Incoherent ramblings from a sleepy mind..

Why is it that the most good looking men are always so dumb? I met one just a couple of weeks back...a man who can be considered India's current heartthrob. And though I personally never felt inclined to swoon over him, I had to admit that he was really very good looking. But then I met him. And the man has sawdust between his ears. No really I mean it. To be fair to him he did seem professional and attitude free, but then only a rather dumb man would jump in on a conversation, misunderstand what was happening, mistake me for a journalist even after I clearly explained who I was and proceed to throw a small tantrum. Ki jhamela. But he did have the most wonderfully soft hands though. Probably spends a lot of time and money on manicures.

Speaking of men, did any of you ever develop crushes on fictional charecters? Ive had crushes on all sorts of charecters from as early on as I can remember. I think my first crush was Julian from Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. He was so cute in a nice clean big brother way. I liked him very much. I think immediately after Julian I had a crush on Sherlock Holmes. Don't know why, because Hercule Poirot was and is, my favourite private investigator. Love the "leetle grey cells".And Sherlock Holmes is quite the "human bloodhound" that Poirot despises. But still. I nurtured secret fantasies of being Sherlock Holmes' client...an English lady with blue eyes who swept in on him and Watson, and wrung her hands nervously while telling them her problem. Of course he would solve the mystery and fall in love with her simultaneously and they would live happily ever after...sigh!

I think I have a thing for detectives. Because I still have the most tremendously massive crush on Feluda (Non Bongs: Feluda or Prodosh C Mitter is a detective created by Satyajit Ray. ) Whats not to love...a 6 foot tall, intellegent, handsome (he looks handsome in the sketches) Bengali man who owns a Colt revolver and courts danger and solves mysteries and even dabbles in some Kung Fu (Bombai er Bombete)....why arent there more Bengali men like Feluda? I envisaged a very happy love life for us as well. My love for Feluda is probably the reason why Soumitro and not Uttam Kumar is my favourite Bengali actor. Did you see Soumitro in Joy Baba Felunath and Sonar Kella? Now THAT, and not John *sawdust* Abraham is swoonworthy material. I am the proud owner of the ENTIRE Feluda series, and no I shall not lend them to anybody, those books are to precious to be lent.

Over the course of my adolescent years I have had temporary fleeting crushes on some M&B charecters but those did not last long. Tall dark and handsome never really did much for me. Some of the longer lasting crushes other than the ones mentioned earlier would include Byomkesh Bakshi (told you I have a thing for detectives), but I suspect that had more to do with Rajit Kapur in that serial...sooooo cuuuttteee . Then there was Shankar from Chander Pahar, such a adventurous boy he was. Faced a black mamba all by himself. And Captain Mallory from the Guns of Navarone, such a masculine man. I imagined myself going on missions with him where I would be this terribly efficient ruthless soldier with a lot of attitude. And we would be at loggerheads throughout, and everybody around us would feel the tremendous chemistry and all of that. And then I would be forced to face my worst fear..an impossibly high cliff which we have to scale for the success of the mission, and I would break down, and he would be oh so sensitive and help me through the ordeal, and I would grit my teeth and not let me fear stop me and we would reach the top and in a moment of relaxed triumph he would pull me to him and kiss me passionately..and...ahem!! Yes err, lets move on.

Sigh. So many marvellous men. Aragorn from Lord of the Rings and Legolas too. Although truth be told I kinda liked Frodo as well. He was a very brave little hobbit wasnt he? More recently I developed all these feelings for Sirius Black from Harry Potter. What and all the poor man had to endure. I got very emotional when he died. Why did she have to kill him? She could have done away with Lupin instead..being a werewolf must have been difficult for him. I must say the Sirius Black in the movie was a total disgrace. Did you see that ridiculous little moustache!? Tchah! Then I developed feelings for Bill Weasely, but then he got bitten by that other werewolf and now is all ugly and possibly werewolfish and I dont really know if I want to continue liking him.

Right now, I just finished re reading the Chronicles of Narnia, and I have an enormous crush on Aslan. Some people have referred to it as my "unnatural lion fetish", but I think those people should be ignored. They dont appreciate true love. They dont appreciate the power and magnificence of the Lion.

So to return to my original questions and end this looong post..why are the cutest men also the dumbest and have you ever had a crush on a fictional charecter? Lets swap stories...

PS: The most inexplicable fictional crush Ive ever had was on Bertie Wooster. Well to be honest it was more of a soft corner than a a full fledged crush, but he was so hopelessly hopeless.....awww!

PPS: I seem to have missed out on one of my biggest fictional loves...Amit Chatterjee from A Suitable Boy! I dont know how I missed out on him considering the fact that I was heartbroken when Lata didnt marry him.

Photo Blog

I got engaged on September 11...We might forget our wedding anniversary but we shall never ever forget our engagement anniversary. It was a Punjabi ceremony called roka. Which involved a lot of touching of feet, and "jeete raho" and putting ghomta (ghunghat) during the puja. Oh and loads of cash..for me!! I dont have the enthu or the inclination to write a proper post, so I shall just post photographs.

FYI: I haaattttte having my pictures taken. And when Im forced to, I look horrendous...see for yourself



I think this picture can be considered my response to the Bagchi's silly pig tag. I felt silly enough with that thing on my head. It kept slipping off! I tried so hard to be all demure and bride like, but as is obvious I failed miserably.
Oh and I also forgot to touch his relatives feet when I got introduced...there were so many of them I got flustered...most disgraceful.







Rahul says if he sees one more kaju barfi he will go mad.











I agree!! I shall scream and get violent.













My in laws. As you can see, being demure is really not my forte. Cheshire cat like stupid grins..now that I can do.











I think I look relatively better in this picture. I like.

On second thoughts I am sooooooo short. Shit!!










I have been instructed to call Aunty Mom or Mama or Mummy(eeeeek). I cannot. My conversation goes something like this..."Hello Aunty"... glare.. " oops sorry Mama...henh" that henh has got to be the stupidest giggle in the history of stupid giggles.






This is my favourite picture from the roka. My hug phobic momprepared for this moment the entire day..steeled her nerves so to say. And walked resolutely up to Rahuls mom and just got it over and done with. I think Ill frame this one.

Happy Birthday to me...

About a week ago, both this blog and I turned a year older. I now feel rather old, and like most old people I am getting rather nostalgic about the past. (My past that is, not the blog's, the blog does not have much of a past).

I was an only child for the first 12 years of my life, and much pampered by all. My birthday parties were something of an annual event for near and dear ones. Weeks in advance Baba and I go to Flurys to choose a birthday cake. Those were the days when the roses and decorations on top of birthday cakes would be made of real marzipan and high quality icing sugar as opposed to the sugary crap or the plastic that one finds now. And such creativity. I dont know if its just the bakers in Bangalore, but birthday cake designs these days are singularly unimaginitive and boring. I had a Cinderella cake for one birthday. It was chocolate, and had a orange icing coated plum cake which served as the pumpkin carriage, and a marzipan Cinderella leaning out of the window, and a marzipan fairy godmother waving the wand and little marzipan horses pulling the carriage. Siiigh. Why dont I see such grand cakes anymore? Why do all birthday cakes these days have icky looking roses on top? Why are they shaped like a doll with pink frosted skirts? Most unappetising.

Anyways, so my birthday was this grand affair. I would have two birthdays, one on the actual day, which was restricted to close family, and "house friends" where I received gifts and we went out for dinner and the other was the Party! Always on a Saturday. With aaallll my friends from school, and my "house friends" couple of my cousins, and my favourite aunts and uncles. It was really a grand affair. My grandparents would come down from Purulia a week before the event, my aunt would arrive the day before with her brother and mother, my other two uncles would show up on the day of the event and then run around busily picking up the cake, and the food and all of that.

I always had new clothes for the Party. Atrocious styles that were in vogue at that time. ..do any of you remember this monstrosity that was the dhoti style salwar suit? The salwar was amde out like a dhoti...extremely ridiculous it was. I distinctly remember wearing a pink colour outfit in that style, and a pink heart shaped pendant on a pink ribbon around my neck. Please imagine a short, plump, bespectacled, short haired child in this pink concoction and have a good laugh. Oh...while you are imagining, also, imagine the aforementioned child with a THICK layer of talcum powder around her neck. My mother, for reasons best known to her, felt that the only way to beat the Calcutta humidity was to put 6 layers of talcum powder (applied wiht a powder puff) around my neck, chest and back. And I never objected. Shows you what a nice docile child I was.

I remember being almost breathless with anxiety before the first of my guests arrivied. What if noone from school came? What is they forgot!? What if...? But they wouldnt miss it for the world. SR had a stiff neck once and couldnt get up from bed to come to school, but she cried and threw tantrums till her mother brought her to my Party. She spent the evening lying on my bed or sitting with a huge pillow propped up behind her neck. T came...tiny scrawny T in ponytails, SS and PJK threw a joint tantrum one year when their mothers said they could not bring them over due to heavy rain. The tantrums worked and there they were! We shrieked and giggled and screamed till my mother called us to order with some party games. Passing the parcel, feed the joker...we sang and danced and fed the joker and laughed and giggled our way through. We cut cake, we ate dinner and then they went home and it was over.

But my Party never ended with my friends going home. My grandparents, uncles, aunts etc would stay back at our place...sleeping on matresses spread out on the living room floor. And then came the very best part of my Party...the day after. When we woke up late and sat on my parents bed to open my gifts. All of us...the whole family. We opened gifts, passed them around, laughed joked, oohed aahed, set aside some "repeat gifts" to be given off to someone else and got excited about the books and the board games. We ate the leftover food from the Party with gorom khichuri...and believe me when I say khichuri never tasted as wonderful as it did on that Day After the Party. We spent the day lazing around, playing Monopoly or Scrabble or just chatting.."adda" at its very best.

Of course things changed once I reached my teens. My parties now became a "day spend" with all my friends on a Sunday, where we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch, sat in a room with the door locked and tried our hands at the Ouija Board, and giggled about boys. The Day After the Party came to an end.

This year, a text message from a friend overseas brought home the fact that so much has changed, and so much more is going to change. From being Baba's "Allhadi" and Bubunpishi's Tinai and ma's "Penchirani"( do NOT ask...at one point I was apparantly inordinately proud of this name!!") and Jethu's "Tinuma" I will be entering a different phase in life...alone. Where I will have to build relationships from scratch. Be loved and accepted by some but also be judged, be compared by others and most horribly, be unsure of how to proceed. And this year, on my birthday, I realized that what made my Party so special was not just my friends, but also, most importantly my family. Not just Ma and Baba, but Dadai and Maam, and Bubunpishi and Jethu and Jethi and Chotomamu, and Bappada, and Babuakaka and Munkukaku....all the people who made it such a big deal for me, adults who got as excited as a 10 year old child and gave it their wholehearted best.

I wish I had realized this earlier, I wish I hadnt taken my family for granted. I wish I had made the effort to speak to Jethu one last time before the end. I wish I had known that the loud tortured gasp coming from Dadai's room was a sign that it was all over, and not just another painful transition to consciousness. I wish I had switched off the TV and rushed to his room to hold his hand and tell him what he meant to me. Its too late now. I shall spend the rest of my life remembering those wonderful moments of my childhood and feeling terribly terribly guilty about the things I did not do. I spent this birthday wondering how Jethu and Dadai would have reacted to Rahul, to the upcoming wedding.

On a more cheerful note, the rest of my family is the same...Bubunpishi used to get excited about Party decorations and return gifts. She is now excited about wedding invites, and hall decorations and bride decoration :) Chotomamu, the food coordinator of my Parties is now highly charged about the wedding menu, and related issues. Ma has been an integral part of deciding what I should wear for the wedding. She picked out the wedding sari herself, anjust like she picked out my birthday dresses years ago. Munkukaku Bappada etc are all thrilled to bits that I am getting married. Nothing has changed. Thank god. Thank god for my family. Thank god somethings never EVER change.