Twelve mistakes you made in 2013

N.B:  Don’t be alarmed by any of it.

      When you ditch your closest friends and your brother to spend the worst New Year ever in the most happening place in India, take a hint, you got some bad mojo to start the year.

      When invited to visit the house of important people in your future life, accept graciously or live with the decision, don’t crib about it every opportunity you get even if it’s only in your head.

      If you imagine that your closest single friend will not take your getting hitched well, if you feel uncomfortable, it’s called instinct, follow it, instead of conducting an opinion poll & trying to garner support, you don’t need to secretly obtain political support for your party.

      You don’t get points for forgetting to mail the invitations or sending them to the wrong email id, that’s just an excuse. Whatsapp & Facebook are not replacements of a telephone call.

      If you invite a friend from outside the city to an event remember to include him in all the group gathering, anything else is an excuse.

      Not keeping in touch with friends who are abroad because you are engaged is exactly the hypocritical thing you would hate. Making the effort to get on Skype for a man instead of your friends makes you a loser.

      Just because a colleague and a friend did not reply to your sms or call doesn’t mean you be an egoistic bitch, and complain to everyone about it. Calling her or mailing her would have taken less time.

      Blaming a good friend for good solid advice which prevented you from doing something you know you would have regretted is called being a bitch. God knows how many times you have peddled advice; at least no body threw it back at your face.

      Just because you are not in the mood to attend to some surprise guests doesn’t mean you can pounce on the under the guise of small talk or look bored, that’s just misbehavior. The least expected is diplomacy & interpersonal skills, in all walks of life. Not having the decency to call them and apologize immediately just makes you a delusional & defensive idiot.

      Just because your vacation plans with your friends isn’t final doesn’t mean you don’t share it till the last moment, that’s just plain rude and to defend yourself over this is juvenile. Where’s the honest spirit in this? Try walking in the other’s shoe for a minute.

      Just because you are in the habit of panicking before any travel doesn’t mean you throw a public tantrum in the guise of a fake call to a friend & behave hysterically & not bother to apologize & pretend to be the victim. You know you are wrong but you would rather be the Ostrich.

      Just because you have lost a parent or left your job or got married shouldn’t be an excuse for anything that you did or didn’t do, nor should that give anyone the right to dictate who you are. Grow some ovaries. Do the right thing. Stand up for yourself.

What Married Women Talk About- A confession

I have many girlfriends who are married and most of their conversations center around their mother in laws, who seem to be 'pain in d wrong places' kind of humans & I simply do not understand why do they exist. In my own superiority complex I have forever been convinced that if & when I do get married I will not be one of those women. Those women who constantly bitch about their in laws and crib about their husband.

But we all have assumptions about who we are or will be. And usually these are wrong. In my case, it is no different. I can foresee my future. But the small consolation is, all my girl friends are in the same boat and I will have people who will show me some sympathy.

So, here's me climbing down from my High horse, and apologizing to every one of you who have heard my silly, bland, off the cuff, hand me down, moral sermonizing & not slapped me for being naive. I now understand it takes a bitch to deal with a bitch and never again shall I tell you to keep calm and ignore [unless it is absolutely necessary to prevent you from committing manslaughter] & I will let you vent your frustrations as much as possible. And if possible join in with a few anecdotes of my own and may be we will both laugh out loud & feel less like taking the chain saw or rat poison to the in laws.

The 'C' word

When I was growing up for some reason I remember being terrified of the 'C' word. I thought for the longest time of avoiding it. I even planned & imagined scenarios where if forced how to avoid the 'C' word. When I outgrew the childish fantasies, I worried needlessly on when & where the 'C'word would grab me unaware. I looked everywhere always on my toes waiting to side step the 'C' word. I preached to all who would here that their lives would be better without this. I was disappointed to the point of being disgusted of people close to me falling prey to to the dreaded 'C' word. The best of my best people, the one's I idolized fell victim to this spreading disease.
And then at this ripe old age, it slowly dawned upon me that the one thing I have been avoiding has always been a part of my life just as it has been a part of everyone I know. There is no living without the 'C' word. The best accept it. Who am I to run around yelling myself hoarse convincing myself that I will never end up with the 'C' word?
So yes, finally I admit to myself that having run from it for the longest possible time I have come to accept that COMPRMISE is part of my life & I cannot ignore it.

Which is the one word you have wanted to avoid in life?

Not a morning person

I have forever wondered what it means when folks tell me that they are a moring person. Doesit mean they like morning? Does it man perhaps that they like the sunrise? Does it even mean anything at all?

Most people who tell me this seem to be chasing the Sun, waking up in the wee hours of dawn and persuing some ferverant activity. Either they study, jog, exercise, cook, clean or worse take a shower in cold water.

Now their example has made me realise that I am not a morning person. Unlike them my alarm only goes off at about 8and after a snooze or two I manage toget out of bed just before 9. I stumble around trying to figure out what is it that I'm suposed to do. In about half an hour I manage to get ready for work, stuff my face with food and rush out the door to my car. Mostly in a daze. I don't like being spoken to during this time because I'm in no mood to commnicate. I don't accept calls for the same reason.

As I type this I wonder what happened to me. As far back I can remember I have always had to go to a morning school, ge up early to study, yet over he last few years I seem to have given up on the ways of the world and given myself over to being utterly lazy. So come winter or summer I seem to clingto my bed till 8 when rest of the worldis wide awake and rushing about with purpose.

Here I am , on of those odd days, awake since 5 in the morning and havingtravelled across a state line waiting patiently at an airport lounge typing a blog post.

I begin to think, may be I don't have to be one or the other - morning or a non morning person. May be I do not need to define myself at all.

I love you, Goa!

I have been to Goa. Yes, I have been to the famed beach getaway and I'm in love. I cannot begin to justify my love. Where do I begin? I can talk to you about the diversity and natural richness. I could talk about the laid back lifestyle and how it reminds me of Ulysses and the lotus eaters. I could talk economics and qoute petrol price may be even go completely consumer focussed and do a price comparison of alcohol across states in india. But honeslty Goa would shrug and shuffle off at the mention of numbers and analysis.

Goa had greeted me with cloudy sky and a drizzle and mesmerasized me with the greenary and ever changing landscape. I found my senses overwhelmed by Chorla ghats where misty clouds drenched me. The forest looked both alluring and scary reminding me of the Lord of the Rings. The dark black asphalt road beckoned to come on a ride, find new places in the nooks and crevices of Goa and forget the world that existed outside Goa.

Goa is not jus one entity, it is perhaps a conglomeration of the nature, the ambience, the weather, the people. Yes, Goans make this place what it is. As a tourist you gape at every structure you pass in Panjim city and click goes your digicam. No one flinches or moves a muscle. You don't feel out of place for a moment. Perhaps it is my imagination they don't seem to notice us.

The architecture of Goa always suprises you. Everywhere there is something unique or special which catches your eye and makes you stop in your tracks and stare. The churches that are scattered across Goa lure you for one more untold story.

The beaches each of them different from the last. The sand feels different at Anjuna or Candolim or Calangute. You start noticing the sea comes towards you differently at each beach. At Anjuna you are graced with frothy white foam in each step. At Calangute the sea seems distant and more concentrated in its effort not really worrying about what you think. At Vagatore the water is clearer carresing you, sometimes playful but mostly serene.

As I got closer to my date of return I realised I was falling hopelessly in love with Goa. I had to come back. I had to let my spirits get drenched in the chilled water of the beautiful falls on Chorla ghat, I had to shut my eys and pray at the old church, I had to build a sand castle on candolim or anjuna beach, I had to spend the entire night under the starlit sky listening to the songs of the sea while digging into a chocolate pancake. How could I forget the gastronomic delight that Goa is? I think my long term relationship with Goa has begun.

The New Year Post

Every year it is customery for me to either end the year with a post or begin it. In 2013 I'm late for both. Call it laziness or procastination. This year's post is modelled on a the "points to remember" at the end of each chapter of our high school books. Things I learnt in 2012: 1. Nothing lasts forever, Human life is too transitory to come with any warantees and gurantees. 2. Revenge is a dish best served cold. But serving it means spoiling one's own appetite for a very long time. 3. Friends and foes are mutually interchangeable depending on how happy your life looks from the outside. 4. East India has no decent cities to travel to, apart from kolkata, what we have as cities are merely big suburbian towns stretched out for lack of options. 5. I've a ridiculous belief that I can be a regular member of a health club. 6. There is never anything to wear just when you thought you will not shop again for the next 6 months. 7. A good looking vampire or a serial killer does as well as a good looking Bf as in all the above cases you are staring at a idiot -box. 8. Online shopping is injurious to financial health and should come with a statutory financial warning. 9. Working sucks especially if you are doing somethig you dislike and are too proud to admit to hate, or too chicken to give up because then points 5. 6. & 8.may be jeaopardized. 10. Happiness is still pretty over-rated. Happy New Year , Everyone!

Not a Kaahani Review

If you have watched the movie you cannot talk about the twist and ruin it for others. You can only post generic comments about the actor Vidya Balan and wax eloquent about the city - Kolkata. I read all the fb posts of my friends and their friends and grew frustrated not having seen it. I wish everyone who had watched it before did not take the 'spoiler alert' too seriously and told me the twist at the end, the waiting for the twist is always interesting but is also nerve wrecking. I am also glad no one told me, because I had my own theory forming when the last 15 mins ripped its thread and shocked me. It was not a twist for twist's sake like an Abbas Mastaan thriller, it was a well formulated twist, which once revealed took you back to the really subtle hints left through out the 100 mins preceding it.


But I am also not shying away from admitting that the build up to this movie left me slightly disappointed. Team Kaahani is not to blame, it is the nature of human expectations.


Team Kaahani, with director Sujoy Ghose is full of Bengalis, set in Kolkata there are only a handful of characters which are played by other actors. So it's a huge boost of , umm can I hazard saying, Ego? Each of the actors who I see in crazy slap stick comedies or adaptation of Ray classic or in the daily soap playing on some Bengali channel shook my pseudo intellectual upturned nose and eye roll, they were good, they were not actors, they were characters, they were the manager of the guest house, they were the officer at the police station, they were the amayik bangali bhadralok who always began with "namoshkar" and ended with a gesture to God.

I have already said too much.


There will be pages written about Vidya who out does herself in each role she picks up, she looks the same, she does not need to change the way she looks drastically all she simply adds is may be a cloak or a loosely done hair, she does not have the limited expressions that is bane of most other's in her generation of actors, but somehow, she is now a star, and never in the 110 odd mins do I forget that. None of us can really look at her and think of Vidya Bagchi, we look and see Vidya Balan. I feel over sensitized to her arched eyebrows, glimpsing a little of The Dirty Picture.


I sat down to not review the movie. So, here is what I actually wanted to talk about.

Satyaki 'Rana' SInha, mind blowing performance as the guy next door [ which is an achievement in itself, movie after movie to be that guy next door] fresh recruit to the Kolkata Police, wanting to do the right thing, afraid for his own job, hard working, trying to be honest, caught in the middle of the kaahani of Vidya Bagchi & Kolkata. He had third most screen time in this movie after Vidya and Kolkata. So, there he stands fiddling with the PC which he can't use too well, he stares at the woman in front of the Police station, he looks away when shouted at, he tries but fails to stand up to a superior in rank, feels amorous towards this woman who doesn't seem to notice him, thinks about her on his journey home and makes an exception of receiving a call from home. He mumbles everytime he does something unlike himself, he runs, pants, falls, throws clumsy punches, falls down, throws garbage at the attacker, he is not the hero, he is not the clever intelligent guy, he is not the hot guy, he is definitely not the cool casual guy. He is Rana and somewhere in the Kaahani you wonder was there a sub plot that could have unfolded. But that is conjecture of the romantic heart.

Parambrata Chattopadhyay, plays his character with restraint and remains "the charioteer of Arjun" like his name suggests.


What got me over the initial disappointment I felt after the great hype of the movie, is Rana because well, I have had the biggest crush on him for like ever....!!


On a serious note, my city never looked so beautiful, the camera captured everything, the grey pavement, the lighted Howrah bridge, the dark water of the Hooghly, the old buildings crumbling, the tea stall.... a city can be romanced, and this is how one should romance a city.


I think thrillers cannot be watched more than once, but Kaahani can be watched a few times over, because now that you are no longer holding your breathe to get to the end to find out the truth, you can relax and observe Rana's eyes move over the face of Vidya, or notice how he slips to "Vidya" from "Mrs. Bagchi", when he wants to do the right thing, and makes it clear that he is in this Kaahani by choice, the choice to be with her, close to her.


May be I am blinded by my crush, but once you have been awestruck by Vidya Balan and Kolkata, please do think about Rana, Bob Biswas, Mr. Das, Paltu and Rana again. They make this movie what it is. A Kaahani worth the watch many times over.