I owe you one, Dubai!

Yes, I do!

It's incredible how spending 5 days outside my comfort zone, in the company of people I really enjoy, I have changed:

• I don't need to sleep with FRIENDS anymore. 5 days I was so exhausted I was collapsing in bed every night. And, now, suddenly, the dependence is gone! It could also be partly because I know someone broke up  with someone's girlfriend, but that is of 0.025% interest to my life. But, such a coincidence, right! I started with knowing about Little Miss Precious and I ended with knowing that Little Miss Precious is over - at least for now. 
• I really want to LIVE! And, LOVE! Unconditionally, fully, with all my soul. I want to love all that life has to offer! The dry leaves falling on my head as I take a walk down the road in the morning, the smell of the sea, checking out Brain Pickings in the morning, asking Vikram how if he had a shave there is still hair on his face :P, checking out the view from my super cool glass office, leaving early from work and marvelling at all the time that is available... everything! I want to live each day like I am living just 1 more day. I did it today - even had a happy-looking ragda pattice for lunch. And I am going to do it everyday!
• Friendship is FUN. Be it my Gunjie, be it the Whatsapp group, be it Vikram, be is all of L'Oreal LUXE, be it even Devashish and Bhavin... life is fun with friends! I love how Vikram and I can be such good friends - he is just one hell of a guy and some times, when he talks about travel and about music, I am just bowled over by how much I have to read, write and learn... And all those Mossad conversations hehe!... And, he knew all about Ray Bradbury and we actually had such a brilliant conversation today about the article I sent him - it is insane how 2 people can have such good FUN!

All in all, this is just one more post where I get to speak about how cool Vikram is .. except that it is masked as something else :P 

Ray Bradbury on Mars Exploration

So, I have landed on Brain Pickings on the day when my boss is not in town and when he asked me explicitly to chill out! So, here's what I fell passionately in love with when I chanced upon it. This is Ray Bradbury on space exploration. 

I think it’s part of the nature of man to start with romance and build to a reality. There’s hardly a scientist or an astronaut I’ve met who wasn’t beholden to some romantic before him who led him to doing something in life.

I think it’s so important to be excited about life. In order to get the facts we have to be excited to go out and get them, and there’s only one way to do that — through romance. We need this thing which makes us sit bolt upright when we are nine or ten and say, ‘I want to go out and devour the world, I want to do these things.’ The only way you start like that is with this kind of thing we are talking about today. We may reject it later, we may give it up, but we move on to other romances then. We find, we push the edge of science forward, and I think we romance on beyond that into the universe ever beyond. We’re talking not about Alpha Centauri. We’re talking of light-years. We have sitting here on the stage a person who has made the film* with the greatest metaphor for the coming billion years. That film is going to romance generations to come and will excite the people to do the work so that we can live forever. That’s what it’s all about. So we start with the small romances that turn out to be of no use. We put these tools aside to get another romantic tool. We want to love life, to be excited by the challenge, to life at the top of our enthusiasm. The process enables us to gather more information. Darwin was the kind of romantic who could stand in the middle of a meadow like a statue for eight hours on end and let the bees buzz in and out of his ear. A fantastic statue standing there in the middle of nature, and all the foxes wandering by and wondering what the hell he was doing there, and they sort of looked at each other and examined the wisdom in each other’s eyes. But this is a romantic man — when you think of any scientist in history, he was a romancer of reality.

On top of the world. Literally.

Picking Vikram up on his birthday. Spending the check-in line together. Celebrating his birthday at the airport. Whiling away a 3-hour flight with Shive - an Indophile who thinks she is the female incarnation of Shiva :D. A grand old man sipping Irish Bailey and grunting his way through our conversation. Getting a ride to the hotel in a... hold your breath... LIMO... and, while we are at it... a HUMMER LIMO :D Staying at Le Royal Meridien at Jumeira :D Taking in the desert safari with steely determination and then giving it all up at the roundabout and being ribbed about it, the combo of camel rides, sand boarding, belly dancing and dressing up as an Arab :D Spending the night with everyone lounging and drinking around Vikram's room. "The T-Shirt Thing". Getting the alarm set by him because, hello, we both have the same  phone! :D  "Room 613, okay, room 613." "I will drop Sowmya," when it was not really possible to even stand steadily :P

The grand BREAKFAST!! LUXE lessons. Dubai Mall. Dior. Oh, Dior! Mango Tree. The world's biggest fountains. The second song. The rum and coke. The world's tallest building. At.Mosphering. 442. "Have mine." 1 coaster for Rs. 800 = souvenir! :P

The GRAND breakfast!  A walk by the cleanest beach ever! The Mall of the Emirates. Barasti. Beach. Dancing at midnight! Being propositioned by random strangers! The mad rocks :D Mohitos. All the eyeing!

Dubai Marina and breakfast by the boats. All the eyeing, again! Old Dubai! Bank of BAR because the ODA was not lit up, haha! The SOUK. Metro stations that looked like malls. Jumeira Medinath. Deciding what to drink from the tantalizing choices in the tantalizing playing-with-fire deeply-exciting few minutes before we got pulled up. And, yet, "The T-Shirt Thing" again. Unguardedly being upset at not being taken to Old Dubai on day 3.The gentlest of gestures to display consideration.

Sports bar. The big  black gift bag. "I can't see Sowmya." "Vikram, you seem to be missing us."

Ah, sigh. Vacation thrills! \m/

...And, yes, the first stamp on my passport! :D

Pillion Riding on the Bike

Two L'Oreal LUXE boys. One bike. One with helmet, one riding pillion. Honking loudly as they pass by us. "Aey, watch where you're going!" "Ah, I am  more afraid for the pillion rider." Pillion rider overhears. Pillion rider starts slapping the driver on his helmet like on horse-back. (!!!!!) :D Mad laughter.

Work-place camaraderie. \m/

Elevator Race

Two elevators. Both sliding open nearly at the same time. Eye contact. "Race you!" Jumping into the opposite elevators. Hurrying the liftman to go faster. Reaching first! Leaping out! "Ha!" :D

Albino Onion and the Elevator Shaft That Wouldn't Close

I promised myself I will start writing, so that I will have something to look back upon.

I thought I will start reading and commenting and opinionating on things that matter to me and enjoy a fullbloom Sowmyaissance. :P But, I have come to the conclusion that talking about albino onions is just more fun.

There is a little mom and pop store on the main road where my office is. The store sells only onions and potatoes. So when Vikram and I were searching for an interesting lunch place today, we peeked into this store and laughed at how it was ONLY onions and potatoes. And... "White onions!" So,  what are white onions? I love white onions - I think they are the juiciest of all the onions, especially when sprinkled with lime juice. We started wondering why onions are white. We will google  rates for a hot-air-balloon over the Arabic desert. But, on why onions are white? Nope! I think doing a Google search absolutely kills the joy of not knowing. And, we are not the types to google why onions are white. Imagine the fun to be had with wherever our minds take us! So, he said, "Why are they so white?  Do you think they are Albino Onions? Imagine they must have been born without the pink pigment or something... Albino Onions!" And as an aside, he added "I'll probably shorten them to Albinonions." Heee! :D

I marvel at the absolute nothingness in this conversation. And, this is why I don't write. Because I don't just report, but analyze. Ah, when will I learn? :D

Anyway!

P.S. Hi, regular readers! How have you been! :D

The Elevator Shaft That Wouldn't Close Will Be Written Tomorrow. Ooks? Ooks!

Dengue, Etc.

A mosquito bit me and I am quite scared. What if I catch the Dreaded Dengue? :O Considering I have had TB, and Gunjie has had Typhoid, nothing seems like it happens to other people - everything seems like it has already been transmitted to us (Laugh, but, remember - Yash Chopra also died of Dengue. Kids will read the Wikipedia article about him with great interest - King of Romance, hit-parade of blockbuster movies, stellar son who followed daddy's steps, the most memorable Y in Indian Cinema... killed by.. uh..  Dengue?! Oh, why Bombay)!

I have the room by the sea. There is something magical about the sea. It invigorates while its ambiguous depths send you on a quest for a higher goal. I stand thrilled by the smell of the fish and the salt and the sand and the leaves - quite a masque that will make for Kiehl's! :-P But, yes, while I absorb all this, I also keep asking myself - to what end? My Pinterest boards talk about a dream patisserie and lots of travel and light airy rooms. I do want at least some of that one day, not too far away. For that to happen, I must, first and foremost, stop spending money on frivolous things. I have decided I am not going to put on the AC in the nice breezy room - SAVINGS. I cannot control rent and my student loan installments. But, I can definitely control FOOD. I can control non-essential shopping. I can walk back home too - that is so much healthier than getting all puffy with anger at all the cab-walas outside Lower Parel station who refuse to take me to as close a destination as Prabhadevi - and I will walk and exercise. So, yes, I am on the road to single-mindedly save money.

But, in the middle of this single-minded path of savings, there came this cutesy website from Singapore which had such an interesting spread at... hold your  breath... UNDER Rs. 450/- per DRESS - that I just HAD to loosen the purse-strings. I don't regret that, though. It is Rs. 4,000 well spent. And, it will hold me in good stead for quite some days now.

Second on my mission list is to become fit. I want to exercise and I have decided I will exercise every day. Does not mean I have run out on a walk early in the morning every day - considering Dengue and all, I'd rather not! But, yes, I do get up everyday in the morning and I would rather do SOMETHING that makes my body flexible. I feel so heavy, it is like my body is outside of me sometimes. Haha. Now that I am recovering from TB (touch wood!), I am gaining tons of weight. Sigh. But, I have been on a  near-fruit diet for 2 days now, and I feel great about me and about everything that has been happening with the weight-reduction mission.

Third on my mission list is to get someone to like to me. Now, my blog has always announced to the whole world about who these (2) people have been who I liked - one for years and years, and one for a couple of months before he turned into my DADDY. :P But, Bhavin and Vikram have both always been taken - much to my chagrin. And, to Bhavin, it is good - no, wait - great, incredible, marvelous riddance. And, to Vikram, well, I love him for all that he is - but he is not the one. He is happy, steady, settled, fun, the lifter-of-my-spirits at work, but, I want to keep it at that. I don't want to complicate L'Oreal with all this does-he, does-he-not. And, I am quite content with that one line, which said all that he needed to, "Not everything needs to be spoken out aloud and discussed." I agree. Not everything needs to be spoken out aloud and discussed. We have a thing. He is my work-hubby. And, that's that. Him, I want around. Not like Bhavin, who I never want to see again, especially not with Miss Oooh-I-Am-Back-In-India Precious!

So, yes, I don't want to name him. But, I am going to try and make this work. Let's see. Deciding moment: coming few minutes.

Mission # 4: Write a book. Begin. Follow through. Finish. Enough said.

Mission # 5. Travel. Kutch. Chandigarh. Bangalore, again, but still - Bangalore! And, The Big Red Tent. Even if I have to go there on my  own. And, Rajasthan.

Well, then! That's the flavour of the month(s :P) to come.

French Fries

So there is this Vikram at work, who is a hundred times more fun, more interesting, more like me than Bhavin. When I got to know all that Vikram was, I realised there are so many interesting people in the world and I should actively try to meet such people. Vikram, for me, is the broadening of that horizon. He is that turn. He is when I stopped looking at could-have-beens and decided to meet someone new. He has a girlfriend and he seems happy with her. So not him. But someone like him. And I will find someone like him, I guess. He should only find me someone, considering he is my "daddy". :P

But, when I get into this one place in Baroda, subconsciously, despite the rains, I dress up in Vero Moda and don Steve Maddens! I dress to ensure HE regrets his decision to choose someone over me. AND, the moment I enter the darned place,  the familiarity just comes back. I cannot look into his eyes and smile my happy sunny smile. It is always restricted, because, I am like, "Fuck! He looks good!" The comfort and the awareness never wane. The fact that he chose to wear a shirt on the days he knows I am coming never goes unnoticed. Following him with my eyes and knowing full well he will be doing the same most of the time never stops.

What I love about Vikram is how he ends up sitting next to me and eating from my plate. Vikram is, more than anything, my FRIEND. I love all the brightness and the colour he brings to my world. I LOVE how he lives it up. He is someone who shows me the way. I was deeply touched when he called me to watch the Janmashtami celebrations. I love how he has a little smile on his face at my exuberence. I love him and all that he is because he is so amazing! He is someone I aspire to become. He really will arrive at his grave skidding through life at breakneck speed with all the interesting things he manages to fit into his life.

And,  when a plateful on French Fries arrive in front of me, and when HE picks up one or two once in a while and starts eating, I am reminded of Vikram. But, here is what HE does. So, there is one French Fry (I don't think you can call it that in singular) left on the plate and he picks it up and eats it up and I reach for it a second too late. I feel for it with my fingers while still in conversation with someone else on the table. I realize a second later the plate is empty and I look at him and he looks at me and, then, he ducks away from me and gives me this mischievous half-smiling look, with a little twinkle in his eyes, and, oh! Who the fuck is Vikram now? All I see is those familiar eyes filled with laughter and a barely-contained smile - I don't think we have given each other BIG full smiles since December 2010 - but, in a span of a couple of seconds, there is a moment. Our moment. That only he and I understand and smile about. And, then, the moment is gone. I stare into the papers and look away and sink into another conversation to desperately block any conscious thought about what just happened. But, I will not look at French Fries again without smiling. And remembering him and his white shirt and his smiley twinkly eyes.

:-)

I have realized that laughing about things that seem all grave and serious can take the pain-point out of just about anything.

Gunjan Arora

I totally miss you, chubby fingers!! Come home soon!!!

The Girlfriend Factor

Bah.

My Tryst With TB

I was diagnosed with TB about 3 months back. It was scary at that time, I was constantly worried about the 3 lumps on the right side of my neck. Doctors scared me with multiple possibilities of it being all kinds of diseases. I woke up some days thinking if I have lived a full enough life :P. (Happily enough, the answer was yes.)

I was so upset some days, that I called up my friends and family and just chatted. He was also concerned, to say the least. Then, I took a 10-day off from work and went home. Spent a blissful week and a half in Baroda. I went with him to see his new life. We travelled through the old city areas and while he sourced for his sports lounge. We went to this really shady place from where he got his Red Bulls. That place also had a lot of fake personal care products - my new world. We were very curious about what we had grown into, in the 8 months that we spent away from each other. I could make out that he thought I was pretty sharp to point out fake-imitations of Garnier and L'Oreal products and I thought he was pretty cool to have digressed distributors and found himself a douche of a supplier who got him lower than market prices. We were happy to have had a glimpse of the new worlds we know nothing about. That day was perfect, because it ended in an auditorium with peals of laughter around the city's latest band of entertainers regaling us with stand-up comedy. Some days are meant to be treasured and this certainly had that dreamy quality, right down to cloudy skies, a balmy breeze, a starry night and lovely shared glances at jokes we found funny.

At the end of that day, I decided I was quite dumb to let him go fully. He was a FRIEND first and everything else next. So I Whatsapped him and I Facebook-Messaged the Light-of-His-Life that I have made peace with all that was the past. I guess it was all those silly impressions about dying within a couple of years that made me do all this, haha. Ten days down the line, I realized I didn't mean any of it! :D I still get a kick out of baiting him - I know exactly what to say! And, I most certainly still think of her as a bitch, especially when I think of all the crap that she and her friends dared to write on my blog :P

So, anyway, moving on, I have TB. I pop a lot of meds in a day. Sometimes, I feel nauseated, but more often than not, I am pretty much okay *touch wood*, but it is hilarious how I equate everything to the meds. My skin is too oily, so Google search: anti-tuberculosis treatment oily skin. I am becoming fat. Tuberculosis treatment weight gain. I have a slight shoulder ache. Tuberculosis treatment body ache. I feel tired at the end of the day. Tuberculosis treatment tiredness.

On the other hand, I know some of the side effects of the TB meds. So, there's that too. Am I going blind? Is my head aching because I can't see anymore? Is my liver swelling (yeah, like I can tell!) Are there rashes on my neck?

I guess I shouldn't laugh at a malady I haven't been cured of yet. It takes a year to be completely okay. But, I think I will always look back at this with a sense of whimsical amusement. What all life throws at us! What all thoughts I have had! :D

What have I been doing?

Ever since I came to Bombay, I feel I have been on a perpetual househunt. Even now, I am still finalizing the finer details of getting the latest house in Bombay. The endless encounters with brokers have left me feeling listless. Sometimes, I feel like I need to get away from it all - and I go jump into work and read Marie Claire (because that is work, too!) (Fancy job, I have!)

Whenever I work, I wonder why I give my entire soul to it. I mean, I wouldn't think of me as that type, but, some how, I am. I become the brand. I wear it, I cuddle with it, I dream about it. I couldn't stop thinking about Discount District. But, now, I cannot stop thinking about DD, Kiehl's, L'Oreal and my dream patisserie! Which, if you look at it, is a strange combination. It basically makes me stretch right from a really mass outlook to a really luxury point-of-view with a good bit of mashed masstige perspective thrown in, in the middle. I am not too sure if it is healthy - considering I have TB and I might have thyroid. But, whatever it is, I cannot put an end to it just yet. I constantly think. If not about one, then about the other. And, then about the third. And, then about the people in my life! Ah, the varied people!

A flitting butterfly that has been caught in a beautiful world full of colour, so much so  that she doesn't know which flower to pick is sometimes how I feel. There are other times, when I feel like I have been slimed by several buckets of yukky green muck landing on me, much like in Nickelodeon's old TV shows.

I used to always feel sheltered, surrounded by love, surrounded by a barrier of warmth-friendliness-affection-security, but  the brokers made me feel exposed. Now, I no longer feel that the barrier exists. Weird how talking to 13-15 men who are complete strangers from a very different walk of life and sitting on their bikes can do this to you. But I feel alone. Whenever there is a phone, a message, or some notifications on Facebook, the envelope of love closes in around me, but, then again, it slips and I feel desperate. I feel a sense of anxiety. How will I manage all this by myself? I feel overwhelmed. Just for a moment and then, I laugh at myself. Ha ha. I call up a few friends, I switch on my work laptop or make some nasty comment to something idiotic on Facebook.  I feel in control again. But, there are those disconcerting moments.

I know that it stems from not having a permanent roof over my head. Roti, kapda, makaan is just not working out. Physiological needs haven't been met. I could dish out a hundred different rationales to why I feel the way I feel. (I also know that the thought of having a roomie and a pretty beach-front house is going to make me the happiest girl anyday :D). But, I just want this week - this week full of terrible house-related formalities - to end!!

I want to move in to my new house and stay there for the next year! I want to concentrate solely and fully on driving Kiehl's into more cities in India! I want to feel the delicious lick of excitement on having ACHIEVED something. I want to forget Bhavin FULLY (including angry midnight calls about DD, horrid Whatsapp exchanges, his apologies, his indulgence, his instantly calming down when he realizes I am extremely upset, the way he softened immediately when I started cried for the first time in front of him because it was all too much to take... the electric awareness.. everything...) I want to just be. Like I was in the first few months in Mangalore. Alone, yet capable. Excited, yet contented. Having blocked out all memory of silly Gtalk chats about Dadar beach and Vadodara Express. (The problem is that my first experience of Bombay has been tinged with him, but, fortunately, Luxury hasn't. Kiehl's hasn't. So, let me take the good with the bad, the salt with the sugar, or some such cliche).

Bottomline, what I want is to be rid of the a sense of pressing concern. I want to feel the world opening up in front of me like a welcoming avenue lined with flowering trees and pretty lived-in houses on the sides, instead of appearing like a monster rearing its ugly head and opening its mouth, ready to swallow me.

Am I making any sense? I guess I have got so much Bombay in my head, I have become way too garbled.

I think I should prescribe me a remedy: A dose of laughter with my girls, a week full of FRIENDS on the lappie, work-filled hours, zero Whatsapp, FUN with Vikram and the gang at work... and, well, maybe Sikkim in September! :D :D Jaa, jee le apni zindagi, Simran! (Bah! I was never the Bollywood kind! Hello, Newness!! :P)

Long Time No Gripe

I completed a year at L'Oreal and, boy, do I feel happy about it! :)

L'Oreal is definitely one of the better things that has happened to me. I love the people I work with. I love the fun I have with the people around me. I love the wonderful things in life that I have experienced because of L'Oreal!

And, I absolutely cannot wait for the coming months, because, boy, it is going to be a joyride! Chandigarh, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Noida, Delhi... Delhiiiii!! :D I love the sound of all this cushy travel and hotel-stays! :D Love the fun people too!

TB medication is going on okay. Touch wood. I hope I get cured soon, so that I can sip on sangrias a little bit. :P

Miss everyone in Baroda this Friday.

Always.

We’re moving on. But just because we are leaving, and that hurts, there are some people who are so much a part of us they’ll be with us no matter what. They are our solid ground, our north star. And the small clear voices in our hearts that will be with us. Always.

Castle Season 4 Finale (Yeah, that's what moves me to write these days! :P)

LPD

I work in L'Oreal Luxe! Or LPD, as we call it - the Luxury Products Division. What is great about LPD is that it is made up of genuinely-nice, warm, sweet people. My guide ROCKS. She is a delight to work with. She is clear, uncomplicated, open, fun, she shares it all like I do, she is really really great. I LIKE her! And my guide's boss is gay :D :D It is fun to observe his eccentricities. He says "retarded" like it is a norm. He IS luxury. His ideal vacation is a garden-restaurant in France with good food and wine. :P Ah, well. Okay. No problem. Can work with him, regardless. Because he is not pretentious. He is not an exploiter when it comes to work. And, this is what matters.

And, then there are the other brands in Luxury. I love Ruchi, who heads YSL. She and I get along well. I am sure she is not fun to work with, because she is kind of dumb. She doesn't even know vlookup on Excel. But, she is sweet and unpretentious too. And, there is our financial controller - Ayesha. I adore her! She is SMART. She is an experimenter. She is pretty. She is a Gujju :D And, I guess I needn't say more :D

 And, then, there is my favourite duo - Carton and Vikram. Carlton is the product manager for the perfumes - Diesel, Ralph Lauren and Armani. Vikram is the Assistant PM. Carlton is a good boss and I can see it from how he and Vikram work together. They get things done in a snap. I like that.

And, Vikram! :D :D What do I say! He is FUNNN!!! On Valentine's Day, we got little red lollipop-chocolates from the company. I was busy hogging those chocolates. Vikram wasn't going to have his, so he gave me his lollipop. That got the others talking and teasing, haha. And, then, he comes to me and says, "Beg borrow steal, but I have a craving for them, and I want them!" :D hahaha!! So, I searched for one and went up to him with it. That's when there was an uproar about the whole thing hahah!! But, because I don't like Vikram, I just really like him, what slipped out of my tongue was this: "Vikram is like my father!" Hahhaahahaha!!!! That's when he got indignant :D :D And, since then, I have been running all around him calling him Daddy. Hahah! But we have fun. He sits right next to Josh - our designer - with whom I have a lot of work. He is very possessive about his desk. So, we end up erecting invisible walls and taking over chargers (did I mention he also has the same HTC as I? And he is the first person who I really like who is not visible to me on Facebook. I am sure he has an account. He will be those Abhjt Arra types who omit vowels for anonymity. :P :D But, Vikram-fun I will miss when I move out of LPD!

Exercise

I MUST EXERCISE. If there were a scientific method to measure age based on the status of one's body, I'd be 60 years I am sure. I must mustg must go for a walk every morning. Beginning tomorrow. I am reaching Bombay at 5. Will reach my place by 5:20. Will clean up, have tea and then head out to the sea-face! Yes!!! :D :D I live just a couple of minutes from the Worli sea-face!!!! YAYYYYYY!!!! I am paying through my nose. But, honestly, I think, it is okay. It gives me time to sleep. To wake up at about 7 in the morning. To take bath at about 8. And to go to work within 7 minutes of a cab-ride. I like, I like. Even if it is for a month. This not knowing can sometimes irk you, but it also keeps the excitement alive. It makes you want to put in those long hours. It makes you think of Singapore and the ASEAN project with a whole lot of interest If I am going to Singapore, I am definitely going to quit DD formally and have NOTHING interfere with the 3 months there. I am not going to read emails from the past and reminisce about could-have-been's. I am going to be free.

Bored as a Hat in the Middle of Antarctica

So, yeah, when I am bored, I think of all these weird analogies. But, yes, somehow when I am in Baroda and when my friends are all bijji, I wonder why I came to Baroda for the weekend in the first place :P Cafe Zoey, Zodiac Grill, Salt Water Grill, Vie, The Comedy Store, NCPA, Prithvi and practically 48 hours of mad fun sacrificed! :P I wish I could hire somebody to play my boyfriend for the time I was in Baroda - so that I can satiate my appetite for long drives in the middle of the night. When people say Baroda is dead, I now understand what they mean. When we work as hard as we do, we have been told by Subbu and Symbi that we MUST MUST MUST play as hard too. And, I would love to go out, DO something! But, what do I do is the question in Baroda :P First, my friends all disappear or cancel at the last minute and Offside's no longer the option. I like that place because it has can make me sit there for hours. But, I have made up my mind and it is best I stick with it. So that leaves shopping and Barista. But that I can even do in Bombay. So, what's the point :P Sigh. All I ask for is a spirit of adventure. No sitting at home and whiling away time. This is what happens when you get used to fun weekend night-outs!

Shah Rukh Khan

One of the perks of working in L'Oreal is that we get to do some uber-glamourous things - like rub shoulders with SRK! :D I visited the Colours Screen Awards and watched the entire show from start to finish. Went with Pavitra and boy, are we happy about it! It was FAB FAB FAB to be at the same venue as Ranbir, Deepika, PC, Shahid Kapoor and the lot. I am not a huge Bollywood fan but I AM an SRK fan and he completely stole the show. He is the best host for such events - he livens up the entire event with his silly jokes, his funny mannerisms, his sly digs at people the industry as a whole has taken a dislike to... he defines COOL for me... But, then, I also work in an industry that is very close to celebrities and fashion. And it is disconcerting to hear gossipy stories of people like SRK, who we think are super-cool. Case in point: When SRK's hairstylist - whose boyfriend works with Lancome - suddenly started talking about how everyone makes out with everyone - SRK-PC, SRK-KJ, Gauri-the whole world and what not! :-O I was sad. The Fall of the people on Pedestals all over again! Haha! So, PC's agent is one damn funny gal. Or guy. I forget her name. But she is one crazy female. All boyish. Wearing a tilted cap. And talks and walks like a "bhai". We had to give her a goodie-bag. So, the Garnier trainess put in some Maybelline and some LP. And, then suddenly, there was a commotion... "Haw! For PC's agent???" Little did we know her... or him... haha! What I love about all this is the utter newness! It is another world! What they said about Marketing being glamourous is so very true! It is. I might be doing mere execution, but it is still worth it to be so close to decision-making, to be so close to influencers. I want to be with Kiehl's! Pleeeeej!!! :D

My aravali express ticket was waitlisted at WL1 even at 6 pm yesterday. So, I decided to do the fun thing and cancelled the railway ticket instead of the airline ticket :P (i had already made up my mind to fly to Bombay anyway. This just made it a guilt-free trip.) But I really like flying to Bombay when I don't have a connecting flight to mangalore. I get down at 8 and I take a cab to lower parel. I am as clean in Bombay as I am at home. And, I get to load up on a morning homey breakfast too. It is like I am going to work from Baroda. Imagine if I had a 1.5 lakhs per month salary. I will definitely fly home every weekend. On second thoughts, may be not. I love trains too. Anyway. I think my hormonal cycle is at its happy-high point. Because I am not all teary eyed despite spending so many hours per day at offside. Who knows, I might even get used to champa miss precious some day because I get to be with him, see him, talk to him, brainstorm with him, be friends with him. Okie, flight take off. More later.