And here, there be Dilberts..

Quick office update.

Have settled down amidst bilious pink walls. Poor R., who had just landed in B’lore, ran around getting plants to decorate the office with. Which led to some of the more.. erm.. hideous members of the fraternity to arrange themselves artistically around foliage and take numerous pictures.

We also have 3 clocks which range askew on the walls, and show wrong timings on India, US and Switzerland. And more importantly, a huge TV, where people watch enraptured while India looses match after cricket match.

We have no windows, so we actually call up friends at the other office, and ask them “is it raining?” 9am and 9pm are one and the same. Pathetic, really!!

A little counter, fondly dubbed as the “canteen”, storing our tea/coffee/lassi/assorted biscuits etc. is where we escape to, when in severe need to “let it out into willing ear”..

We are ALL uniformly Dilberts. We clutch and we cling, to our little cubicles, and even our own chairs and stationary, having hysterics when they are removed (our water jugs even have our names written on them).

Life is beautiful, or so says Roberto Benigni..

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

Sat in the bus today to come to work, bright fall sunshine on my shoulders. A motley crew crammed into the vehicle, an old woman with leathery skin squeezed me towards the window.

If I concentrate hard enough, it’s almost like our mountain bus trips at 4am, sleepily getting into the bus to go from one place to the other. People, faces split in wide friendly smiles, connections made because you share a same love and wonder for the land.

The Bangalore roads fall away, and up rise steep mountains on one side and the gorge on the other.

The mountains beckon…

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...


In random order.. mine..

Raindrops lashing my window panes, the sound of thunder as I sit sipping delicious hot coffee..

Soft baby whiskers on puppies, their cold noses snuffling in surprised enquiry..

Packages.. wrapped up in any paper.. I love surprises.. but my mother is terrible at them, her patent words are “I don’t know what you would like”..

My honey colored Lab and my baby white Spitz.. hugging them close can drive any blues away, miss them with a deep rooted ache..

Not strudels, but chocolates…with dark bitter centres, melting in my mouth.. and god only knows what “schnitzel with noodles “ is…

Crisp winter mornings bundled up under blankets, and I don’t have to get up for another hour..

Treks up mountains, nose and cheeks pink in the cold, smelling the crisp air, reveling in the quiet..

Rolling in hysterical helpless laughter with old friends, at nothing in particular..

Dum maro dum..

Religious fervor can only be understood, when one lives, travels and learns in the heart of South India. On my trip to Tirupati, with a gaggle of office mates.. which we shall comment on at greater length in another rave/rant party… we found ourselves with 24 hours as god had decided against giving us darshan.

Deciding a day in hand in worth two in the..well, whatever, we fell to doing our own bit of sightseeing. After much arguing… I found myself resigned to running around multiple other temples that seemed to be EVERYWHERE. In an effort to placate me, I was told that we would go to this place called “paapvinashanam” which was a WATERFALL, where one would also be able to wash away one’s sins, as the name suggested..

If any of you have seen Charlie Chaplin movies, you will know what I am talking about. As we walked down huge stone slabs crawling with people, saw an area where men would stand in line fully dressed. Each would go into a little room, and from the other side, would pop out a guy, wearing what can only be called “chaddis”.

By this time I was mystified AND skeptical. And my skepticism didn’t fail me. Paap-whatever turned out to be a huge wall, in which were embedded 5 PIPES.. from which sprang water. Millions of ghastly looking men, swarmed around in their underwear, vigorously having a bath under aforesaid pipes, in a concentrated effort to wash away god-knows-what sins. The Lifeboy ad put to shame…

Sigh!!! It WAS a trip all right…

I dream in Sepia

Have decided to record bits and pieces of those dreams which some people who read this, can identify with. Last nite, dreamt that P., my coz, and I were wondering in some rag-tag flea market. And discovered, in this delightful little bookshop, with dusty panes, and fading sunlight coming through the windows, and an old man pottering around after us, while we took in the wonderful smells of old books.. these old old notebook sort-of things, which were relics of P. and my past.. childish scribbles, recording random things.

My dida teaching us both English, on a weekend afternoons, from fairytales/storybook like text..

The two of us struggling manfully to write our own version of an M&B, about a female oceanographer and a man on the team, who calls her “boss”.. even at age 10/12, we were well on the way to emancipation. :)

And sepia toned pictures of the two of us, in an assortment of other people, pigtails and scruffy elbows, at diamond harbor, gorging on eelish maach.. P. did we EVER take pics that time?

In real life, I wouldn’t, couldn’t, for the life of me, remember our handwritings of all those years ago. But here it was like crystal..

The subconscious is a wonderful thing..

Last nite I dreamt I was in __________ again..

Last nite I dreamt I was in __________ again..

That’s a famous opening line in a famous book, tho I forget which right now.. if someone remembers right now, please enlighten me.

I think it was a confused entangled dream sequence with rain and family et all. For those of you who are unaware, various bits of the country are suffering under deluges.. one keeps wondering if a bit of land will suddenly break off and float off into the Indian ocean, like cream in a mixing bowl.

Anyways, I was back at home in Calcutta. Hugging my doggies and feeling so very happy, when suddenly, out of nowhere, came a little toddler with curly hair who just HAD to snuggle up to Leo (MY Lab).

“God knows where my mother had been hiding this brat of hers”, I thought irritably. “What audacity, doesn’t she know these are MY dogs, and she has no business to be here?” Wanted to rap her, for cutting into my time with dogs..

Looked out of the window, and the road in front of my house was gone, in its place was a beautiful, shimmery green expanse, gently undulating as people walked thru it. Faint dark shadows of roads that once were, could be seen in the semi-depths.

Spied didubhai (my pet name for my gran), wearing shorts and a t-shirt, cap perched jauntily of her head (similar to her attire at the beach) waving to me.. I think my dream must have caught up with her AFTER she finished her “dead float” :). Went down to the road, and brought her back home, with her on my back, like the “old man of the sea”.. not a very flattering allusion, but I’m talking of the mere posture here, people.

Back in my room, which, by the way, my mother has lovingly reconverted into a living room, the MINUTE I left home… and looked down to feel and wetness around my ankles. My room was afloat. Looked out of the window again, as I heard waves crashing into rocks below. We were perched on a little ledge, and our house had become a little hut, being buffeted by gales. Behind us stood a little helicopter, to carry us away to safety.

It says a lot of things about a lot of things, that my reaction was to pick up Sasha and Leo, and leave aforesaid kid behind. Remember dumping didubhai in the copter as well. I must have been really irritated, that I don’t remember Ma.. she must have been behind with strange brat. :-D

Came back to wakefulness with sounds of rain lashing my window panes.

an old old tale

Well, first there was the Pujos.. Shosti I was at work.. my concession to the celebrations was manfully managing a slithery chunni of a new churidar.. Saptami I took off.. and just went to the parlor, spent 3 hours there being pampered, and slept.. then in the evening, non-Bong friends came over, to experience “pujo”.. needless to say, it rained so heavily that the "maath" was floating in a sea of red muck… so, came back to the puja near my place, where they proceeded to gobble up fry, chop and mishti.. and came back to my place, ordered in food, and played taboo till 3 am..

Ashtami was the day our entire office set out for a corporate offsite, which was to last 3 days.. we left in the afternoon, for a place near Banerghatta.. we were staying at the Jungle Lodges.. so there we were, in timtimey light, getting relaxed.. a lot of drama stuff incorporated to get us “comfy” with each other.. role playing, trust exercises, so on and so forth.. very interesting.. winding down with lots of beer and kebabs over a campfire, while strange jungle sounds happened around us..

The next day, we were given some stuff to figure out our strengths etc, and also to see how well we collaborate/compete… needless to say, the 2 teams collaborated well within themselves, and competed really badly.. we became quite horrible.. tried to walk a plank, and slipped twice, after which my poor back refused to let my mind dictate it

After which, we were given this exercise of designing, building and executing a raft.. we had to plan how to build it, make it, and sail across a huge lake with it… 6 people to a raft.. so, we had this brainwave of building one designed for speed.. rather like a Kerela snake boat.. what we forgot to take into account completely was the fact that it was also the most unstable.. I was one of the “rowers ….so ¾ into the lake different people just tipped over.. the ones who knew swimming, practically refused to get back on, so we backstroked back to shore.. a very long haul…

Sat there dripping… with ACHING appendages.. I didn’t know so many muscles existed.. then went for a midnight walk in the forest, and pointed out constellations to each other..

Came back to camp around 9.30.. changed, went to campfire, guzzled more and more beer.. danced on the way to dinner.. then tried planchett.. 4 of us daring souls… we had gotten fired up by the stories I told of Ma’s planchett-ey days…obviously it didn’t work…. So we went for another walk through the forest at 1 in the night… intrepid explorers all….

Next morning, a particularly boring session with lots of “self- back-patting” the bosses.. where we all in different stages of “nod-off” then back home to sleep…

Lots of new friends made, and old ones renewed.. overall, very eventful..


Note:
Maath: a large park-like area, where usually pandals are built and pujas held
Mishti: the ever-so-famous Bengali sweet.. the most famous type being the rasogulla
Timtimey: light.. coming usually from a hurricane of sorts.. the ambience lends itself particularly well to ghost stories