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.