Ta dah!

This page is supposed to reflect me. Yes? So I wanted to give it a new look – I loved the earlier photo up there too – it was so serene, so beautiful – and utterly depressing. So in honour of Nimpipi dedicating a post ONLY to me and only me (yes luv, I am still overwhelmed), I decided that it calls for a makeover.
So in the middle of the night I first opened the earlier photo, got the dimensions and got busy photoshopping. I would like to imagine I am a photoshopaholic – I can spend hours, days, nights just editing photos and doing fun stuff with them – you may ask the one who became my mock-client while I tried my best to please her tallness, and we sat making a collage for her through the night.

Anyhow, more on my weekend. Saturday was spent whiling away. I chatted with 2 taxi-wallas, one from UP and the other from Bihar – both abusing the shit out of Thackeray (after discovering that I am a North Indian too) – “madam taxi chalane mein darr lagta hai”, one said while the other one was more aggressive “kisi ko bhi haq hai bharat ke koi bhi pradesh mein naukri karne ka” followed by more ranting. I nodded vehemently and told them to stay put and said “koi aapka baal bhi banka nahin kar sakta”. Politics is going to the dogs, as much is Mumbai with its new-age molesters and jerks who jack off on trains. A friend commented “Mumbai is turning into Delhi” – I said oh no no no, no one beats up cabbies in Delhi just because they can’t say “kute and ikde” (marathi for where and here)! Dilli Dilli Dilli – when shall I return to thee, I count the days!

I also met a school friend today, who is getting married in 4 days – a classic arranged marriage with her to-be-husband being the first guy she met and said yes to. I wasn’t surprised to see her happy and content – I was almost envious though – because this much would never bring me happiness… I expect too much, want to much, need too much out of a man – so seeing people whose lives are so simple and so simply joyous makes me wonder if being a “thinking” woman is actually an advantage or mostly a tool that will ensure constant dissatisfaction with what one gets versus what one actually expects of life. So I called P, and she almost reprimanded me for even questioning it – yes, my friend probably doesn’t even know what she wants and is happy with what she is getting, but if she is happy, it can’t be that bad, right?
I, on the other hand, feel that I will never be happy and totally content – because life isn’t that simple for me and adjustment is a word I really don’t like. So that’s why seeing my small town friends settle down and happily so makes me ask myself – would I be happier if I were a little under-exposed to the goddamn exciting world with all its multiple possibilities? In any case, what can be done now – thinking is a habit that is impossible to discard – so once the process has begun, lets fight the consequences dear friends, lets think some more – lets think about how to put one to sleep at 3 am in the morning – ah yes, shut photoshop, post this entry, stare proudly at the made-over blog, close lid of laptop, switch off lights, get into bed, stop thought.
Goodnight.

Access All Areas

Okay then. We are going public.
No more basking in my anonymity – for that I have created another blog and writing there is far more cathartic. No more saying “this is a secret blog” – with several friends of mine having the link, I realised it’s hardly a secret anymore. No more “oh god it’s so personal” – I have duly deleted all the whiney crying sappy soppy posts that used to periodically trickle in when this blog began and also realised that I don’t mention anything personal on this anymore. So I don’t see a reason why the critics and the regulars of the blogging community shouldn’t get a chance to comment / lash out / appreciate / criticise and love my blog.

Yes I warn you, it will not be funny. I lack that talent and envy Nimpipi for it. It will not be oh so political and ‘latesht’ – I suck at current affairs apart from the ones that are mine. *grin grin*. It shall not be hugely entertaining and mostly have posts about the purple sky and issues of vanity, the station I almost missed a train at and my lazy tendencies, some Sylvia Plath poem I loved or Madam Bovary’s infamous ovaries. It shall also be peppered with some poetry I churn out once in a while and some adventure I have (like almost getting killed in a taxi and ducking the cheap shots of fluffy-headed men hitting on me at the gym). Oh, once in a while I shall also gloat about the huge poster of Beatles that I just got framed – it is so gorgeous, it almost makes me cry each time I look at it for too long! And very rarely I will tell you about what is up at work and how working in the television industry can totally be the most sado-masochistic thing one can do to oneself. But more often than not, it will be random things that just come to my mind.

I am not very regular with this thing, but once in a while you may visit. And prithee, don’t be too harsh because I love the link it was born with and it would break my heart to change it. Actually, like I’ve said before, its my space, I breathe here, so see if I care. Anyhow, if you haven’t been here before, I welcome you to schizophrenic salad’s public journal.

Fellow Blogger Friends, you may add me to your blogroll,while I shall soon learn to make one too.
New readers?- You may scroll down now.

Beauty is Skin Peep?

I know life is getting better since I have stopped wearing any sort of (subtle or otherwise) make-up to office. There used to be a dependence on touch and glow. And then came a phase when calamine was the layer that would sort of let me get out in the morning. But of late, nothing…yes indeed…nothing and I have been able to get out without thinking that I may have to stand in the daylight and speak to someone long enough for them to analyse all my skin flaws… not like they’d care but anyway.

So much of what we are is derived out of the way we look. If my skin is bad (which has been the case since I landed in Mumbai and its been a long way downhill ever since), then I feel totally under-confident and very depressed. It’s terrible that I have to feel that way just based on the way I look. And it’s not just me, other women have these issues do.
I wonder if men have these problems…do they bother about the marks that zits leave and the tiny bumps they leave behind like a remembrance of sort. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even care. Or maybe it’s because all the men I know have been bestowed by naturally clear skin.

I was on facebook the other day, whiling away time…what else does one do on facebook anyway? …so I was looking through albums of some friends and I saw some women with terribly bad skin…and I heaved a sigh of relief sending a little thank you to god saying that I am not alone. Well, in retrospect, that was a terrible reaction to have. I should have probably felt bad for them…instead I felt good for myself. Sigh. What tangled webs we weave… of self-obsession and insensitivity, of vanity and such insanity.

Anyway, so my skin has marked considerable amounts of improvement. Yes I may not be glowing and all that but I am hopeful… if I can discard any form of make up then there is hope for me yet. But then again it is that time of the year again – the gorgeous winters - which seems to have passed by in a week – and the heat shall begin and the sweating and the humidity and the skin getting all confused all over again.

I really think my skin has a life of its own. Like it thinks for itself. And it is mostly confused. Because I am from a hill station and because I have always lived in dry places, being in a city where every 5 minutes I feel like my t-zone is feeling oily and moist, I can only assume that my skin gets confused…on how to behave and how to look…so in that confusion it ends up with worry bumps, which we no-so-fondly call pimples. But it’s been quite some time, I am hoping like I am adjusting to this place my skin will too – and one day it will shine with health and joy like it used to… till then I will just go back to my dermatologist on peddar road and give him a thank you message. I can get out sans makeup. Yay…. I can let my real skin peep into the world. It’s a day to celebrate my friends!


“Mary had clear skin
The lambs loved her dimple
Aloe-vera and antibiotics
Pop goes the pimple.”

Snacking on the Salad

I think my multiple personalities are acting as definite roadblocks in my writing excursions. Not that I used to write daily, not that I am a regular blogger, not that I even have a regular lot who reads my somewhat anonymous blog, but I do keep putting in – something or the other – like N mentioned last night, about Lizzy the lizard, the tampon joy and my effort to gym – I know its nothing monumentally or even remotely important…but its my life – and I am assuming (very gladly) that some close ones like reading about it once in a while.

Of late, I feel tired and lazy – more the latter actually – and because I write from 3 sides of me – the socially correct and politically correct me namely this blog, the surreal, streams of consciousness poetic me which would be the one I share with my best friend, and the open, loud, brash, shameless me, which is the third top-secret one – hence even when I sometimes feel a pang of desire to sit and scribble, figuring out which one is the role I want to put on now is such a mental task that the lazy side of me finally triumphs and I end up not writing at all.

However, another argument could be that, I used to write a lot when I was depressed, morose, disillusioned blah blah. I think it was all the extra time I had on my hands – it was like this – no boyfriend, no friends, no life = tons of spare time = lots of scribbling and regularly updating my blog. That’s why the time I was alone and depressed last year was the phase when this salad bowl experienced the maximum seasoning and garnishing. Now, it stands bland and rotten – with no new flavours and no new ingredients. And that, my dear friends, is totally pathetic.

Yes, so I am the tragic queen amongst my friends and I love writing about misery. In fact, I find it terribly difficult and painful to write anything funny. Don’t think though that I haven’t tried, but with repeated attempts that led to disappointing failures, I resigned to writing serious stuff and at times, just frivolous stuff that constitutes for all the light reading on my blog. And because of late there has been nothing serious or even mildly exciting in my life, I haven’t bothered to put it down anywhere.

Let me think about what I could update someone on my life and its many monotonous moments – the job is going on fine, I was supposed to go for a trip to Italy from office which has been cancelled and in effect broken my heart – all because I haven’t finished a year in the damn organisation – hence, my fellow friends and I, who they fondly label as MTs, short for “management trainees”, shall stay and rot in the office while the others gallivant around Italy and ogle at the delicious men there. Though I think that it’s a terrible waste that I am not going – what will the others do – watch some places and “wow” “wow” everything I sight – while I, a lover of classical literature and of art and architecture would have enjoyed the museums, and the colloseum and the gondolas and the Roman history goddammit. Sigh. But what must happen must happen. And so I must sit at office and sulk so those many days (and then maybe in my tragic horrors, end up posting stuff more often). So that was that about the update at work.

I have been negligent on the gym part and I feel that it was of no use. I feel like I wasted money and most weeks, when the score is 2 out of 7, I sit in the pool of guilt and wish I’d bought some clothes and a perfume instead. Or even a teeny-tiny diamond ring. Nahiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!!!!!

The slip disc is in control. I haven’t been relegated to bed rest till now. I seem to be doing okay. The boy in question is also fine. We all have our issues. We all sail through them. I suppose it’s not something one would discuss in this blog…apart from the fact that it may turn out to be mind numbingly boring for you, I’d rather leave all the intricate details to the censored blog I maintain and that I am quite in love with.

Mumbai is getting chilly in the evenings. It gives me great pleasure to be able to wear my sweatshirts and sleep under a blanket. But the sleeveless stuff hasn’t gone at the back of my wardrobe so that doesn’t say too much about what a winter we have here. But atleast, something is better than nothing.

Okay I think I have lost my flow again. I have become so floopy and indifferent and lazy. I don’t want to write because I feel it’s too much mental effort to write. But with people poking me and reminding me to keep putting something down time and time again, I am sure the salad bowl won’t die.

So till we meet again (hopefully not in the tragic mode), keep coming back to snack!

xoxo