Trepidation... and Resolution!!

The only constant is change...

After four brilliant, beautiful years full of Tech City's amazing weather, Serenity and Calamity are returning to the City-that-wakes-up-early. So now you know what the title of this post is all about (It was just called 'Trepidation' initially!!). 

I'm thinking there will be more writing and venting once more - Such optimism, I tell you!
So my first innings with the city was an unmitigated disaster... Two and a half really REALLY miserable years - though towards the end, I had learned to suck it up and deal with it (or take it in my stride, if you prefer the sugar coating!)... the bad weather, the fighting with rickshaw guys, the being language impaired... all of it! I was a newly-wed, alone in a city with no family, no friends and not enough work to keep me happy. Freelancing meant working from home, and working from home meant being really really lonely... If I had friends, I think it wouldn't have been half bad.... and I did have friends...by the time we were leaving! But for the most part, it was lonely and sad....
This I began when the move was finalized, but I never got to complete it....
But so much has happened since I last wrote (many many moons ago!!) - Serenity and Calamity acquired a new family member (feline!!!) who we shall refer to as Hilarity - for all the laughs she provides every day! 

Hilarity as a kitten.... Such a pretty girl!

Hilarity today.... Throwing a princess tantrum!

She's a strange girl, loves company, but hates being handled. 

She's happiest sitting around people, but god help you if you approach her! 

So we moved, and Hilarity moved here with us (of course she did!! She's family!)

My second innings in the City-that-wakes-up-early is going a lot better... I have my own friends, I have a better grasp on the language, we live in a beautiful house by the sea, I have work, I have Serenity and Hilarity.... and I am finally happy here. 

The trepidation has been resolved... though it's early days yet, I think it'll be just fine!

....and so will I !!

The Cooker Monsters!

Another one of Mimi's brilliant ideas (no, I'm not being sarcastic!) that I actually bought into is this one - 

A cooking blog..... She cooks, I cook, we put up pictures and recipes! And its gone LIVE today!!

And so, ladies and gentlemen...... presenting.... *cue fanfare*.......

The Cooker Monsters!

What's with the Invincible Corks??

Mimi / Arliemol and I have history..... of the DISASTROUS variety!
The simplest, most mundane activities we try to perform (post Serenity's bedtime, post midnight!) usually end in disaster and de-wash-tation (to quote Mimi!)....
Here we present 2 case studies of the more memorable kind. The second is what prompted this post. Unfortunately, Case study 1 is not accompanied by pictures.


Case Study 1: 2 women trying to paint their nails.
Method: Volunteer to paint Mimi's nails RED. Shake bottle vigourously. Watch helplessly as said bottle flies out of hand and splatters on pristine white guestroom floor. Realise there's about 2 ml of nail-paint remover left. Try and prioritise whether to clean Mimi (who is spattered upto her knees in red nail paint) or the floor. Fail miserably at both.
Result: Guestroom floor now looks like a scene from Dexter.


Case Study 2: 2 women want to drink a mini bottle of Rosé
Method: Try and open with Corkscrew A. Helplessly watch as corkscrew A breaks, embedding itself in the cork. Proceed to sloowwwwly chip away at cork with knife, avoiding embedded corkscrew to further avoid blade joining corkscrew in the cork. Progress to potato peeler. Abandon hope. Resume chipping away at cork, tea- strainer on standby. Involve mighty Ikea toolkit. Successfully pull out remnants of Corkscrew A. Resume mission with Corkscrew B. Mission successful. 
Result: 2 measly glasses of wine that in hindsight - a) we could have done without.... and b) REALLY did NOT justify the effort we put into it.

The Year that was...

Milestones of the year that was....

• Serenity and Calamity celebrated their second year of togetherness. Its been a bumpy road, but we have settled into a much more even pace... We are together, and we are happy and that's more than I could ever have asked for. In a month, we will be celebrating our third year of marriage, hopefully tucked away in some pretty locale!

• Calamity inched closer to the big 3-O... this year seals her fate and puts the awesome 20s firmly into the pages of history! (Which was the main reason Calamity moped and moped on New Years Eve!!) Serenity prays everyday that his (mentally) 6 year old wife will grow up and finally be a responsible adult... to which I stick out my tongue and go PBBBBBBTTT!!! (so much for maturity!)

• Serenity and Calamity moved cities... yup, just as I was beginning to get used to all the idiosyncrasies of the city-that-wakes-up-early! We moved to Tech City, and Calamity has never been happier - I have a lovely home, I have busy weekends, I have a GIRL GANG!! (something I've missed since I moved from the city-that-never-sleeps!)

• We've acquired a couple of adopted teenagers!! (girls from the Girl Gang who're always here when I need them!)

• Arlie, one of my girls from the city-that-wakes-up-early moved here within a month of us moving and has been a steady fixture in our home and in my heart. She's the closest I've gotten to anyone in the recent past, and it just makes me feel so good the way she just belongs! She's stellar, and I love her to bits...my Soul Sister and partner in crime - we stay up till all odd hours, watch Rakhi Sawant and Big Boss together and stress about our weight in chorus!

• Ambils, or Chandu is my other adopted teenager - someone I had met only briefly, she was my first taste of fun in Tech City - we have danced in the aisles of the Spar supermarket solely to relieve the tedium of the ppl watching the security cameras! Arlie and I mother her, boss over her and take her tantrums in our stride! She is the kid sister we now have, and she's a RIOT!!

• The Bangalore Bunch is a bunch of friends Serenity has had since childhood, the parents were friends, and now they are friends... they fill our weekends, the getting together after choir practise... to doing girls night movie with one of the wives...

• Serenity and Calamity travelled to Cambodia... our first trip out of the country together, we fulfilled a dream we've both individually fostered for years. The experience of seeing the sun rise over Angkor Wat is one that I think will stay with me forever. Cambodia was beautiful, awe-inspiring and sad at the same time. Experiencing the ruins of a 9th century civilisation together but with no conversation necessary... Serenity actually excelling in bargaining  - which didnt surprise me, it SHOCKED me! He would wander off in the markets, come back bearing armfuls of great deals and make friends with all the shopkeepers! Our culinary experiments and disasters... all in all, made for a great trip, hopefully the forerunner of many more to come!

• Calamity got sick! :( bleh... what a way to end the year!

• Serenity and Calamity FINALLY got a christmas tree, a star and went carolling! Serenity's sister visited and we all exchanged gifts and had a SUPER christmas, wheezing and phlegm not withstanding! No baking or appams and stew, but we got by just fine!

And now forward!.... The Holiday Season's hangovers are past and the New Year stretches ahead, bright and shiny... Who knows what may come... But in the words of Incubus :

"Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear

And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear
Take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately I'm beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
I'll be there....."


Bring on the lions!! :D 

Tech City Madness!

So the settling in has happened, hounding carpenter to come and put up all my lovely posters has happened.... but before we get into the good stuff, allow me to rant!


Serenity (thankfully!) got a relocation allowance - so we went with a highly acclaimed packing and moving company Aggravating Packers and Movers (get it? I cant take names, very aware of possibility of litigation you see? C.Y.A at all times is the motto - Cover Your A$$!!). They cost us a bomb... and my big 6 seater dining table (thats as old as Serenity) arrived as a tripod!! Yup, table and three legs as one piece, one leg as a separate piece. 2 big beautiful framed posters arrived with the glass shattered, the bed came with a bolt loose that caused it to collapse when Serenity sat on it! (which earned him the nick name 'Palankh Thod' which has its own off-colour connotations!!) Cartons packed by them, which bore their logo and the proud epithet of "Relocation Intact" came looking like a particularly overweight elephant had sat on them. Relocation Intact - HAH! And did they pay for any of this damage? Take a guess, go on.... No F%$^ing way!


So yeah, we got everything fixed, unpacked the zillion million cartons - who knew that in 2 years we had collected SO MUCH stuff... and now we're fully functional! This is a spectacular city - considering neither Serenity nor Calamity has to commute anywhere (Serenity walks to work!) the traffic doesnt bother us that much... and the weather, is TO DIE FOR!!.... Phew! After the city-that-wakes-up-early, its a VERY welcome relief. We spend a lot of time on the terrace, Calamity set up wi-fi so she even works outside! Add to this whole lovely equation a motley crew of friends who we love to hang out with and you have 2 very happy people! Never a dull moment on the weekends... Oh and the two of us have joined the church choir (where Calamity sings like a little mouse in the corner in the face of so much musical talent!) and we're learning the Halleluiah chorus from Handel's Messiah now.... Confronted with sheet music and having to learn the Alto part, Calamity's head swims...So much so that I looked it up on youtube and practise diligently!! Floundering, but ever optimistic we are!


Weekends at home also feature a character from the city-that-wakes-up-early - I have a pair of soul sistahs, and this trio is named in true blue Malayalee fashion (we take great joy in stereotypes!) as Arliemol, Ansiemol (yours truly) and Albiemol. Arliemol comes and visits, calls herself Wife #2 to Serenity and proceeds to be a complete riot! The days she stays over, we sit on the terrace long after Serenity has gone to bed, laugh like idiots and do insane things like splatter red nail paint on my pristine guest room floor and order 5 pairs of shoes online at 3 am... yup, full bundle of laughs! Arliemol was also introduced to our local bunch of friends and it was super cool to see them all get along like a house on fire! Perenially on a diet, on a good day she has 3 cornflakes for breakfast and TOTALLY cheats on her diet around us! Its nice to not have completely lost touch with the city-that-wakes-up-early because this clown moved here around the same time as us. 


All in all, Tech City has been wonderful.... and I'm very happy to be here.

The Three Musketeers plus One

There are many who believe that kids who grow up in cities, grow up without the luxury of wide open spaces to run and jump and play in. I did'nt. Strangely, even in the city-that-doesnt-sleep, are these oases of green (so far, so good - I'd say!) and we had one of those just over the wall! The folks call it the golf club - but for us, it was picnic spot, beach and park all combined. We were serial trespassers - and we enjoyed EVERY minute! We honed our athletic prowess on their grass! Slipping and sliding with no fear of hurting ourselves, jumping through sprinklers... Part of the thrill was running away from watchmen and vigilant members who tried to run us off. We called one of them Street Hawk (after an 80s - 90s TV series character) because he usually came after us on a motorcycle! 


We had pot-luck picnics and long jump competitions into the sand traps of the 8th hole! We believed in "finders keepers" when it came to stray golf balls. For some reason, we believed they cost a ton of money! There are no pictures of those glory days - nobody had cameras their folks would let them take along, but they're so fondly remembered... We had races to see who'd get over the wall first when Street Hawk came along... and the last one was always the 'rotten egg'.... We sure were lucky - where else would a bunch of kids find endless acres of green fresh lawn to run and jump and tumble on? 


The Three Musketeers plus One was us - born the same year, three girls and a boy - June, August, September and October. Today, one's in Australia, one's in Germany, I'm here and the boy is sailing the seas and seeing the world. He was a monkey - skinny and climbed to ridiculous heights to escape getting caught when we played cops and robbers (he actually scaled a coconut tree to the height of the second floor while we stood around beneath the tree screaming at him, and my mum and sisters having hysterics while watching from the third floor!) 


The two girls moved away while we were still in school, but the monkey and I grew up together, going to school together and laughing about our respective schools and their 'sex education' classes. One fine day, the scrawny monkey suddenly ended up wayyy taller than me (big blah - I was always the tallest of the group!) and then he realised his dream of being a sailor. He's first engineer (I think!) now and we always catch up whenever we end up being home at the same time... All of us are married now and scattered all over, but in my head, this is how we'll always be - one curly-headed tomboy, one quiet girl, one chatterbox and one monkey.

Time flies...

Time flies like an arrow... fruit flies like a banana....

ha ha and all that...

To get back to the point, time has been flying... faster than I've realised. I find myself longing for weekends on Monday mornings - and before I know it, its the middle of the week! That's the power of work, when you have enough to keep your mind occupied, that is.

Its been 2 years since I moved to the city-that-wakes-up-early, and as much as my initial posts bear testament to the fact that I hated it here, I've begun to call this house Home. Its this home that I think of when I'm away, this place that I'm constantly thinking up improvements for, this house that I find myself looking at curtains, lamps and cushions for. Strange feeling, this. But a good one, nonetheless. I still miss my bustling Maximum City (I think I always will!) and its incredible speed and the freedom that I feel in the air there... but here, this, doesnt feel as bad. The heat saps me, and I scurry to switch on my blast of coolth! (yes, COOLTH - I like that word... if there's WARMTH, then there's COOLTH... why? cos I sez so!).

I find myself taking powercuts in my stride, calling the Electricity Department and in terrible, awful, hideous local lingo asking a man (who's trying to contain his laughter!) why I'm being deprived of electricity when the sun is at its hottest. And then having the man, (still reining in his laughter!) tell me that there was a notice in the paper about a 9 am to 5 pm powercut - to which all that sheepish me could say was "Oh!"... I'm dealing with the heat, my being language impaired, autorickshaw men who see me and hear the "KACHING!" of cash registers... I'm dealing. And what's sweeter than knowing that I'm dealing remarkably well! (Aye, its very satisfying!)

Its a good feeling to walk down my road, having a flower seller smile and wave at me (I buy a bunch of yellow roses from her once in a while), having street people like vegetable vendors and shopkeepers that know you.... its like home, just like home. And it makes me smile. Its taken two years and lots of tears, but now, whenever I come back from whereever, I know I'm coming home. Home is where Serenity is, in more ways than one (and yes, serenity - the noun, does vanish from our home periodically too, when a hot-headed Gemini and a mule-headed Libran clash swords!) and I find myself wanting to be back here, though I know that he's the only one for whom I'll say this or be here for. Its a good feeling, and that makes me smile.

I do miss my bunch back in Maximum City though... I miss sitting on a sea-facing balcony with just one of them and lots of "talk" with a lot of vices thrown in for good measure. I miss my best boy buddy and I miss the evenings in office. I miss being around those people who know me, know when I want to be asked "whats wrong" and know when to just let me be. I miss conversations with Toe where I can just spill my guts and not have her say "eeugh". That non-judgemental love that some people there have for me, I miss... and I miss them every day. If I could just pull them all here to be with me, I'd be the happiest person in the world... and then the sorriest for all the abuses they would heap on me!!

But for all of that, I'm happy to say that I'm happy in the here and now. I'm happy to be where I am, with different groups of Serenity's friends, who are slowly but surely becoming mine as well. Its a wealthy person, one who can just let the people in their lives grow, connect and form that safety net that I've been yearning for since the day I came here. Some of them amaze me with their ability to assimilate another so seamlessly into a circle that's existed for them since boyhood. I'm a territorial beast, I dont think I could be that way. But the paintball gang shows me how its possible to grow that circle without breaking it.. and whenever we sit around a table and share a meal, I am just really really happy to be counted as one among them.

I'm growing my own safety net now... and this, for me, is the most poignant sign that I've put down roots here. City-that-wakes-up-early, Calamity is here to stay.

Life is Short....

... and never have I been made more aware of this fact as when I received a call late few nights ago saying she's in a coma. I wrote this post when I heard she was brain dead, but somehow held back on posting it because I still hoped with all my heart that some miracle would work and she'd step back from the brink. She didn't. She's gone.

Death never seems final until it strikes someone close to you. Suddenly she goes from being a person to a collection of memories. I know now that I'll never see her again, not even by accident. She's been more a good friend's friend than my own... part of the same circle, we've shared tiffins and friends.. She and my friend, they shared a name.. I think that made them closer than any one could imagine. By the time we passed out of school, they were practically one entity. We always spoken of them in the same sentence. And I spoke to my friend today and she sounded bereft... "There's only one of us now, ya.... Nobody needs to call us by our initials any more.... There's only one of us left..."

She danced her way through life.. she danced her way into our lives in the seventh grade... and though we drifted apart over the years, our paths met, crossed and parted again...She'll dance again... I know she will.. Somebody who loved the idea of love, she was to marry in a few months time... I called her crazy when her Michael Jackson obsession made her scratch his initials on her arm...laughed at her, laughed with her and shook my head sometimes when they played hooky... I remember shooting rubber bands at her in class, and her uncanny way of popping into photographs... I remember her covering for me (who could only serve really good) in a crucial volleyball match.. I remember the exaggerated "Bambaiyya" accent she used a la 'Rangeela'. Today, I'm not remembering the reason why we grew apart.

I'm aching today for my friend. For the one who's here and the one who's not here anymore. For dreams left undreamt and a life left incomplete. For the ones who have to pick up the pieces and move on. For the void she's left in the lives of those she belonged in. I'm aching for a boy left heartbroken and a family left grieving for their little girl. For people like me who're only left wondering why we never mended those cracks when they first appeared. I'm wondering whether she saw us all, all over, praying for a miracle for her, and now trying to believe the reality that we're trying to grapple with - a reality that doesn't have her in it any more.

Dear friend, be at peace where ever you are.

My Comfort Zone...

I spoke to my comfort zone today, and I've come away feeling (as always!), like she's THE most amazing person in the world. She is a bundle of goodwill, she is... I kid you not and I've never met anyone who's not TOTALLY adored her when they met her. That includes Serenity, who probably digs her about as much as I do.... nah, not possible, I dig her THE most! Actually, I have quite a few of these comfort zone people scattered around the world, and I'm incredibly lucky to be their friend and to call them mine. ... and right now, I miss them SO much.

At a time when I was feeling like the bottom of the ocean, a conversation with her has made me feel like there are a zillion things I could do to make myself feel better. (and no, NONE of those ways has ANYTHING to do with a bottle of wine!) 

This girl, has been my refuge in the city-that-never-sleeps, her home has been my home when I've needed a place to run to or a place to crash. She never ceases to amaze me with her optimism and her willingness to give EVERYONE (and I REALLY mean, EVERYONE) the benefit of the doubt. Someday, I hope to be even half the person she is, because I truly, TRULY think she rocks! I've never met another design professional who's half as socially conscious as this girl and she makes me very VERY proud to be her friend. 

Here's to a "Towel" (you wont get the pun on her name, so dont try!) who makes my world a brighter place just by being in it. Thankyou, you brightened my day. I miss you.

Serenity and Calamity.....

So then my Significant Other came up with this title (very original - surprisingly!!) one that pretty much describes the two of us and our states of mind very aptly! As I have mentioned before, the man is Serenity personified and I am a walking, talking disaster on legs! 

In fact, I think I'm going to mention a few notable people of my life in the city-that-wakes-up-early.... and I hereby christen the Significant Other "Serenity".... (which is what he shall be referred to in future posts). 

Blog # 2 has been quiet (re: audience feedback) because I'd kept this one under my hat... but I've decided to come out (grin!) and name some peeble that I know in the blogosphere. One of them is a blogger celebrity - Egg (I'm really hot on privacy, so I shall not name many-who-shall-not-be-named!) and he's on here and yup, I'm super proud to be his friend! The other one is Baby Bump, who I like a lot and her husband Tummy who are frequent dinner companions.  Tummy, Egg, Serenity and me (Calamity!!) have lots of balcony conversations that are usually elaborate leg-pulling enterprises! 

and thus the week begins.....