How To Know If You're In Gurgaon...

Okay, if you've lost direction and were headed towards the NCR...here are some useful tips that'll help you figure out if you've reachedGurgaon!

1. You encounter 5 portholes a minute
2. The bulls on the roads have horns bigger than anything you've seen particularly when compared to the puny horned bulls of Delhi
3. The dirt car parking lot guy has seperate parking rates for the weekend and weekdays!
4. You see more malls than people
5. You see more cars than people
6. You see more buildings with more cars and more parking space than people
7. People from all walks of life carry a laptop regardless of job description.
8. The cobbler has a much advertised mobile number and offers free home delivery and pick-up and is thinking of acquiring an ISO Certification soon.
9. The same cobbler is eyeing a posh office space to open his new branch of 'footwear repair innovation' targetted at corporates whose shoes might break during office hours.
10. If you're working in an ad agency in Delhi, you're proabably handling his account.
11. Everyone buys groceries from Spencer's
12. In gurgaon, you've truly have a 'global' job when: your boss sits in an office halfway across the world and you work from home and connect using your neighbour's wi-fi to communicate with your local office which is just down the road.
13. When you enter a mall, and see a whole bunch village people, you're filled with respect because you know they come from money, own expensive cars, have big political contacts and some not so legal contacts as well and if they're last name is anything like Chautala or Hooda, you might end up bowing politely to them.
14. And lastly, when using the toilets remember: the flushes flush automatically (not always at appropriate times though) and the water from taps have sensors (which may or may not work - subject to strategic placement of hands under the tap at the correct angle at which the sensor can detect movement and urge the water to flow out!)

The House

Last week i read this really interesting book by DS. Yes i love reading romantic fiction, but this book was more about finding yourself than romance. I bought the book on the spot because after i read the story description i remembered i once had a strikingly similiar idea for a screenplay long back. The story about a woman going through a rough patch in her life and she stumbles upon a house, a big one which has remained unloved for years. A structure that wants to tell its own story to one who'd care to listen and restore it back to health. As she restores the house, she's able to restore her life and piece it back together by getting rid of what (and who) caused clutter in her life. The House by DS was on a subject very close to my heart and she did justice to the concept. I felt happy and hopeful that life is full of possibilities after reading the book. We just forget to be open to exciting possibilities - which Danielle Steele's books always remind me to be.

If you've ever seen the movie 'Under the Tuscan Sun', it too is a great story of a woman finding herself a villa in Tuscany. I've always wanted to own grand homes across the world (i still feverently do!). My fascination with homes could also do with the fact that my grandad owned a palatial mansion in Kuala Lumpur of which i have fond childhood memories. It was almost auctioned when i was 10 when my grandfather expired. It was 12 years later that i was able to set eyes on it again, when it belonged to someone else. It was painful to see but i was not without the desire of having it for my family again. Something always wants to relive former memories of glorious days which is why we keep going back, trying to pick up a piece of ourselves from a happy past.

Taking The Plunge...

As the time comes closer, the heart goes pitter-patter (sorry for sounding 'Oh-so English'! but no better word to describe it!). The impending wedding in December that i spoke about earlier has been well-worth the wait. For one, i've discovered that i can be this mean person who screams and cries at the drop of a hat (cellphone might be more apt) and the person i'm about to marry keeps his calm. Infact, it is at times like these when he becomes this loving caring virtuso. He does have his moment and his failings like the countless times when he's promised to wake up and go jogging with me, or invest some of his money in relatively safe investments, things that i'm hopeful will happen some day...

Today he cleaned up my computer table and re-did the wiring so that my PC, laptop and another gadget could all work together. Trust me, i'm greatful!

When you tell people you're engaged, they immediately place you in a category which is something i've been grappling with to this day. You're placed in the 'not available - therefore not hot-therefore invisible-therefore of no consequence box'. Its weird. Okay i understand that i'm not single anymore which clearly is a sign that i;m not available either, but lately i've noticed that my presence being of no consequence as compared to my single counterparts really ticks me off! Like at work, everyone will hear what this single cute chick has to say and when she says lets all go for coffee, everyone goes for coffee. I on the other hand have to cajole my way through *sigh*. The only people who are willing to have coffee with me are the other married women in my office...its like everyone leaves us alone. But the funny thing is, since i'm not yet married, they don't fully accept me in their clan either! So between the singles and the totally married, i am in between worlds.

This whole transition thing is really getting to me, because i often wonder, even after i'm married, i'll still be the same person...but to make sure i'm not categorised differently, i'll have to wear a different attitude alongwith the magalsutra!

The Heavens are calling...

Lately, the changing colours of the sky have begun to fascinate me, the brilliant optimistic blues contrasting with the mysterious deep blues in the evening sky are simply ethreal.

The colours of the sky are more different during the rainy season than otherwise, try observing that. Its as if the sky's getting a good spring cleaning these days :)

When doves cry...

Prince's song has inspired me to write a few lines to what i think what its like when doves cry...

when the fight's all gone out of you...
when all that remains are ashes and feathers of the dance of life

when the cry of an innocent embeds itself in your soul
you cry, you laugh, both at the same time, knowing no one can hear you
wishing that someone would

when you watch yourself in the mirror as you cry
amused at how distorted your face can look

when dreams change or when you have no more
no wish to dream anymore
no new paths to create

melancholy sets in
creativity dies
desires melt away

distant dreams remain so
life is nowhere close to what you imagined it would be

what's happening to me?
am i dying a new death?
living a new life?

is this how it is when doves cry?

Engaged to be married...

Nobody ever told me about this, i wasn't prepared for the force of it. In a second, a decision changed my life, my outlook, life as i knew it would never be the same again.

The catalyst for change i'm talking about is marriage. No, i'm not married. My current status is 'semi-married', and if there isn't such a term, well, i just created it, because i'm experiencing it! Hence this state exists.

I am engaged to a wonderful person, our wedding date is set for dec 2007. People sometimes smirk and say, "you won't be able to hold out for that long...have you ever heard of a year long engagement in our culture?" The culture in question here is punjabi. Anyway, my point is, i couldn't agree more with those snide remarks, but my reasons are vastly different.

The day our wedding date was set, i realised that no decision regarding my wedding would be based on my approval. All details from my wedding dress to the venue would be based on practicality and convenience. If i favoured a plan, it will be ditched, because whatever the youngest (spolied come automatically to my mind here) daughter wants, can't be practical.

So anyway, i have given up all decisions regarding the wedding plans keeping in mind that what's more significant is the fact that i get to spend the rest of my life with someone i cherish (i hear more snide remarks coming my way).

A lot is changing, the family that i loved, the aunts, everyone is suddenly on the attack, filled with a volley of advice that they constanlty hurl at me in shifts, "don't buy a new wedding outfit, use my daughters one, she got married in 1995", to things like, "keep your fiance under your thumb, get to him to do only what you want", "don't show him your fondness for him, let him come begging to you", "Don't encourage him to drink". Well meaning advice??? I don't really think so.

I like beer, he likes beer. We drink something like once in two weeks, how can i discourage even that? Not show him how fond i am of him? Have him beg me all the time? Isn't that disrespectful to the one i love and have decided to marry? Keep him under my thumb? We usually agree on most things, and if we don't i'd respect that and he would respect my opinion and we'd try to work a middle path. If manipulating things is how i'd get my way around him, i'd rather be single.

Life was far more fun before parents got involved. Earlier it was okay to go out and watch a movie, once we were engaged, everyone became hyper for a while, but yes, now things are certainly better.

But trust me, if anyone ever decides to get married, and if you know the person well, do it in an instant and get minimum relatives involved. If you need a long engagement, then i pray that you have reasonably sane parents, who don't think you're making out each time their back is turned!

Mobile manners....

This is for the callers, there are some things that are largely being considered rude by the owners of cellphones, see if you agree with these:

1. When you recieve a call and don't want to talk for any reason (busy, or just busy!), you disconect the call, and the person keeps calling back! THAT IS RUDE.

Tip: Call once, if disconnected, the person has SEEN your call and is BUSY. He or she may or MAY NOT want to talk o you.

2. When you SMS someone especially during office hours (or any hours for that matter) and don't recieve a reply immediately, the reciever is NOT ignoring you! Not everyone is looking at their phones every one minute!

3. There is something known as SILENT MODE, which a lot of people use frequently. This means that when you call, and your call isn't answered right away, the reciever may have not seen your call. So leaving ten missed calls won't help.

Ofcourse, i tend to disobey these rules from time to time, but only with those people that i'm at liberty to. Everyone's attitude towards mobile phones should be, 'My mobile is for MY convenience - not for everyone else's'

And please, don't hold it against someone if they didn't return your call, its easy to forget, but yeah if it happening constantly, you may not be a priority.

I'm hoping a few tele-callers read these and when they do talk t me over the phone, they don't demand answers as to why i didn't take their calls. That's real rude. Cellphones are a good thing, but misuse and lack of respect for another person's privacy is increasingly being voilated.
People, i'd really like your comments and views on this.

Thanks

Gurgaon's fashion sense

Its neurotic at times...seriously speaking, this winter i was hoping to spot people in my lil hip village wearing sophisticated winter clothes...i was thinking tweed jackets and overcoats, chic business suits worn by the ladies. I did see some, but too few. What i did see in excess (which i didn't need to see, really) was a plethora of ugly u-pointed woollen caps. Moms, girls, boys, uncles, babies, puppies, everyone was wearing them!!! And then there was the enthusiastic but short-lived trend of the pointed red santa caps with a little white ball on the tip. It was being sold aplenty by the roadside, even the dhaba guys near the Convergys building were wearing them! Though that did look cute, as if they were trying to be festive in the grimy surrounds :) it did make me feel nice. But otherwise, it looked silly and overdone really.

Tip of the week:
This ugly thing i've noticed is applicable not only to the men and women of gurgaon but of delhi as well. Low rise jeans HAVE TO BE WORN WITH A BELT and the the belt must work!!! The unsightly things one can see when you're innocently bending and admiring something else, should be avoided! Please. This is a message in the interest of the public. Either wear high-rise undies or tight belts :P

Be Good :P