• A cursory glance at the search terms that lead people to my blog reveals that ‘girl riding pulsar’ usually brings them to the Thick Plottens every few days. However, when I googled the term my blog didn’t come up at all. It puzzles me, and I don’t like things that do.
• Speaking of stats, mine have been climbing higher in the past few months than they have the whole of last year. I’d rather not know why, it just makes me happy.
• Scrubs Season 8 is quite terrible but I will still watch it because I love JD and I love his appletinis and I like random idiocy.
• A group of people were having a business meeting the other day at table next to me in a restaurant. A newcomer enters to join them. Convener of meeting rises and very politely makes the introductions. “Mr. Reddy, meet Mr. Reddy.” Hyderabad just cracks me up.
• Self-control is the key to happiness.
• Today I realised just how much I’ve changed. Suva and I got back after a particularly trying day at work and we were both starving. In half an hour, I had settled down with Chinese food (chilli chicken and soft egg noodles ) even though all my life, I’ve hated Chinese, and she had a bowl of Maggi (which she didn’t even know how to make until she started living with me). The tables have turned and the transition is finally through. Though I still draw the line at mustard, mayonnaise, mushrooms and biryani.
• My dependence on Google Talk at work is quite frightening. But this is what happens when you can actually feel your brain wailing as the inanity around you threatens to overpower it.
• Relationship advice can come from the most unlikely quarters but I’m glad that it did. Thank you, Arpit. Today’s was fun! May the shadow of our mythical book club never grow less.
• The past ten days have been an intense experiment of plans every evening and hectic sessions of beer, bad music and idiotic conversations. Sometimes I think it’s a relief to slip back into the relative solitude of stay-at-home nights with my laptop and the books that cry out for attention.
• I’m glad S is back. I missed the random spur-of-the-moment conversations (even when both of us are too busy) and I need someone to bounce ideas and thoughts off. This is probably quite incomprehensible to those who have no idea who I’m talking about but that’s okay.
• One (very) high point of our life was when Suva discovered that we get Sun TV at home. We spent too much time consequently watching soaps and squealing every time Prabhu came on screen for an advertisement. Tamil television kicks Telugu television’s ass every single time.
• I need to read the newspaper every morning. Even reading it in the evening will not do. And I need both The Hindu and The Times of India. Just for both broad and detailed perspectives. And because it’s fun to see the frequent mismatches when you compare stories.
• 2009 is nearly over and it’s been a decent year all round. My favourite years ever were 2004 and 2007. 2009 is now a close second and will remain that way, unless if I have a phenomenally good time in the 3 weeks left.
• We’re finally off probation. A round of applause, please!

And I couldn’t be more addicted to this song if I tried.

Title Source: Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols

Sometimes I’m so ridiculously stupid that I get into the most idiotic scenarios and I want to kick myself. But then there’s always the consoling thought that no matter what, there are other people who are equally — if not more so — idiotic. Cheap comfort but it works sometimes.

Title Source: She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd

I don’t know what it is about romantic comedies. I didn’t really like a lot of the ones that most often come to mind when you mention the inevitable chick flicks — Sleepless in Seattle (blah blah blah), Pretty Woman (yes Richard Gere is adorable but supremely annoying), Notting Hill (kill me, Julia Roberts is annoying and blank and Hugh Grant really needs to get a grip and stop shuffling around babbling politely about books), He’s Just Not That Into You (by far one of the worst movies ever made and pretty much summed up that all women are losers) and The Wedding Planner (I’m sorry, Ms Lopez, but you shouldn’t try acting too much). But then there’s stupid movies that stick like How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (they’re both so cute!) , Love Actually, Never Been Kissed (Michael Vartan was my first love..after Ruper Everett’s Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and One Fine Day (Michelle Pfeiffer AND George Clooney) and you get warm, fuzzy and completely, vulnerably smitten.

Who doesn’t want a tempestuous opposites-attract romance with formulaic friends and battles and clashes of ego that lead to one person leaving to catch a plane after the climactic battle that proves to be the last straw, only to be resolved by the other person indulging in a mad chase sequence that ends in a Kelly Clarkson-esque love song?

The cynic in me explains that it’s the media that drills all these ideas into your head, about love at first sight or aggression and hatred that turns into lust and then, in a lightening-bolt flash of clarity, into the shocking realisation that.. could it be.. you’re in love. But then again, it’s all meant to be feel-good anyway. The reality of circumstances that just don’t resolve themselves, families that might just hate each other, and chase sequences that ended in one person actually leaving might make more sense, but it wouldn’t make you as happy or hopeful, I suppose.

Then again, people really aren’t that pretty, George Clooney probably wouldn’t have a kid at the same school as your own, cute little cinematic kids are probably annoying and whiny little brats, there’s isn’t usually a convenient ball to dress up for so as to have someone fall in love with you, the credits won’t roll just when they’re supposed to, and life isn’t that uncomplicated.

Still fun to pretend though. And I’m really not as misanthropic as this makes me sound. Even if I do dislike The Alchemist (why don’t most people?!) and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Oh well.

Title Source: You Were The Last High by The Dandy Warhols

Since I’m in a very random mood, this will be yet another of my trademark bullet posts.

• Hyderabad is totally growing on me. There’s still a lot that I find to crib about but as we get more settled, even the bitching becomes more routine than real.
• I know a lot of people who hate going in to work on Mondays and dread the long walk to their cubicles which will be their cages for the next week and so on. Somehow I don’t feel that way. Might have something to do with the fact that I work only about 6-7 hours a day. And I work Saturdays. So it’s not really a weekend hangover.
• I never in my life thought that Hard Rock Cafe would be the place we’d go to almost 3 times a week. Tiger beer with SP and Su and lots of The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and miscellaneous rock and roll.
• Kamikazes are deceptively mild and can have dangerous consequences.
• Being John Malkovich is a fantastic movie.
• Three cheers for Newsgate’s new messaging service. Production work has gotten new meaning, and alerts are the new way to communicate. Poetry can be written and friends can be found in the blink of an eye.
• It’s possible for old friends to become even closer by bonding over the unlikeliest of things. And it feels pretty damn good.
• You can spend about 13 hours a day with the same person for weeks on end without even feeling borderline annoyance or frustration. To the point where your family even starts adding her to their self-help mailing lists.
• The weekend (that is, quarter a Saturday and then the Sunday) is always over before you know it.
• Every person needs a flatmate to help you accesorise clothing and loan you pretty shoes.
• While the rest of the world appears to be saving, I’m now used to the month-end chill when I’m living off my last hundred bucks. Though I wouldn’t give up on my splurging on books and clothes for anything.
• I don’t leave home without my kajal and iPod. Even the wallet has been left behind on occasion. Priorities.
• Growing up apparently means chasing the plumber, giggling with the maid when she comes in and insults your hygiene, desperately avoiding the building manager, taking the baby gas cylinder for a stroll every month or two, paying our rent in what my father terms the most low-tech method possible (“use internet banking, for God’s sake. or at least a chequebook!”) and trying to keep track of the names of the many watchmen that people our building.

I like my life.

Title Source: Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin

I’ve been in a beautiful CCR mood over the past few days. It’s Hey Tonight and Molina which my sister used to obsessively clean to, Proud Mary which was sitting in my room and laughing over Gerald Durrell, Bad Moon Rising which was a very strange moment at Star Rock, Have You Ever Seen The Rain which I rediscovered when they played it for the December Boys trailer and then countless road trips, Cotton Fields which was my mother singing in the kitchen. And Suzy Q which was long hours of absolutely nothing and unadulterated happiness.

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again.. life should have its own soundtrack.

Title Source: Proud Mary by CCR