8:10 pm, 31st Dec 2012,
Lets see, all my friends are either busy getting prettied up and /or sloshed, preparing for a night of revelry,,
All except one, whose mum had a surgery today and he's at home, with her, where he should be,,,:)
and me of course,
I am going to post this and get back to work,
Sitting at my computer, a play list of party tracks playing in the back-ground,,,,I cant help but reminisce, of years gone by,,,
when I was in school  I had friends, let me get that straight, but still ended up spending every single NYE at home,,,,when you weigh a hundred kilos and then some more,,,party wear's a little tough to come by.....
I'd have an early dinner, (winters back home,,,COLD!!!), sit and watch what ever was being telecast that year and go off to bed,
This was repeated without fail year after year,, I would stay at home, go through my same old routine, with a few minor changes thrown in,,,and dream of losing weight and partying my heart out,,,
:)
Never happened,
Till 2006,,,,,,,
Finally MED school was over and I was had a job,, I weighed a mere 60 kilos,,and remember having a bon-fire, with a few friends,,,in the back-yard of the place I stayed in,,
The people who were with me that night are not with me any more,,,,one of them is still "friends" with me on FB,,the rest are lost to time,,
Then came 2008, the year I spent 31st Dec back at home, with mum and dad, after a long time, I still remember cooking peas-pulao, chicken and paneer,,,having dinner seated around a coal-fire,,,,going to bed happy,,
Then came Hyderabad,
For the last three years, on this night, I've been with friends, at some club or the other, dancing my heart out, till the wee hours,,
Tonight I work, while most of the people I know, do what I'd have done otherwise,,,,PARTY!!!!
All around me are bright lights, happy people, plans being made,,,,
All around me, new resolutions are being made, last years' discarded and forgotten,,
Alliances made and broken, hearts broken too,,,
Determined smiles plastered on faces, people are out to have fun, no one wants to spend this night bemoaning the losses of the year soon to be history, everyone's an optimist tonight,
Sadness will find a way of creeping back into our lives, let happiness reign at least for a single night,
I wish I was out there too,,,
Reality flushed out of my mind, one of  huge crowd of people, making the most of this one date which will soon slip into yesterday,,,,,
Happy New Year to all my friends,,,old and new,,,,

:)
Love you all,,

Tale of a City

Ostentatious- Once you have to Hyderabad, you never will have to look up its meaning in the dictionary.

It seems to be some sort of an ongoing theme people here live by, their whole lives revolving around it or dictated by it.

Its everywhere, evidence I mean.

Flashy cars driven by flashier looking 16 year olds, designer threads in the malls, and I do not only mean on the mannequins,,

People always look dressed for a party, which seems to be on perennially, and its one which every Hyderabadi has an open invite to. The "trendy" youth in foreign labels while another segment seems to have some deal with all the jewelery and sequin shops of the city, you could have practical "show and tell" classes for those interested in making a career in embroidery.

And don't get me started on the houses,, sorry I meant mansions. The road to and from the hospital I work at, which incidentally is one of the "poshest" neighborhoods of the city, is bordered on both sides by houses which look like ads for the good life. Porticoes, Grecian pillars, wide verandas,, asymmetrical extensions, manicured lawn,,,the works!!

The stretch of road I spoke of has almost all the major luxury car showrooms scattered along it, I always hang my head out of the autorickshaw door and drool at the cars on display, cars which I see zooming past me all the time. Rolls, Bentleys, Mercs, Beemers, Beetles and the Volvos galore.

Sigh!!

When I go to a mall to catch a movie, I spend some time looking at my co-viewers, while I am dressed like something the cat deigned to drag in on a night when the pickings were really slim, I see even 15 year olds with their other halves dressed like characters from 90210 or Gossip Girl, inspired by these very shows, I'm sure.

These people are firm believers in the glittery= gold theory. Salons, tattoo parlors never seem to be empty, I know someone who went out and got himself a tattoo worth 6000, just to let out some steam, If only I could do that, but at the rate I lose my temper, I'd look like a Persian carpet in a week,,,eyebrow deep in debt too!!

All these thoughts accompanied with a lot of grinding and gnashing of teeth (Envy not worms) were flying around in my head today, I was on my way back from "Landmark-the book store" having bought two books, having done all kinds of calculations first. Calculation? You wonder?,, well despite a 50% discount, it isn't possible for me to buy more than 2 books at a time, so what if I wanted to get a few more?

And then on my way back, I had to share space in a three wheeler with others like me, for there is another part to this city, one that's not so glittery and glamorous. The part inhabited by me and many like me, who look, see, dream and sometimes write satirical, scathing blogs on the attainable in life.

Grapes are indeed sour, you see!

Happy Teachers' Day

A big thank you and lots of love to all the wonderful teachers I've had.

You guys really rock!

P.S- An extra wish for my mum, who was a teacher too, and one of the bravest I've known, she spent the last year of her service, fighting to save her school's land from falling into the hands of unscrupulous land grabbers, and got the boundary wall done, despite a lot of opposition from both bureaucratic and some public quarters.

The OMEN reborn?

I am almost done with what has been an extra exhausting day at work, probably due to the fact that I slept for a total of 3 hours last night, was up till almost 3, chatting with friends who had dropped in.

Despite the pseudo hangover I"m having, I'd do it all over again tonight.

while getting ready to come to work, in the morning I had the news on and happened to catch this story, it was a video shot by a doting parent or other family member I guess, and it showed a pretty little girl, standing beside a serene lake, picking up infant puppies from a wicker basket and hurling them into the water. One by one, she drowned them all!!

I was beyond horror!

What sort of a psychological make-up must she have to be able to calmly and cold-bloodedly do that, even hardened criminals are seldom able to withstand a puppies charms, and there she was!

I really wondered who the person wielding the camera was too, I mean, it had to be an adult, what on earth must have been going through their heads to presume that the act being played out in front of their eyes was cute enough to be filmed and then shared with the world?

Having grown up in a house where we had up to 18 dogs at a time, I cannot even begin to describe what I felt.

This is meant to be an outpouring of my indignation, please do not look for elegance of thought or a better turn of prose!!

My "Bucket" list.

The passing years have not been kind to me at all, ask my back that invariably creaks and groans every morning, ask the remaining hair on my head mourning the loss of more than half their brethren, down the drain pipe, ask the various lines on my face, ask my cheque-book which has more pages than the actual contents of the account it represents, no,the years haven't been kind to me at all.
At this point of my life, speaking like a true veteran, there are a couple of wishes I'd loooove t have fulfilled,,
Shall we start?

• A 2 bedroom flat, in a quiet neighbourhood.
• A dog,
• A small car (the NANO wud do just fine) to commute with.
  
• A flat screen TV, (note I don't ask for a plasma)
• And above all,,,my parents staying with me

It all boils down to the fact that I've been rolling around no gathering no moss, since the last 15 years, and I guess I'm real tired.
I miss having my parents around, I miss sitting around coal fires on chilly January evenings chatting about inconsequential stuff with Mum, Baba playing the perfect listener in all this.
I miss cooking for them, Baba loves something that I make out of Maggi, Vegetables, Eggs and absolutely no water.
I miss all the evenings that we sent at my aunt's, gorging on all the delicacies rustled up by my Bhabhi, coming back home to stuffed to eat, yet finding just enough space for those tasty lentil fritters.
I miss the smell of cooking cauliflowers,
I miss our garden.
I miss seeing the placid, happy face of Baba.
The list goes on and on,,,,
My mum and Baba are old, they aren't going to be around much longer, I'm not being morbid, just realistic for a change, and I'd love to be there to take care of their aches and pains, rather than serve humanity.
Every time I take care of a patient or do something nice for someone, I make a wish that someone out there does the same for my parents, when they need it, it is almost as if I trust the Universe to balance things out.
I can live my life for myself anytime I want to, my parents deserve my time, and me, for now.

Guardian angel of mine

2010 has started off with a real bang!!
Not the costly, noisy, fruits of child labour kind of bangs!!!, I leave those for my moneyed and sense less friends,
it has started off with a real bang-up of a mess here in AP, guess I manage to drag political and public unrest wherever I go,,(remember where I come from?).
Anyway, my partner to a very exclusive, by invite only party for two, by the roadside, below our hostel, was this three legged dog. this dog who roams the streets near our hostel, where during the day there are a lot of eateries open, which translate into a lot of scraps behind when they close shop for the day,, and you can usually find him curled up in some corner nearby, as the night progresses.
I remember feeding him a biscuit or two, a long time back, and since then whenever I come and go from the hospital to the hostel ,at all odd times during the night, there he is, like a wobbly, jumping shadow, limping along behind me, gambolling in a weird three legged way around me, seeing me safely across the street, and I swear he hangs around until I turn around and wave or yell, almost as if to say, "there, I am safely across, You can leave now",, I swear, he does that.
like my guardian angel, or at least that is what he thinks he is,,
I can't help smiling whenever I see him, for a dog with a handicap, and in this canine eat canine world, it is a pretty big handicap to be living with, he is just so cheerful, always smiling, (now do not tell me dogs cannot smile, they can!), always chirpy, never staid, never quiet, he even gets up on my shoulders with his one good front leg, and gives me an extra big grin from time to time, and weirdly enough, those are always the days when I am extra pissed at something, or someone. it is uncanny.
Well, we munched on biscuits and whispered the New Year in,
I just wish I was more like him, at peace with my own handicaps, at peace with the world.
happy New Year Guys!!

Chaotic times

It is really like life in a Robin Cook story, a sleazy production of one, at least. Everywhere I turn, masks assault the eyes, in various sizes, transparencies and colours.
People rushing about their jobs, or loitering around, all with this new accessory on their faces. Pretty soon I am expecting someone to launch couture versions of these infernal eye-sores. Hyderabadis being the Bling-loving, ostentatious, fun-loving people that they are, this isn't going to be a deterrent to their lives, for very long. There is talk of shutting down the Malls, I shudder to even think of such an eventuality. Kameeney's coming out this Friday, for crying out loud.
Jokes apart, the numbers are rising, people are dropping like flies, it's almost as if the Virus is carrying out a personal vendetta. Containing the virus in a country like ours is going to be an impossible task, the people are largely illiterate, likely to panic at the first given opportunity, then there is that small group of people, (let us call them entrepreneurs, for want of a better word) that will hoard up on medications, make a killing (sic!) on the black-grey market, a few doctors are going to get beaten up, a few ministers will be given the ever-novel opportunity of airing their empty brains on a global stage, the teeming masses, everyday on the increase, the up-coming festive season, the insurmountable difficulties in implementing any public welfare programme of any kind, throw in a few communal clashes in between, (Why? when did we ever need a reason to behave like animals?), and you have it,,,,,The Swine Flu Effect in India...Trust me, there will never be a grander show for many years to come!
On top of all this chaos, when people are looking for any excuse to be happy, there are even a few like me, who try and find solace between the pages of a book, but thanks to people like Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, even that seems like a distant dream.
I was re-reading one of my childhood favourites, "Pollyanna", a book I like, for the optimism and the simple, almost magical solutions it offers, to some of life's problems, when I came across one of the lady's articles in a leading daily, where she tore into this book and several other favorites as well, making them sound like books designed with the single purpose of enslaving women all over the world, managing to find so-called "loop holes" in their plots, not even sparing authors like Susan M Coolidge and L Alcott,,,,.
I am amazed how a few lewd lines about an imaginary lifestyle gives someone the literary acumen to critique these great books.
For those who have read books like "Little Women", "What Katy did", and the "Anne" series, you will know why I am enraged. These books gave me countless hours of innocent pleasure when I was younger, and I still go back to them from time-to-time,, reading that stupid article made me feel like someone just abused my childhood friends, and that is not a very pleasant sensation.