Don...Don...Don....

As quoted by a world-famous common man who gives motivational speech standing next to a lamp-post near Malleshwaram grounds- “time barbeku saar time-u” (translated: what ees the right time, sir, please?), this blog-post too was waiting for the right time. Whatte beautiful wisdom. Profound.

Teehee okay I’ll stop my out of context talks. So as I was saying, this post has been waiting to get published for more than a year now. Yes yes I know it isn't surprising, I have a master degree in procrastination. But like Mr.world-famous-lamp-post-man says, time saar time-u.

Last year, when fellow-blogger-singer Vimmuuu, and I were generally chatting about songs, singers and AR Rahman (not in that order), he suddenly suggested -"aye why don’t we record a duet?" It got me very excited as I have always wished to record a duet number. Thus, we immediately started hunting for songs and finally, aaj ki raat (movie: Don) seemed like the right choice (I hope you people agree :)). I first sang the female vocalist's lines and mailed it to him. He later recorded his lines and tadah! the song was ready. Well, not quite. Vimmuuu then worked on the post-recording/mixing bit, all techie stuff, and made it sound all professional. Both of us agreed to post the song simultaneously and hence had to wait for the 'right time'.

So finally the auspicious day has arrived heehee.. Also, Don-2 is all set to release tomorrow. By re-visiting this song, I hope Shankar-Ehsan-Loy (some how land on our blogs) reminisce their Don-1 days and help us live peacefully by not scoring atrocious music (such as Don-2 tracks). Yep now you understand the context.

Presenting aaj ki raat, for the first time (simultaneously) on two blogs. I hope you have as much fun listening to the track as we did singing it.

Please do let us know your feedback; brickbats and bouquets are welcome!

And thank you Vimzy boy :) Hope to sing more such duets with you :)

Aaj Ki Raat by Full_Meals

p.s. Contact us for birthday parties, ladies kitty parties, anniversaries, naming ceremonies, wedding reception.. what? Really. heehee nah. Just kidding. On the other hand, if your party budget is high then we may re-think *wink wink*

p.p.s. You can read Vimmuuu's post here

Kapaki

My 1 year 7 months old niece (aka Puttudu on Full Meals) and I were busy arranging building blocks (our favorite game) today. While building a particularly difficult tower we heard crackers being burst. Her eyes widened when she heard 'dham dham'

Me: (sounding excited) Yenadu? (translated: What is it?)
Puttudu: grins and says "dham dham dhamaar"
Me: yes correct. Thats pataaki. say 'pa'
Puttudu: 'pa'
Me: 'taa'
Puttudu: 'taaaaaa'
Me: 'ki'
Puttudu: ki
Me: Pataaki
Puttudu: Kapaki

and thus began the Kapaki chant.
This is just the beginning of my deepavali celebration with Puttudu. I am loving it!

All you lovely people have fun. I wish you a very Happy Deepavali :)

Kilimanjaro

All characters/properties mentioned in this post are NOT fictional; they live and breed among us. If you raise your hand and yell “I know!” while reading this post, then you, my friend, are a victim of corporate drudgery; you have no place but your workspace/desk/2X2 cubicle to rot.

1. Receptionists/front office ladies:
Re-cep-tion-ist
noun

Traits- Age: 23-ish
Appearance: Maroon lipstick. Dark blue eyeliner. Straight hair. Purple lens. Sits next to another receptionist. Traits-30-ish. Appearance: Maroon lipstick. Dark blue eyeliner. Straight hair. Purple lens.

The spinal cord of any organization.
Nah! They are the ‘acting’ owners of your organization. They ‘act’ as though they own the whole dam(n) place. They also own the employees who work there and so naturally own their time as well.
Scene 1: Unfortunately you are in a situation where you need to contact your HR *tut tut*. Say, for example, the company’s internal attendance tool was *cough* under maintenance *cough* and now you don’t have the stipulated number of working hours in your kitty *giggle* Oh alright sorry. No giggling. But it is funny ha ha ha..

For reasons known only to the HR folks, mortals like us are not allowed to enter their workplace. You have no choice but to seek help from the kind reception lady. You say -“Hi. I need to see the HR-chick-who-wears-the-shortest-of-the-short-skirts-and-is-seen-posing-for-pictures-on- Family-Day-next-to-the-COO”. And the reception lady gives you a “can’t you see I’m busy playing solitaire” look and says ‘please wait’ with a sigh. But then she forgets to inform the HR-chick-who-wears-the-shortest-of-the-short skirts-and-is-seen-posing-for-pictures-on- Family-Day-next-to-the-COO or so you think. Big mistake. You wait for 5-6 minutes. Remind her. She nods or just stares at you. You read Economic Times (spot errors and silently laugh at their editorial team). You remind her, again. She ignores you. You read Bangalore Mirror. 25 minutes and you have had it. You say “I have been waiting for 25 minutes!”. Receptionist lady replies - “I told you no, she is on leave today” and spits (I added the last bit. Too crass no? teehee). And you just look back at her mika-mika blinking your eyes. Well I have a theory, you probably fell asleep while waiting and she came and whispered in your ears or something.
“After all a noun in the English dictionary” you might say, but the noun rules your life my friend.

2. Stationery folks:
Sta-tion-er-y
noun
Not to be confused with stationary (adj): Not capable of being moved
It’s a tad ironical. Really. These folks are perpetually on the move. You don’t find them at the stationery counter when you need them. Yes yes I’m talking about the Chitraguptas’ of our organizations. They keep a tab on our every move. In short they know our life history. We cannot run away without signing that little book of theirs. If we do forget to sign *evil laughter*remember, he/she is THE Chitragupta. We’ll be sent to hell, mark.my.words.

Sample this-
Employee number 007 –12th August - 1 Notepad (signed-by 007)
Employee number 007 - 12th August - 1 red marker (signed-by 007)
Employee number 007 - 1st September – 1 Notepad (signed by 007)

Look look, in less than a month you have already taken two notepads *gasp*. The stationery bhaiyya will scowl if you go past the counter. Of course you can hardly blame the guy if YOU scribble so much on those flimsy notepads. Scrawl on post-its and stick it on your forehead. DO NOT take another notepad for rest of the fiscal year.

3. Room Fresheners:
Freshen-er
noun
Side effects: Claustrophobia. Migraine attack. Slight drowsiness

Now, what’s the deal, do tell me housekeeping ladies? Do you and the makers of the awful smelling fresheners (normally rose or jasmine scented) get combined sadistic pleasure by spraying the fragrance all around the floor? Can you imagine the amount of stress we go through while you spray the dreadful substance *shudder*. The thought itself makes my migraine crawl all over my head.

4. Jargon:
Jar-gon
noun
Speech or writing having unusual or pretentious vocabulary
(I so agree with the ‘pretentious’ bit)

Jargon is the key to your survival in any organisation. Years ago, as an innocent fresher, even before I could say ‘sodexo coupon’, I was thrown into a meeting room full of people who looked extremely angry and worried about some client feedback. 40 people kept throwing jargons at each other and all I could think was – “so, err..come again? What was that? Touch base-aa?” *giggle* “Why is it so cold inside this room?” “Why isn’t anyone sitting on the chair?” “And the guy in blue shirt isn’t all that cute, is he?”

5. Tea/Coffee at office:
Enough said!

All you experienced corporate slaves go ahead and add to this list I say.

Let me explain...

So, THIS is a blog. THIS is how people type. THIS is how people delete the opening sentence and type again. So this is .. err what was I saying? OK have patience. Time please. Hmmm ... err …. Oh yeah, right, blogging. So after my epic 56th post, I lost my memory. (Anxious readers can relax. I cured myself. I hit my head against an ancient tree next to my house and tadah! here I am, this is me. True story). This is a valid reason for not having blogged, no? Yes yes of course it is. You folks can snort. It’s tough, coming up with reasons and all. People need professional qualification to list valid reasons. But not many people have it, now, do they? *evil laughter*. So all you bloggers out there who find it difficult to come up with reasons, don’t fret, coz The Great (non) blogger Shruthi is here to the rescue.*drum rolls* Presenting *trumpets* Top 5 Deadly reasons for not updating your blog *drum rolls*. The mundane- too much work, need to feed fish, facebook-ing, tweeting, Ikebana classes are passé. Without further ado, here goes the list:

Reason #1: Amnesia. Also known as “Main kaun hoon? main kahan hoon? syndrome”- a syndrome, due to which a blogger forgets everything- right from computers, internet, log in id’s to bluetooth, android, google and thus blogging.

Reason #2: Dog ate my blogpost. This is not my kinda reason, but there are dogs that gobble blogposts. Let me explain, blogger Pulakesi overhears his colleagues gossiping next to the coffee vending machine. Excitement! Harman Baweja! Himesh Reshamiyya! Shashi Tharoor (but of course his life is bollywood-ishly entertaining)! Pulakesi notes it down on a tissue paper. He comes back home. Gunda, his pet dog, finds a tissue paper lying next to Pulakesi’s blackberry. Pulakesi hates Gunda’s drool on his Blackberry. And for poor Gunda it’s a moment of ethical dilemma. Blackberry or tissue paper. tissue paper or blackberry. Gunda decides to keep the flag of his clan high, and eats the blogpost.

Reason #3: Blog Rehab. So says a blogger- “oh it’s a long story. My shrink thought I was addicted to blogging” *gasp* “hard to believe isn’t it? And he said I needed a break from blogging. *double gasp* I had to get my pocket knife out. Well the scene after that got pretty ugly and I was put in a blog rehab. Now you know why I went missing” *aww*

Reason #4: Zandu balm. Blogger comes home after a very tiring day at work. Switches on the idiot box to catch Priyanka Chopra (PC) in hot-pants (only if it’s a male blogger. A female blogger on the other hand might watch it to LOL. Everything about Khatron ke khiladi is hilarious- the way PC sways while anchoring (she THINKS its cool), PC’s perfectly manicured nails, milind soman's beard, tattoed anchor guy, PC looking terrified of snakes/roaches/spiders/ropes). Sorry I digress. So blogger switches on TV and lands on “le zandu balm hui darling tere liye.. Cinema hall hui, darling tere liye” whaaa? Who writes such stuff? Blogger is excited. He *thud*... falls unconscious. 5 weeks. no blogging.

Reason #5: Miscellaneous- Traffic jam, bank holiday, Lehman collapse, Bangalore rains, dinosaurs and of course CWG.

56

Firstly, thank you all for your suggestions. Helped me, really. My sleep pattern is 'new and improved' *clap clap clap*. Now I feel like those infomercial folks. You know those Sauna belt teleshopping programmes which are dubbed in hindi/kannada/telegu/tamil/gujarati? You have seen them right, how they have a 'before and after' expression? Same to same my expression. Jokes apart, thanks people :)

And about the whole profoundness that bothered me (yeah yeah - selfish/selfless) was due to a weird phase that I was going through. Thanks for being so kind and answering my directionless question.

Moving on, this is my 56th post! whoopeee (1030 odd days & 56 posts? err FINE laugh laugh.. pppffttt). So as I was saying , you can send in gifts, chocolates, pastries, dinner coupons.. oh wait on second thoughts send cornflakes, apples, low cal gajar ka halwa, cucumber, and other such low-fat edible items *snff*

and this song is dedicated to all you lovelies. Hope you like it :D

blah

I’m not in my best of moods today. So you may exit this page if you feel bored.

and no, I'm not PMSing

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My insomnia has reached new heights – I have started taking tips from my friends who are doctors. One of them, still doing her specialisation (sweetest doctor she’ll make), suggested that I drink warm milk and read a book (for 10 minutes) before I go to bed. She also talked about some acids and chemicals which would result in me dozing, I lost her and became a Wrackspurt victim. Anyway my ignorance about chemicals did not discourage me, I did exactly what she asked me to do; but I ended up sleeping only after finishing the book. Then she said – “read work related books”. I did that and got so bored that I had to read another book to get rid of my boredom. And drinking milk didn’t help either, guess I got more energy to stay awake. I don’t know. Tan ki shakti .. mann ki shakti and all

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People in Bangalore have suddenly become very health conscious. I don’t like it much, the awareness I mean.

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I am confused. The other day I was talking to a dear friend of mine and when we were about to say our “goodbyes/take cares/lets meet and wolf down some steak at Millers 46/return my book/dvd you moron”, my friend all of a sudden made a discerning statement -

Friend: “Shruthi, you are not selfish” me: “err…” friend: “you are a selfless fool. bye”

No, I’m not bragging. The label of being selfless is disturbing. It’s not right. I feel like a total dumbass.

Is it good or is it bad to be selfless? If I do a cause and effect analysis will I get a clear picture of all those painful circumstances I have been through because of my dumbassness? Maybe I should do that. Draw a chart and see how it fits.

Let me open this up for some debate. Which one screws you the most - selfishness or selflessness?

Love in Shimla - Final

Love isshtory

Cut to Shimla.
Oh before that you need to know what happened in Kulu. Well nothing really happened. We saw a plank with 'welcome to Kulu' or suchlike printed and our bus proceeded towards Shimla. Our itinerary read – ‘Reach Kulu’. So we did and left immediately.

As there was no possibility of finding snow in Shimla, our enthusiasm level was low. We reached Shimla sometime in the evening. I was missing River Beas. Shimla looked nice with lights and all but I just couldn’t get over Beas. This made me sulk. We reached hotel and began shifting our luggage. I was about to lift one of the heaviest bags when I had a YashRaj movie moment. A tall guy was walking towards our bus. It was hard to ignore him. He had a charismatic presence. Certain people have that effect. I kept a tight hold on my bag coz, who knows, he could have mugged us. He reached our bus, and a song played inside my head (trivia: I CAN be romantic). He was undeniably the best looking guy I had ever seen, I think (I don’t remember his face now). He looked at us and smiled. You know, one of those lopsided ones; like Milind Soman nah I’m just exaggerating. But he did smile, I remember.
Lesson number 10: I think its time we stopped obsessing over Milind Soman. He is old. He looks very old. Passé.

Nineteen year olds’ who are fed on Jane Austen and Mills and Boons can be unreasonably romantic in such occasions. A friend of mine giggled.
He said “hmm hi. Do you need help?”
I said nothing and pretended to lift my heavy bag. Few of my friends agreed. He picked our bags and walked back to the hotel. We all looked at each other and had only one thought running on our minds. “Is he staying in this hotel?” My friend broke the silence with - “Do you think he is a porter?”. We thought of using the non-existent knife on her for getting us back to reality. He disappeared into the darkness after dumping our luggage in the lobby. Yes. He was gone! Just like that. We couldn’t even thank him. I sulked some more.

Next morning our breakfast table hardly saw us eat and mostly heard us talk about the cute guy. So where was he hiding? What was he doing here in Shimla? Did he own the hotel? Or was he a porter? We didn’t see him that morning. We visited mall road, shopped and decided to return to our hotel. The sun had set several minutes ago coz it was surprisingly dark outside. The place looked very nice and you'd think nothing could go wrong. Well well to our luck there was no public transport. We had no choice but to walk. Locals were confident that we would reach our hotel in 20 minutes flat. But they were so wrong. It took us an hour to reach, not without some adventure.

There was no proper route to our hotel and we had to ask people for directions, which was not easy as there weren’t many people found on streets. We walked on the main road and saw a board with our hotel's name and directions. Happiness came. Then we had strange men in jeep follow us which made us take a diversion where we met an old lady who volunteered to take us to our hotel. We had to trust her coz we were tourists. Tourists don’t have choice. Stupid tourists.

Got back to our hotel, thanked lord of seven hills and the kind old lady. Of course we discussed about the cutie while we walked. By next day we had no hopes of finding him. Probably he was just another tourist. Or he was a figment of our imagination. Our tour operator had arranged a camp fire for us that evening. We all danced (I just moved from left to right). Other tourists were caught looking through their windows with a packet of popcorn. It must have been entertaining.

My friends and I unsurprisingly got tired of dancing and decided to click pictures as it was our last day in Shimla. We found a scenic place, a garden with lot of pretty flowers and were posing joyfully when we finally saw him. He looked better than we thought he did and was wearing an exquisite jacket (a big fan of jackets, that’s me). He noticed us and volunteered to click pictures. I just shrugged and looked around for support from swooning; well he was talking to me after all!
Lesson Number 11: My experiences with cute guys have been pitiable. I shrug or look away when they talk to me. Sample this. Don’t come to me for advice.

We all sat next to the garden and smiled goofily while he clicked our picture. We thanked him and he asked if we were having fun in Shimla. We replied something incoherent. He then enquired about our stay, my friend’s suspicion about him being a porter was growing stronger. And then he left with a wave. We giggled until Sr. S (our lecturer) spotted us and rolled her eyes. We reached our room and discussed whether his eyes were grayish blue with a tinge of brown or just gray or just blue. I lost track of shades after a while. I liked his eyes, yes, but I liked his corduroy jacket better. I should have asked where he got it from.

The following morning we narrated this incident to another friend of ours. Apparently she and her roomies were as romantically stricken by him as we were. With nothing else to do, we spent 15 minutes discussing the possibility of finding him in Bangalore. Whatever. My silent wish of a romantic encounter (a la Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge) almost came true; only mine ended before it could even begin.