the biting-your-teeth-hard phase.

Just three more days and I am going to be done with these haunting exams. I have been thinking about a lot of things to do after this and a dinner at the Couch tops it. Also want to try the Ferrero Rocher cake Shruti has been talking about. Cleaning up my room. Stock up the fridge. Shop for summer clothes and visit the New You shop. And a little beautifying. Aaah! I can't wait to get there.

Fourth year with all this.

Leaving PSBB was like a bad break-up. Took me months to get over it. And to top it, joining NLS was an awful follow on. Almost four years have passed and things have changed a lot with me. A lot. Some of it for my good and some for the bad. I have become very arrogant but the good part is I am not as stupid as I used to be. One more good thing is that I can now talk about anything with confidence and it wouldn't matter to me if I am making sense or not. Yeah of course, you can call that over-confidence. Nothing takes me over these days. Nothing scares me. Nothing threatens me. I have become ultra-flippant. Almost fifty papers and fifty presentations, five internships, countless exams, one lousy CGPA and a CV that would fetch me no job- all look petty now. I don't know if that is any good sign. I don't care about anything. I don't even know if I mean anything when I say I have an ambition. I mean I do have plans like I want to earn a bunch, travel a lot, pursue dance religiously, get my parents everything they sacrificed to bring me up and buy a beach house on the East Coast Road but I am not doing anything towards realizing them. One day I tell myself I must pursue higher studies in UK and the next day I want to join IIM. And a few days later, I want to take up bharathanatyam. I have even wanted to write the Civil Services and just be a house-wife on the very same day. I swing my ambitions like how Javagal Srinath used to bat! At least he did it with only his right hand, leaving his left hand to defend his skull. But I am afloat and have my hands full of things that don't match! Wait. Look at the way I am talking about my ambitions. Once again, I am very impressed with myself. I repeat I don't care about anything and I am living up to it. I think I am going to be this for the next eleven months. And then when I am finally thrown out of this place, I will get back to this post with an update that I hope to be something positive.

I hate that chick!

If there is one thing I can't stand, its hypocrisy. There is a certain missy I know who knows nothing but being hypocritical. Its like this: I love flirting with men but for the world I am this innocent-little-girl who can not be not loved. Flirts her way through things. Flirts to get compliments, flirts to get information, flirts to put up a very fake image of herself and flirts with a certain guy and his friend as well. If you want to flirt, be the slut. Don't flirt circuitously. I don't mind sluts but I really have a problem with chicks who would bleed to flirt yet pretend like there is no innocence beyond them.

Argh. Get away. To me, you still are the flirt. The flirt who leaves none. Lady, please flirt. Flirt. Flirt. Flirt. But don't act like you are six and I am teaching you things. And you are NOT cute. You are just dirty. And hollow. Save your mushy talks for a rainy day when it's raining men!

All did Harper's Bazaar.

STUPID ME. STUPID STUPID ME!

This moment. I have to record this moment as one of the most awfully embarrassing moments in my life. At the cost of sounding extremely dramatic, I repeat- it was MORTIFYING. I had kept my magazine (one of those glossy fashion ones, you know) on my dinner table before I went out and forgot to get it back!Again: Stupid ME! When I got back, I saw my grandmother (who is willingly orthodox and happily conservative in terms of a typical iyer mami) flipping through the pages of the magazine. It was still fine when she exclaimed with raised eyebrows “3750 chappals-ka?”; “1500 lipstick-ku?” and “enna dress pottundrukka indha ponnu?” But the embarrassment was to its peak when she saw the caption “Dresses to Seduce Your Man”(!) with the elaborate details in pictures and illustrations. I expected her to react with a big scream saying “Krithi! Nee ipdi patta ponnu-nu nan ninakala” or “Enna di aachhu unakku?” and prepared a big speech to justify it in lines of “Illa Ajji, Nan andha pakkam-ellam padikka maaten” or “Ayyo! Andha book ennoda friends-odadhu!”. But much to my tough luck, my grandmom chose the sentimental-attack-path and said “Enna ma, enakku theriyum nee Bangalore-la periya padippu padikara… aana naan idha edhirpakala. Namma tamil kalacharam paarthu nadandhukko. Avalvu dhan solradhukku irukku.” With those words, she walked away to the kitchen with a completely disappointed I-cant-believe-my-krithi-has-turned-into-this-big-city-chick-or-monster look.

And the entire incident had only one effect on me. I ate one dosa less to show my grandmom I really regretted the incident. :( :(

Listening in.

While I was at Hotel Kamat (Colaba Causeway, Mumbai) for an early dinner, I heard a girl say “You want to try dosa? Dosa is what the South of India eats and that’s the only thing they ever eat. It is a pancake sort of thing that is made of oil and rice batter.” Apparently she got them there to show them the different Indian cuisines. She, I am presuming, has got her two American friends home for the holiday and when she said this, I was about to get up and clarify a few things but chose not to. It is stupid to try and wake people who are acting asleep, isn’t it? This is exactly why I got back to my cheese dosa promptly without letting a whole, what I wouldn’t have intended to do, argument happen. Instead, thinking about a hundred varieties I can name of our cuisine, I softly thanked all heavens for not letting so many of Mami’s (whether she is an Iyer or a Chettiar) recipes crawl into these menu-ed kitchens.

P.S: This was not to offend anyone if at all it is capable of any such understanding!

P.P.S. Try and eat like there is no south or north. It feels a lot better.