Arbitness

Its been 2 years since the last post was written on this blog and in an afternoon of total boredom where i dont have anything better to do, i thought might as well re connect with this.

Singapore has been a 5 minute movie playing in repeat mode. Same places, same people, same food again and again. We thought it was the place or the lack of it - but we realized that it was us - getting old, getting stuck with the same routine, being happy with the predictability and mediocrity of life.

Maybe it was worth to change - especially when you know that the things you took for granted may not be with you anymore. That is was the kick in the backside we needed to take off our blinkers and look around.

And around we looked - to a place called Arbite in a quaint little corner of Singapore that no one had dared to enter before. Being a middle aged couple with significant financial difficulties, proximity and public transport availability were critical factors.

The place was up a rickety old steps (with a hole in the wall - literally) near chomp chomp food court. Chomp chomp reminded me of bangkok red light districts - smelly, hot and R rated food being served in humungous quantities - take it or leave it style. We decided to hit that place on a calmer day when we didnt have to share our table with sweaty uncles and aunties swearing at the top of their voices for the food.

Back to Arbite - the place is small and cozy - would have been better if it were outdoors, but given our level of comfort with AC, we didnt mind. We got the last 2 seats and ordered ourselves a sangria and something called Mint cooler (knowing who wore the pants in the house, the lady got the wine while the guy got the girly green cocktail with a straw and mint leaves). The drinks were refreshing and enough to last us through dinner,

Food was ordered in a jiffy - Eggs Benedicts for the Mr and Papar Delle with Parma Ham with Mushrooms for the Mrs. The food was homely and delightful - Eggs Benedict seemed as rich and sinful (or maybe it was me reacting to egg yolk after 2 hours of hitting the gym) and the Papar Delle was as comforting as mom's home cooked soup when you are sick in bed.

The highlight was of course dessert - My wife's chocolate cake (no she doesnt cook - its the name of the dish)  - sinful dark chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate bits. It was like tasting heavenly pleasures and hellish sins in a dish. Enough said.

Overall the trip was well worth it. Reasonable place, budget friendly, no snobbish folks, loud singaporeans having a good time and good food close by to home.

Onward to new adventures. May the blinkers remain safely tucked away.

the new life

So I moved lock, stock and barrel to Singapore.. From chaos to perfectly manicured trees.I was not sure what to expect! Setting up house in theory is great..would it match up in reality? And to someone who is hardly domestic, hates housework
As I unpacked my suitcases,and our new home was jam-packed with cartons,Id often sit back and wonder what my new life would unfold. And I was amazed!
…..How excited I was getting a salad bowl and the serving spoons to go with it!
….. The pure delight in tasting sambhar after days of bread and butter!
…..the Ikea trips where I gazed in wonder when Ben and I sat on some hazaar sofas to find the ‘right sofa that felt right’
…..our first dosa experiment in the kitchen which was a disaster from a geometry point of view but thrilling none the less
….the excitement of me using my bright orangey placemats as well as my black and white ikkat placemats :D
…..the first time Ben and I cooked dinner and served our very first official guests!
….and how proud I was of Ben making the chappati atta !!
….for lack of knowing an English word,a fancy oil patram (vessel) that ive seen all the cooking giants use that made me so proud to own it!

I’m not saying I’ve turned into a domestic goddess.Now thAT would take a miracle!.Just discovering a new side of me

Karma kicked my ass!

I promised to revive this blog but laziness got the better of me .I am trying to remember why I named this blog whatever I did and I read my first post where I promised myself that I would write about how I became/am becoming me J Gosh….what all has happened since the last time I wrote!!..The unthinkable happened. I got married!

I always wondered if I would ever get married.I am not the girl who dreamt about the perfect wedding/dress…none of that!I also always told myself I would never go out of my way for a man like across cities/countries/continenets, give up my job…so much for my womens lib!I ended up doing JUST that. Come to think of it whatever views I had about marriage and about the man I would marry,if at all i did…the very opposite of it happened!!l ife is truly what happens to you when you are making all your grandiose plans… blah blah!!

Status now: married to someone who I knew from 9^th grade!!( and I thought I would find him half way across the country/world…if I only knew this it would have saved a lot of energy!),quit my job in Bangalore and moved to Singapore.I find my life beginning all over, starting from scratch.

New place, new friends ,need to find a new job, and a brand new husband.Karma surely kicked my ass!!!

Ok! Im going to revive this blog...Its about time i think!Ive just completed 2 years at my current job and I am leaving it to begin a fresh new phase of life...intimidating,terrifying,exciting!

More on that later

being me...

amazing...i think i wrote this a year back... and never posted it
It’s been almost close to 10 months since I last blogged.. well not techinically..i discovered a post which on my laptop written on the 24th of Now

Its been a while…switched jobs.In fact just joined my new job a few days back.I’m slowly learning the ropes .I’m the newbie,the fresher,the kid that’s constantly asking questions.From their eyes I know that they are sometimes surprised at my enthusiasm but still indulge me by answering my questions with utmost patience.They know the fire will die out soon and I will slowly find my feet and place in the organization.

But my new job is not what this post is about.Just saw a movie called the breakfast club about 5 misfits of different kinds who have to spend an entire day in detention and they are supposed to write and essay about who they are.Ok,Im no longer a lanky teenager but am just wondering how we…my generation define ourselves.

I look into myself .Does my job define me,my friends ,the people who I hang out with ,the places I go to. Do I cave in to the pressure to look a particular way,to dress a particular way …yes it happens even when ure 26.I think we never outgrow the whole feeling of competing against each other.When we’re older it becomes jobs and then we use our children by tom toming about their achievements around town.

When I passed out of B-school we were defined if not remembered for our take home salaries and organizations we were supposed to join. That defined our success and failure. As I grow older its not only about the 6 figure salary but also about the man you manage to snag or the number of men you have managed to snag!!

Its sad.. but true..i look into my closet and see clothes I once bought thinking they were nice but am too afraid to ever wear it again in public..The thing is none of us really understand the importance of being ourselves.We ride the wave like others do…Im guilty of it too.At the end of the day..its upto us.

Very few people have the courage.I envy them.

True Love

Yesterday I called up an old friend of mine from college .She was telling me how TV deprived she was. The minute she said that she had just switched on the TV ..I began to rattle on about the new reality shop’Beauty and The Geek ‘and how ridiculously funny it was and how I was thinking including it in my regular TV viewing schedule of Wednesday on probation. Now that she was beginning to enter my world ,I began to asses what she wanted and how best I could help her out(known as the requirement gathering phase in the tech world)…like what time do you come home,what kind of shows do you watch. I was on a high..Exclaiming out…’Oh..Ugly Betty is on that time. It is a show worth catching,you will like it’. I finally felt like a consultant(that’s what a reasonable famous IT company has hired me to be!)And then without waiting for her reaction..without even stopping to breathe I started telling her excitedly about how my Wednesday evenings had become superb because of the shows lined up that evening. I went on to exclaim how Boston Legal was icing on the cake and how she haaas to watch it. Here was a field I knew something.I felt power,dominance,pride.It got me soo fired up.I didn’t want to stop .It was 11:55 and I think she had enough until I said…’oh..u if you wait for 5 minutes you can catch Scrubs!’ .She hung up.
I hung up and postponed my idea of sleeping to watch Scrubs.It was then that it hit me. I was in love … with cable television. You know you are in love with TV when
1. You set reminders on your phone of ure favorite show on your phone lest something unimportant and insignificant like your project’s deadline or picking up your best friend from the airport
2. You lie to your friends who want you to join them for dinner about having a stomach ache so that you can watch the season finale of ‘OC’
3. You postpone/cancel dinner plans so that you can watch E! News every weekday at 830 without any distraction
4. You stare at your watch while you are at work and wait till its 530 so that you can leave and are in time for Simpsons at 6.
5. All your conversations with friends are about reviewing recently premiered shows and convincing them to watch the show including sending reminders to them.
6. Your ego is severely bruised when someone callously makes remarks about your favorite show and you end up slamming the door in their face or hanging up on them and thinking to yourself that she/he is not worth knowing.
7. Everything about a TV show is personal. The characters, the situations, the villains
8. You decide to have a theme song like Ally Mcbeal.If it works for Ally,it should for you.
9. You cry incessantly when McDreamy breaks Meredith heart again and runs back to Addison!
10. When you are reading recaps of episodes of your favorite tv shows on Wikipedia that you have already watched in office.
11. When you begin to weave all your schedules of meeting friends/picking up groceries/paying your bills according to the TV schedule
12. The first thing you do after you move to a new city is to enquire about broadband connections and their speeds to start downloading sitcom episodes asap so that you can free yourself from the dictates of TV schedules and watch on your own time.

I was wondering how I became like this..I did escape the lure and magic of television all through school and college thanks to boarding school and hostels .I was glued to TV during vacations but then again what were vacations for.Even when I was working, thanks to night shifts I rarely saw the light of day let alone television. I think my infatuation began when I began to prepare for CAT in Trivandrum.But Ive realized that even 2 years in the tough rigors of a B-school have not made me forget my love. Actually it just helped it. I discovered the magic of torrents.p2p applications resulting in free downloads of sitcoms into my numb life .Suddenly I discovered a purpose in Bschool.There were many a night when I was up till wee hours of the morning watching episodes that I had just downloaded. My heart skips a beat,my hands start shaking every time a new season of Greys,or DHW starts. I still go weak in the knees and cry during the same scenes when I see a rerun of old favorite..I guess, this is what true love is all about.

the ‘late twenties’

It took a job to revive my blog! Since my last post, I earned an MBA degree, I joined an IT company, moved to Bangalore from Delhi, rented an apartment, became the proud owner of a fridge, and in 2 days moved to Hyderabad, Turned 26, wallowed in self pity because I officially moved to my ‘late twenties’, and well started travelling a lot more than I thought I would.
What is it about the ‘late twenties’ I wonder? Is it because I am no longer part of the attractive 22-24, fair, well educated ‘marriage market’ which leads me to believe that the only segment I now belong to is that of the ‘old maids’! Is it because I can no longer take my time with a prospective eligible bachelor and see how things go because time is running out. Is it because we realize that the idealism we had in our hearts to make a difference dies out as we suddenly become comfortable with our regular, routine jobs .Is it because of the pressures of society telling you that to have a healthy baby, it has to be before 30.Is is because whatever was termed as fun like partying seems boring, inane and sometimes pathetic all of a sudden. Is it because you start worrying about repayment of educational loans, money, investments the future and making a life. Is it because you start feeling a lot more insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
Does age have to do with everything? Maturity, Intelligence, Marriage, making babies..??
I guess I am just freaking out. But I thought that was part of being a teenager. Am I not supposed to be a calm and composed mature woman in my late 20’s .But I guess something’s never change…and I wonder how much of it can be changed with age