).
before i sink into any more depravity... i better get out of here.

Posted by Kavita Arvind at 11:18 AM 4 comments
Wednesday, October 10, 2007


all about my mother
i am into my second cup of caffeine dose and the world already seems to be a better, shinier place. my mother is here, so i have been answering about 6 questions every second minute.
my god, the woman asks far too many questions.
she has not yet begun poking into every corner of the house and giving her opinion stridently about what she thinks is a better way of doing what i am most happy and snug doing the way i like it.
but whatever little that she has poked into has already met with her cynosure.but all said and done, it is nice to have another person around the house, while the husband gallivants in distant shores and goes about buying boys' toys.
i am beginning to notice with some alarm that as i grow older i become more and more like my mother. i am as anxious as she is about everything, i am also as careful with money as she is, i too have a penchant for bags (but large, pendulous, jhola type ones, or satchels, not the rexiny, boxy kind that she likes).
i like almost everything that she positively detests. when we go out to buy clothes, she picks up the most ugly, discordant and wierd salwaar kameez things, or diaphanous tops with prints as large as elephants, and tells me how nice they will look on me... she likes plastic bags and i gag at the sight of one. but we both like plastic dabbas and always contemplate buying some everytime we visit a store. she hates plants and i would be happiest if i lived in a glass house or a botanical garden. we also get on each other's nerves like diabetic pachyderms walking on crunchy paapads. appa usually tears his hair out in despair when we start bickering and arguing about something. so he flips and takes sides with my mother for seven seconds and then flips around and takes sides with me for five. my brother i suppose is the only person who can charm or tease her into most things.
she is a formidable woman and her dialogue delivery is straight up rajnikanth's league.it is rather strange but we are as different from one another as we are alike.

Posted by Kavita Arvind at 12:01 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, October 9, 2007


red letter day
for the seventh of october. it is here, the big 31 as M puts it and thanks to the boyslog it glided by most beautifully! after having woken up very early and downed several cups of bitter-sweet filter kaapi fuel, i spent the first part of the day paying a lot of attention to antony bourdain, who i have developed a certain weakness for.
the boyslog then picked me up and we went over to A's place for the most sumptuous spread of dal, baati, churma and hot green chutney! auntyji is the most divine cook and she exudes enough warmth and goodness to light atleast a 100 light bulbs all at once! apart from rooting for auntyji's most favorite singer on a telly show, there was of course the inevitable football that had to be watched!
now there is only one legal and correct way to eat dal baati. the baati needs to be smashed and crumbled, a dollop of ghee goes onto this, some chutney and then the dal, this has to be then squished and mashed into a nice blurry splosh, squeeze in some lemon and a smattering of thinly sliced onions... and here's the important thing... you just have to use your fingers... using spoons is a criminal offence. so we tucked into total and uninhibited greed and ate about enough to last us the entire winter. the boyslog mysteriously disappeared and came back with a cake.
S and A (gosh, too many A's, i will have to think of some other ingenuous nomenclature) joined us too and i turned several variant hues of red as the HBSong was sung. the boyslog out of great concern for my rapid aging, kindly tucked in only one candle.
we then picked our sagging and satiated stomachs carefully to U's home.
R and his interminable legs dropped in and so did K with her delightful retorts and quips.the boyslog and S again mysteriously disappeared and came back with a charming little candle-frangrances-pot-thingummy for me (how did they figure i was such a sucker for this stuff?).
the rest of the evening found us rolling about the floor in various stages of convulsions as we played 'taboo' (a word game, will you not be too imaginative dear readers?) and balderdash along with some nice chardonnay and chenin blanc. we chatted late into the night as the As regaled us with stories of growing up.a merry red letter day indeed!
i spent the most delightful day with some wonderful people. people who dont even know me all that much, some who dont know me at all, but who extended so much warmth and kindness. now kindness might sound like an archaic word, but i really do mean it here.
this is a good way to step over into the wrong side of thirties...big fat hugs all around!

Posted by Kavita Arvind at 11:25 AM 3 comments
Wednesday, October 3, 2007


balderdash!!
here's what you need to play this utterly hilarious game. atleast 4 people of dubious reasoning capacities, a dictionary, paper and pens.
now the whole lot of you who have tuned off the minute i said dictionary, hang on a minute, i didnt say the game needs intelligence quotient, ok it does, but just a tad.
you dont have to have an english literature degree tucked into your belt for this (might be fun if you did). a bottle of nice wine would also help the proper (mal)functioning of this game.

so here is how you play the game.

one person chooses a strange and incomprehensible word from the dictionary, like for instance, degladiate or leman or roogos (these words do exist beyond paranormal occurrences folks), and spells this word out for the others with all graciousness and also writes the real meaning of the word into his/her sheet (this is not to be revealed to the other hapless individuals playing the game). Now all the others write down in their sheets what they think the word could mean (all this is done in utter secrecy).
now the trick is to think of a meaning that sounds the most credible... say for instance, shammy sounds so much like it could mean 'of fraudulent nature'. now the papers are passed back to the person who chose the word in the first place. he/she shuffles them around, and reads all the meanings out while chuckling menacingly (the chuckle is essential, it is confusing and credible all at once). the rest of the imaginative intellectuals guess the correct meaning (which lies juggled and lost in the sheafs of paper).
if you did indeed guess the correct meaning you get 10 points! if you were gullible enough to guess the 'imagined' meaning that somebody else wrote, that person gets 5 points! if nobody guesses the correct meaning of the word, then the clever indivudual who chose the word to start with gets 50 points!!and that me dearies is BALDERDASH!

trust me on this one... the game will have you in convulsions of laughter!what? you dont own a dictionary?? which barbaric tribe do you belong to?? go get one, and also a bottle of nice wine!and yes, if you are wondering... leman is a lover or paramour and shammy is sheepskin leather.

Posted by Kavita Arvind at 10:06 AM 0 comments