Finally a long weekend! Finally that lucky lucky year when Republic Day is on a Monday!!! Yipee!!!

Republic Day has always been a very special day for us (my family)... it's the day Mom and Dad got married after seeing each other for about 12 odd years! So, this national holiday has always been a rather festive occasion for us. Ever since I can remember, dad has always cooked lunch and we've gone out for dinner and then cut a huge cake! As kids, Pookins and I didn't have much pocket money going around so we couldn't take mom and dad out or even get them anything more than a bouquet... so we would just make them hand-made cards and pick up small presents...Dad still has all those cards.. he keeps them in a file! :) Love you dad!!! This year, 26th Jan is going to be a little gloomy cos dad's away in Doha and so to cheer mom up, Pookins and I are whisking her off to Pune for the weekend! We will be staying at my maasi's place and have grand plans to visit some hillstation or the other...Though I am certain all I will do is zzzz and finish some pending work! Inspite of that, Iam really looking forward to Pune.. I love that city!! Will also catch up with Dodo, who is moving lock, stock and barrel to Pune.. Yipee! :)))

Unrelated, the MOST hideous song is stuck in my head.... I think Anu Malik has sung (If one can call that singing!!!) this one...

"Dekho barish ho rahi hain
It's raining, it's raning, it's raning
Mera dil ro raha hain...
My heart is paining, it's paining, it's paining.."

Ugh!!!!!! I need a new song in my head people!!!!!!

My Lucknow trip was AWESOME!!!!!!! Too bad that it happened in the middle of the week cos that means getting back to work, which you don't feel like doing cos you have had the most awesome time in the middle of the week! So, very reluctantly I will drag myself to the piles of work that needs getting done!!!

Have a good weekend people!!!!

It has been a rather action packed weekend... go to Flotsam to read about my first proper matrimonial ambush! I think I did pretty good, considering that the shocked betaji didn't think I was "his type"! Hee hee hee!! *smug evil grin*

Though while the matrimonial ambush lasted, I was mad at the world and its cousins, later I realised that I hadn't had that much fun in such a lonnggg time! So, I am all set for the next one.. in the next ambush, I promise to play Dumb Streaked Hair... will come up with gems like "Indian Express is a train" and how 'Hit me baby one more time" made me cry at the thought of teenage violence etc etc.... *Grin*

Sunday was spent taking mom out shopping... Mom was kinda feeling low and so Pookins and I decided to make a day out of it- went to Bandra, then hit town, lunched at Basilico and got home late in the evening only to vegetate in front of the TV and watch assorted award functions!

This morning, wasted 45 minutes or so listening to Jitters drone on and on and on about the complete lack of men in her life! Guys, if you know any single, Gujju, 30 something man, please pass on his info to me and I will pass that on to Jitters.. On second thoughts, nah.. I don't want to inflict Jitters on anybody! When I am not blinded by professional hatred (ok, I am exaggerating here, I don't really hate her.. she just exasperates me!) there are these brief moments when I actually feel awful for Jitters!

Am going to me MIA (missing in action) for the next two days.. am off to Lucknow on work! Will come back and post! Till then, rock on people!

Alright, something decent had to emerge out of all the angsting I did in the recent past.. so HERE it is!!!

Special Thanks and Hugs going out to Jottingz for designing this page! :)) She is a STAR!!! Thanks again gurl!!!

I will be posting stuff on Flotsam over the weekends... which is when The Ostrich Files acts up! See all of ya at Flotsa, then??

Been out of office for the past couple of days and have been getting home rather late..so no post!!! Hmm... so here is the much-delayed post on 'love names'!

Will keep things simple and do a countdown of some of the most bizarre 'love names' I have had the misfortune of coming across. Feel free to leave some of your personal favourites in the comments box! :)

10. Jaan: Fairly common love name (LN) this! Mostly used by men... always reminds me of the 'rakshash' stories one heard as a kid where the 'rakshash's' JAAN would be captured in a parrot or some such useless bird so that to kill the bad guy, the prince would have to kill the poor bird!

9. Jaanu: Almost the same as 'Jaan', except that the additional 'u' gives it the feel of baby talk and the much avoidable kootichie-koo effect!!!

8. Sweets: It sounds especially pathetic if combined with other endearments like 'Munnu sweets' or some such! Have actually heard a batchmate refer to her boyfriend as 'Munnu sweets'! I almost choked on the chicken manchurian that I was having for dinner that night!

7. Cutsie pie: M actually has a colleague who calls his wife cutsie-pie. The poor guy choked on his beer when at a party at this colleague's place, the colleague (very casually) said, "Cutsie pie, is the dinner ready, honey?' Let's just say M never looked at that colleague in quite the same way after that night!

6. Chote ele: Don't fall off your chair as yet! This is exactly what a batchmate called his girlfriend, who in turn called him 'bade ele'... and they weren't even overweight! It was most disgusting to be around when 'chote' and 'bade' ele would order food from the canteen. A typical exchange: Chote ele, sweetie, want cold coffee? No, bade ele, am off it for sometime...but aap lijiye na! *Puke*

5. Baby/Babes and many other variations: Alright! Someone please tell me why would anyone in their right mind want to refer to a full-grown adult by this particular endearment??? This is one LN that leaves me completely flummoxed!!

4. Munchkin: WHY? OH GOD WHY??????

3. Tupee Tops: I dont know what the hell this means, but this is something that a seemingly intelligent colleague's wife calls him! I happened to answer his extension once and even before I could say 'Hello', I was greeted by "Tupee Tops when should I see you for dinner?" I stuttered that I obbviously wasn't Tupee Tops and that will leave a message asking him to call her back! Tupee Tops has, since then, nosedived in my opinion!!

2. Bunny Boo:

1. Peachy Pie:

2 & 1 deserve a separate post.. which I will do at some point over the weekend! Bunny Boo is what Peachy Pie calls her husband of 3 months! They are friends and batchmates of mine from B School who are otherwise fairly sane!

So, people let me know what you think of these and add some of your favourites and maybe we could do a Top 20 or something!!!!

Have a good weekend!!!

Alright, I am going through one of 'those' phases where nothing makes sense. Nothing I seem to be doing makes sense. I have discovered (I admit I was in denial) that I have drifted along for too long. The flow has brought me to a place I dont want to be in and has morphed me into someone I... I barely know.

I lack any kind of professional ambition or drive. I am not too sure where I am headed- professionally and in general. The joyride has been fun so far. Now I need to stop and take stock. A weekend's worth of angsting didnt help. Meeting up with two of my closest friends who are also going through something similar didnt help.

I am jaded. I am oh-so-bored. I don't know what-next! Someone HELP!

On a lighter note, was subjected to the worst kind of noise-pollution on the train this morning! A newly wed woman was cooing irritatingly mushy things to her 'jaanu' loudly enough for the whole compartment to hear her! So now all of us on that particular train know:
1. 'Jaanu' loves bhindi
2. 'Jaanu's' wife banged her elbow somewhere in the kitchen this morning
3. 'Jaanu' is insensitive (allegedly so) cos he didn't notice the banged up elbow
4. 'Jaanu' now has to make up for the aforementioned insensitivity by taking wifey out for dinner and a movie.

Poor 'Jaanu'!!! And poorer co-passengers! Will soon do a post on lovey-dovey names that people in love have for each other and my completely inability to understand why anyone would call their girl friend 'peachy pie'??

This is one of my another all time poems. I have it on my softboard at work and Jitters didn't know what this poem meant! :))

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleand my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripend grain;
When I behold, upon the nights starrd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

~John Keats

It's Friday. Rads is in town. We have dinner plans and book-shopping plans. Will be seeing her after almost 6 odd months! So am sure there will be loads to talk about and loads of angsty, existential conversation will also occur!

I have realised that I have drifted along so far. Didn't control the ebb and flow, instead just went with the flow. It's not been bad at all. Sometimes it is nice to be flotsam in the greater scheme of things. To just head out and see where life takes you and what it throws your way. I guess dealing with these two things takes up most of my time and energy! For once am wondering what it would have been like had I chosen a definitive path for myself... Maybe someday I will.

Given my frame of mind, no guesses on the kind of stuff that will be discussed over dinner!!

Have a good weekend amigos! I will be posting stuff here over the weekend!

This post is completely inspired by Piyush's post on travel and kids and the menace that some of them can be!!!

Disclaimer: I happen to like kids. I get along very well with them. I especially love well-behaved kids like our very own Shibu. However, there are times when I wish kids were like pretty stuffed toys- cute but dumb! I mean unable to talk kind of dumb. These rare stress-points are when I am travelling, especially by the painful early morning flights! This incident happened last October when I had to take a very convoluted route to get back to Bombay from Guwahati!

October, ergo Durga Puja around the corner. The entire east-north east circuit is on the move. Flights are chock-a-block with people trying to get to Cal for the occasion. I, on the contrary, happened to be in Guwahati on work. Spent two days in that city, soaked in the earthy beauty of the Brahmaputra, ate a lot of fish and finished the work that I was supposed to do. It was now time to get back to Bombay... to aamchi Mumbai so that I could be with my parents and Pookins for Durga Puja. Small hitch- all flights from Guwahati to Cal (so I could take the connecting one to Bombay) were full. There was only once a week flight from Guwahati to Bombay. Waiting for that particular direct flight meant spending Durga Puja alone in an alien city. Something which was neither Plan A nor B nor Z! So, I decided to take a rather convoluted route so I could get back home on time for Pujo.

Guwahati-Delhi-Bombay. That was the plan and at that point in time it seemed to be the only way out of Guwahati. The only airline in which I managed to get tickets was good old Indian Airlines. The Guwahati-Delhi flight took off after a two-hour delay! Well... at least it took off! Found my seat and also found that three little angels (they looked like angels.. they ALL do!) were going to be sitting next to me. Like I said, I like kids. These darlings were siblings between 4 to 1.5 years of age. Two girls and a boy.

Frist half an hour it was all good. They seemed scared of flying and so were sitting quietly and taking it all in. Another half an hour later all hell broke loose!!! Lunch had arrived and the angels thought it would be a good idea to convert their plastic spoons into catapults and fling the gulab jamuns all over the place! The first missile hit the befuddled air hostess, who inspite of all her cabin-crew training, glared at them! The second one hit a man across the aisle who looked most stunned and then glared at the kids. A bit of the third gulab jamum hit me on the shoulder and I resisted the great urge to empty my butter chicken on their collective heads! Gulab jamuns done. Now it was time for the paneer chunks! This time they started with their parents- so mummy got a huge paneer chunk rubbed into her hair while daddy got it on his shirt. You would think that the parents would, at least now, put the brats over their knees and spank them or something. Instead the mummy coos- Mele sonu monu..... mummy ko paneel khilaya! And the daddy also, in a fit of being equally indulgent, said, 'daddy ka shirt ab jyada sundar lag raha hain na..mere betu ne is pe kyaa lagaya...mela betu raja'!

I was aghast! As were the hapless people around me. The brats, in the meanwhile, finding suitable encouragement from their progenitors started throwing food all around. First was the rice, then the salad and then the mineral water!! By then I had completely reached the end of my tether and asked the mummy and daddy to make these cretins sit with them or take them far away, cos if any item of their crappy vegetarian Indian Airlines lunch even touched my spotless white chikan kurta they will have hell to pay! I found support from all the co-passengers around me. Mummy looked rather deflated and sulked while daddy was a little intimidated by my ferocious glare and so he took the cretins and moved away to the back of the flight, which is where they parked themselves for the next hour till we landed in Delhi!

The collective sigh of relief couldn't have been any less louder than the one heard on Piyush's train to Delhi!

I have a few reasons to smile today!!!

1. Saw the Mumbai Bloggers Meet pics posted by Ashi! They are such cool pics! I wish the ones Arun clicked get developed soon so that everyone else can see how much fun we had that evening!

2. Rads is in town!!! YIPEE! YIPEE! YIPEE!!! And I have taken over her weekend completely.. she is in Ahmedabad today and so I've asked her to go to Banhdej and pick up some stuff for me! This weekend promises to be FUN!!!

3. Jitters will not be my boss for too long now.... (I can't even begin to describe how happy that makes me feel... it feels like someone has switched on a 500 watt bulb inside me!!!) Thank you God!!!! My new boss, in fact, is going to be my old boss from my last job... makes sense? Maybe not.. but I think S (my erstwhile superboss) deserves a post...so will do that soon!!! No more Jitters, no more Maverick.... and no more getting killed between the two of them!!!!

4. I found a pup huddling under the stairs of my building last night... so now Brownie has a home...and he has the most adorable brown eyes in the whole wide world!! I have a pet!!!!!!

5. I am travelling to Lucknow around the end of next week! I love Lucknow... lived there for 4 years as a teen and have loads of fond memories that I am just waiting to revisit!!! :))))

Now all I want is for the rest of the week to scoot super-fast!

This mail from my buddy Himz made me laugh uproariously... so much so that Jitters almost had a cardiac arrest! Thanks himz for sending this... if only I had laughed a little louder... *wink*

A background...two of our school pals-PP and Sadhu (don't ask me why we call him Sadhu.. we just do...!) were in Vegas for New Year's Eve... and himz somehow managed to get this nseaky bit of info on what they have been up to.... I love the way he's writen it.. in shudh hindi! Himz, you would do Meera Ma'am (our class XII Hindi teacher who spoke in sanskritised Hindi!!) VERY proud!!!!

.....Namashkar...abhi abhi hamein 'vishwast' sootron se khabar mili hai ki hamare dal ke kinhi do saathi USA ke Nevada praant ke Las Vegas naamak nagar mein atyadhik rang-raliyaan manaate huye paaye gaye! Sootron ke anusaar, nav varsh ki poorv-sandhya par hamare mitra Shrimaan PPG (as in, PP Ji) hamare ek anya sarv-sammanit bandhu Shri Shri 1008 Sadhu Maharaj ke saath Las Vegas ki vaatikaaon tatha jua-gharon mein samay vyateet kar rahe they. Is prakaar, PPG (jo ki apni atyadhik tharkee pravatti ke liye kukhyaat hain!) ko hamare Sadhu Maharaj ne kisi bhi 'vishesh-kreeda' karyakram se vanchit kar rakha tha.

Gyaat hota hai ki isi beech "kayee baar" PPG Sadhu Maharaj ko 'goli tika ke' chhoo-mantar ho gaye the. Visheshagyon ka anumaan hai ki PPG ki tharkee pravatti unhe na jaane kahan le gayi hogi. Is samvad-daata ko pata chala hai ki Vegas nagar mein tharkee vyaktiyon hetu anek 'kreeda-ghar' uplabdh hain!

[ At this point I'd like to quote the great Pedro, who once said, "Rocket aur Tharak insaan ko kahin bhi le ja sakte hain!". For more such wisecracks, please refer to Pedro's Quotes on the Bitter Truths of Life (published in hindi as Jeevan Ke Katu Satya). Now back to the story.]

Atah, is samay tippadiyon tatha afwahon ka bazaar garm hai. Public ko doosre ke phate mein taang adane ki to aadat hai, isliye har vyakti atkalein lagane mein jee-jaan se juta hua hai! Ab dekhna ye hai ki Shriman PPG is vishay pe kuch roshni daal ke sachchaayee par se parda hatate hain ya nahi.

[{(All those who could read this whole darn thing in one go and understood it all, kudos to you!! ;-) And those who are still going "what the ....... is this??!!", shame on you!! Go get that high school hindi grammar book out again!!)}]

Wish it were a Sunday....... ra ra ra... but it's just another manic Monday....

That's the song in my head... and it won't get out no matter what I try!!!

The good news is: Meetings with KJ and eKta Kapoor have been postponed... (there is a God!!!) and we don't know when they are likely to re-schedule...which suits me JUST fine, thank you very much!!!!

The bad news is: Saw this first thing in the morning when I logged on to rediff to check the scores! Who cares?!!! This goes to show that Britney has indeed lost whatever was left of the marble that was already in the process of losing!!! Gosh!!! Someone send her off for a mission to Pluto or something!!!

Unrelated, M is in town... we are trying to match our bizarre schedules and inconveniently located offices so we can meet for dinner... won't be surprised if we don't make it... either for dinner or forever... am pretty numb right now... the pain will sink in soon and I guess a post seeking sympathy and TLC will be up....and then maybe someday I can look back and laugh! (Rads, I love that line... this 'I'll look back and laugh' line is Rads' welcome note on her cell phone!) Mine for today is 'So Numb'.. completely inspired by the Linkin Park song...

Ashi, please help me with a decent template for my blog-from-home. I hate that template and it depresses me so much that I don't feel like posting when I am at home... so it's a vicious circle! :)