This Thursday

My plants are dying and its HOT HOT DUSTY DUSTY.

Plus, I am very close to broke.

The First Sunday Night post

This it is. I've had an incredibly exhausting day - though I can't for the life of me imagine why. I also spent a large part of the morning flopped on my broken ratty sofa watching 'Seeta aur Geeta', except I had to do chores and meet someone, so I couldn't watch the last half an hour. I will now do so.

Appa didn't pick up his phone again and I had a brief moment of emotional collapse. All is well now. :)

I have a very interesting/difficult week coming up. I am scared and indifferent, both at once. 

I have more people to email than ever before. But for tonight, I'm 'all done'. *Shakes hands, like so.*

I saw this and it made me all 'awww Sunday night..".

Happy monday, gentle reader.

I need a list

I feel like curious lethargy is upon me again. (Remember the malady of curious lethargy, gentle reader?). This may partly be caused by the lack of lists in my life. There is, for example, no bucket list for 2013 yet, there isn't a to-read list, a to-become list, a to-go-to list or even a to-buy list. :(

Here is one I have made just now. It needs a lot of improvement though, as does the general list situation.

List of things to do:


1) Make a word cloud of career keywords
2) Use 1) to create a list of possible programs of study
3) Use 2) to create a list of possible workplaces for the next year
4) Use 3) to create a list of possible contacts
5) Use 4) to panic yourself into getting stress pimples

fin.

***

However, I have plants and a google spreadsheet of chores.  On sultry days such as today, I sit on the balcony, plopped on a beanbag that sags like the arm flesh of old people and I nurse a glass of red and coo at my plants and try not to accidentally reveal the many twists and turns of GRRM's magnum opus. DF has only now started and its taking all I have to not mention how brutally *** was killed in book 5.
Sigh.

Mozart and green plants

The most significant event that happened in my life in the past few weeks has been the firing of the maidservant. Generally, as you are well aware, I am a gentle and happy dragon-fly chasing soul, but the maidservant brought out the monster in me.

DF and I had a long and protracted is-this-a-fight-it-looks-suspiciously-like-one conversation about the need to hire someone to clean and cook for two healthy and very lazy young adults. If I can do it in London, why not in Delhi, was my refrain. DF merely drew my attention to the vast and copiour quantities of dust that Delhi disgorges from her vast earthy underbelly every day.  Issues of sexism (can we get a male servant?), inadequate payment (how can we only be paying her such little money to work for us?) and living situation issues (so what am I to say when she asks if we are married) aside, I was beaten and we had ourselves a maid for a long and somewhat peaceful seven months (you open the door, no you open the door, no its your turn, no its yours, arggghhh, she'll go away and we have a pile of dishes, OPEN THE DOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR).

My maid was sweet and polite, but she bunked without notice, didn't dust or clean much, cooked with copious amounts of  oil, always came late, and the worst of all: she sent her very young daughter to do the chores when she couldn't make it. And there, we had to draw the line.

Since her firing three weeks ago, I have spent most of my time on my hands and knees, scrubbing at filthy corners, cleaning bathrooms, and polishing marble. Ok, DF did the bathrooms, but still. I have cooked meals with proper vegetables (none of that pre-chopped, pre-washed packaged produce from M&S for me.) and baked and watched as DF makes fantastically puffy phulkas. I spent three days coming up with a spreadsheet of chores which details who has to do laundry when (HURRAY A LAUNDRY CHORE SHARER - LET THE BELLS TOLL) and who gets to take the trash out (DF always) and so on. I AM SO AWESOMELY ORGANISED and chored up!.

In continuance of this new-wave of house-cleaning and sprucing, DF and I decided to get some plants and utilise the dusty space that is our balcony. We chik-ked it, put in some leafy plants and some flowering plants, plonked a beanbag next to them and strung some lights.

Today, I played the plants some Mozart and I swear they grew an inch! I'll put up pics shortly!!

Also, I am taking violin lessons. Sigh. MUST PRACTICE EVERYDAY.

This is a very boring post, I know, but it will get better, I've almost forgotten how to write.

Its a NEW ME. Do you love me still.

Suffice to say I have done a whole lot of nothingness. Isn't it surprising, I read and wrote and ate and ate and ran and met many *different* people and bought groceries and baked and cooked and did housework and laundrylaundrylaundry and a million other things when I was justanothercorporatelawyerdrone.

I made the switch to whateverthisisnow (new style of replacing hyphens (like so -) with non-spaces (likeso)) to have more time (and specifically to quote myself (because god damn, how much history do I have to deal with)) :

This, this now and here, it doesn’t feel right. There’s always this sense of deprivation, no?

I want to roam streets if I feel like it at 3 pm. I want to be non-corporate. I don’t want to do timesheets. I want to read with the luxury of a lot of time. I want to make and drink a lot of tea. I want to wear orange clothes to work, shut down my computer at 6:00 pm and go out and learn a language or swim or bake or read a judgment or write!  If it rains, I want to go out and splash. I want to be wrapped up completely in my thoughts. 
I want to think.
I want to not sit at a computer all day. I want to be a veryusefulperson. I want to create and contribute.  I’d really like to set a goal and achieve it on my own. A big huge difficult goal. Not atention to detail – that is NOT my goal. NO NO NO NO NO.

I want to wake up and feel like there is a very definite reason why I am doing what I do. If I don’ t have that reason, I want to stop doing it – just like that – poof.  

There is now no definite reason I am doing this. I haven't thought or read a judgment or become more intelligent. I have baked and gone swimming and playing in the rains. Also wore orange and pink. 
I must needs cease this folly, it would seem. 

SIGH.

I WAS JUST GETTING STARTED. DID I ever really ask for such restlessness? I think I need a big difficult goal. Yes. 

Also, the bloggy must awaken from its slumber. Rooooooooar.

Hazy adultness gear life

For a few days now, life has been hazy. Its like suddenly, I can't see more than a few feet ahead, and there are cows walking in and out of the fog.

My days have become thusly metaphysical.

***

I am learning to drive, in what is undoubtedly a painful and confidence-wrecking manner.

Yes, like most people, I began with a car and an instructor, but I am sorry to say he was terrible, and I was disenchanted and I never paid much attention to his constant stream of brake-clutch-gear-raise-gear-horn-indicator-clutch-gear-wheel wheel wheel wheel-reverse wheel reverse wheel reverse wheel reverse wheel- clutch-raise talk.  Our shambles of a class would thus conclude with me coming back home with shaky knees, seeing visions of cow carcasses and obnoxious women and snarky jaywalkers like myself get run over, and needing a cup of very strong, very sugary tea and many hugs.

Once our classes were done, and I vainly bought a car of my own, I was forced to acknowledge the fact that my second-hand, shiny, maroon Maruti Alto Lxi, was a white elephant with a combustion engine. Reasons as below:


1) We live in a house thats built on a mild slope, so the parking area is an inclined plane.
2) I cant figure out how to work the clutch and the brake such that the car doesnt stall when I turn the key, and the car starts sliding down.
3) There are A BAZILLION CARS parked on the road in Delhi. Especially on my street.
4) Using the hand break is the MOST DIFFICULT THING IN THE WORLD.
5) At 2315 hours, which is when I practice my driving, there are CARS ON THE ROAD ALL THE TIME. I mean, who are these random people who drive at 11 pm in a residential colony?! WHO.
6) I end up stalling the car near police-checkposts, necessitating awkward questions.
7) Driving the car in a fit of pique once, I steered into a pile of gravel, and many stones accumulated in the insides of the car. I can still hear them when I am in first gear.
8) I definitely don't like fourth gear. 
9) I hate Delhi.

So, if you're around where I live at 1200 or so, and you want to see two people struggling to park the car up an inclined place, looking battered from their 'romantic late night drive', then stop by and honk twice.

***

I am doing new things with my life this year. I've signed up for Coursera courses (ha), and the first one started today! Details soon!

***

ALSO, for the first time EVER in the history of this blog... (Drum roll) I HAVE AN AWESOME NEW HAIRCUT. Its sleek and short, and bob-like, and has bang-like things, and is very chic and professional
all at once!

Delhi 1.0

(FYI: I wrote this quite a while before recent events sharpened my hatred of Delhi; await more nuanced perspectives.)


***
This blog has taken a while to come into being, as have I, in my Delhi (new) avatar. Moving cities (countries!) and moving jobs is exciting, but having to, alongside the move, shift well-established life-function templates is not only exhausting, its also demoralising.

For example, I miss pavements and comfortable, safe access to public transport. I miss microwaevable 1-minute rice and I deeply and truly miss Microsoft Outlook and its excellent anality-optimising filing functions. I miss grabbing a cappucino on my way to work, egalitarianism dripping off my satisfying goods-services exchange and at a deeper level, I miss swiping in my access card early so I can grab my free copy of the FT.  I miss the honest sanctity of RSVPs, the easy availability of tampons, the creamy smoothness of avocados, the happy zings of bellini-nights and the affordability of Lush products. I miss being enveloped in a cocoon of safe.

Truly, I miss my shallow materialistic self, and I miss my frivolous biglaw life, and I feel a sharp strong hatred for Delhi - my currentus situs.

 However, I do this in moments of pique and not armed with the benefit of forethought. Peruse (if only you could) bloggy avatar 1.3 (2005-2012) and you will realise that for every anguished "Why can I not find a FLUFFY bathrobe in Delhi?" question I could ask now, you will read about a deeply pained "Where can I get jalebis at 2140 while I wait for my evil client to tell me to send out the document?" post or a "Why aren't there enough vegetarian options in the champagne brunch buffet?!" post.
 

Life in cities across the world comes with inconveniences, I know. In some, you can't pay people enough to get them to fix you up an internet connection in two days, while in others, there isn't a true democracy, and in some others, people fight vigorously over parking spots. Families live in some cities, while others are rent-unattractive, or temperature-unattractive, or simply unattractive. Some have only great sushi, some have mediocre vegetarian sushi, and some have no sushi at all. Some have jalebis many metro stops away, but no monuments that are give or take 800 years old. Some only have public transport, some force you to rely on private, and others offer a colourful but expensive mix. Some are clean and scarily ultra-efficient, but they effectively take away all bacterial immunity that growing up in India has lovingly bestowed upon you. In some, you are the ugly, the unsexual, the un-dateable, the other. In others, the others are the un-dateables, and you are still the other. In a few, you are not the other, but you don't like the one. In most, your cleaner will not tell you how strong your 'curry' smells, leaving you with a curious undeterminable sense of shame; in one, your maid will take exceptional pride in her flavourful spicy cooking. In some, you will be saved from having to speak freely to a bewilderingly large number of people everyday about deeply personal matters, but in others, you needs must justify your english-speaking skills and your knowledge of european culture. Threading is cheaper in some and unheard of in others, but they use hair-nets to streak your hair in the a few.  In some, men will stand in queues for you, and insist on dropping you home, in others, they will open doors. In some you will have a spot of tea, in some, tea is chai and you will be encouraged to dip most things into it, and in others, its a choice between a soy chai latte or green tea with red beans. Some days only filter coffee will do and then what will you do? In some, everyone will be your brother or sister unhesitatingly; in others, you must jump through many hoops before you become a friend. In some, you are a size ten, and your hips and arches are compatible with the forms of desirable female bodies laid out numerically on racks. In some, you are large and your chest is too big and they have nothing pretty for you to wear, while in others, your tailor will ask matter-of-factly, if you want "padding". Your freedom in each is determined by different entities, in some, it is a travel pass and a work permit, in others, it is a car.

Cities reflect values, and identities borrow from the same values that a city allows itself to be shaped by, so there is, in some sense, a limitation on whom you can be, and how far you can take that whom until it ends in ugly consequences. Most cities have some common values and I gladly bask in their safe anonymity, collecting labels to define my space; new-to-delhi, madrasi, girl, heterosexual, modern, vakil, english-speaking, wine-drinker - and for the most part, they work, but I am greedy and I am pushy and I have a maid, and a whole lot of time on my hands and I want MORE. Sometimes, I sit on my ratty broken sofa and think about the fact that nothing occupies the hole in my life that laundry and work used to fill. Jalebis, besan bondas, shiny jewellery and culturally similar companions can only take you that far ahead. Blogging is a sketchy replacement, but its the best I can come up with, and so, here I am.

I'm trying to have a good time in Delhi, but cultural baggage weighs me down. Expectation slaughters my timid explorations into the unknown and I worry that I am all delhi-ed out, that the city is not, to me, a shehron ka sheher, a riot of colour and humour or a capital city that is joyously contrary but merely a crumbling, dusty edifice that is bursting its seams, crime-ridden and is polluted and gender-biased. Regardless, I am here for a while yet, and we shall have to see how this story ends. :)

Like always, welcome, gentle reader.