the broken Wings of a Butterfly

no happiness holds me high
like that of the eternal light
none other do I seek as I fly
when there's hinderance in the flight

do i near the light emerging
i can feel the smell of fire
seductive appear'd the flame flickering
as i flew into the unsuspecting ire

unawares was i caught
as i smelt the burning wings
my life has gone wrought
as i let go of it without any strings

(song am thinking of ....
Baadalon Se Kaat Kaatke,
Kaagazon Pe Naam Jodna
Yeh Mujhe Kya Ho Gaya?)

the mind of an unmarried woman

Finally I gave up resisting the urge of writing ‘bout Parineeta.
A gud lesson I learnt is never to watch a movie after reading like a zillion revus on it, but cant help it, usually I’m one of those who just manages to take a peek before the movie leaves the theatres. Going by those standards, it is still ok.

Itz an okey dokey, once watchable type of movie but what I missed most was the total lack of romance in it (please don’t mention the scenes of passionate love making)
Wat I mean is watever happened to woh nazare churanaa, sharmana , nakhre karna, musukurana type of romance? Devdas scores high on those points.

Sanjay Dutt n Dia Mirza were big turn offs of the movie. Sanjay Dutt looked old enough to be Vidya Balan’s father.
Hope VidyaB is not a one movie wonder n we get to see more of her.
Also this flick got me thinking ‘bout overhauling my wardrobe –include more of salwaar suits esp. those with low-cut backs hanging on for their dear life onto some kinda “dooris”(strings).

These lines of Galib from this movie refuse to leave the bylanes of my memory

hum saans lethe hai to charcha ho jaata hai
woh katal bhi karte hai to kabhar nahi hoti

when did the weekend (i meant the weekend end?)

so i had this nice,long 3 day weekend(when the rest of the world is having only a 2 day weekend) an additional day as a special treat to self for visiting Hyd'bad after a loooooong time.

besides a whole lot of things which cant b blogged 'bout,I caught up with
* Aruna (on all things not covered on our long mails)
* chatting on y msgr (if u want to know how much u r missed come online after a long haitus)
* making geometrically correct shaped dosas (hoping they do not come out as big idlis)
* movie Kaal (drooling over someone named John A)
* rounds of Smirnoff (exit exotic cocktail with no hints of alcohol and switch back to gud ole vodka)
* long drives on necklace road (dun forget to bring in additional calories on ur way back)
* fights with Mom (all time favorite time pass)
* TDS (for the uninitiated my fav hangout -Ten Downing Street)
* pamper self by visiting the parlour (both the beauty n the ice cream variety come under this category)

cut to the present,
back to B'lore ,trying to get over n out with the Hyd'bad Blues

A compliment is like a Kiss thro' the veil

dwelling on the matter of Kisses, i recollect these verses on it :


Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

All 'bout true frendz -Buks

Since this is on one of my favourite topics (books), I don’t mind Vigs tagging me and even if it wasn’t on books, I don’t mind tags because it really gives you something to write about without thinking too much.
On a side note, I should say that considering the number of times I fill such questionnaires especially in restaurants (where the bill is always invariably handed to the guy and the feedback form to the girl!) I should have mastered the technique by now.

So without further delay lemme proceed in the direction of the questions at hand

Total number of books owned :
After someone flicked my “Gone with the Wind” besides umpteen others whose titles currently slip my mind, after I lost “Rebecca” while travelling, I had given up on buying books and started patronizing the neighbourhood library Kaleidoscope – which btw has an amazing collection of Tintins as well :-)
Recently I restarted my collection, I think it wud be a miserly 80+ books falling under the category of fiction.

The last book bought :
well I picked atleast half a dozen books at Blossoms but lemme put down the one treasure that I’d picked there in hard bound- “The ThornBirds”

The last book you read :
Itz Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide –not a bad read at all considering my prejudice against Indian authors.

One Book I Couldn't Finish:
James Joyce’s Ulysses takes the cake –I have not yet given up hope that one of these days I would definitely finish it.

Five books I always cherish:

In order to sound different (from my mouthshut review on 5 Best Books) I choose a different set of books here

1.The Colour Purple by Alice Walker -
It is just a coincidence that Purple is indeed my favourite colour n coming to the book it is 'bout Life as seen thro’ the eyes of an Afro-American woman –it is not only about the tribulations she faces because of her race, faith or gender but also about Hope that shows the triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

2.Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov –
Well this controversial book has always been on my list esp. because of the author’s lyrical (almost poetical) writing style and Humbert Humbert is the perfect love struck protagonist in my eyes and the book is all about love albeit between an old man and a nymphet.

3.Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck –
I hear that this is sort of classic in American literature and rightly so since it captures the essence of the dreams that American farmers nurtured during the Great Depression. A story of the love and dreams shared between two farmer friends and the tragic end that would leave you misty eyed.

4.The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waler
Every once in a while u read a book that completely changes your perspective of love and this is one such book. I know this book evokes mixed response from people, who consider it adultery, but for me it is a simple and eternal story of love between Kincaid and Francesca, sometimes even an affair of 4 days leaves an indelible mark in your lives.

5.The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Ok I can hear my friends screaming “here she goes again ‘bout thornbirds” but I can’t help it (sorry folks!) I know it is just an antiquated love story but the forbidden love of Maggie and Ralph, the Australian home of Drogheda and the entire Cleary family hold a special place in my heart always.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice... and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart. ~Gilbert Highet

5 ppl I would tag it (I haven’t done checks if they have already endured this list!)

the crouching tigress
the desi Barry
first rain
zombie
fiona

Magnificent Mangoes, cool cottons and sunny skies

Am really bad when it comes to writing(read blogging) regularly
and can think of 1101 excuses for not writing n I also know that no one is interested in listening to them (1101 is a long list after all)
but couldn’t disappoint searchinformrmojorisin.

For the nth time Deccan Chronicle’s headlines glare “rain lashes twin cities” – someone please ask the DC ppl to find new phrases to welcome the onset of Monsoon in Hyderabad. And for the benefit of those who r not from Hyd’bad, if you thought Times is full of trash u must read DC which is a step ahead of it and infact when it comes to gossip even the good old housewives bow down to DC.

So having waved goodbye to another of the scorching summers of Hyd’bad lemme dedicate this blog to it.
You hear it everywhere – in office cubicles, in boardrooms, in between client meetings, in shopping malls, in restaurants – “When would the summer end? Isn’t it too hot these days?” -if someone was to take the help of statistics, roughly a third of our waking time is spent on discussing the weather during the summers.
Is it only my weird self who enjoys these summers (no no I’m no masochist)?
After reading this, I bet u wud also fall in love with Hyd’bad summers as well.

The roads seem so silvery and full of mirages (my note: go for long drives on the Durgam Cheruvu road).
The juicy watermelons – best when taken chilled (my note: take it in any form – juice, fruit pieces or squash)
Mangoes – all variants of it (my note: dun miss the Avakai pickle made out of raw mangoes)
Palms – really cools ur body (my note: buy the entire palm and scoop the fruit out with a fork)
Sugarcane juice – saccharine sweet (my note: a personal recipe is to mix ½ glass tender coconut water and ½ glass sugarcane juice with some lemon and ginger)
Cucumbers – all those salads, which we can munch on (my note: try the Russian salad in the Viceroy buffet)
Starchy cotton dresses (my note: a visit to FabIndia is a must, to pick all those cool cotton tops for girls and kurtas for guys)
Melting Moments – the sunshine ice-cream parlor (in yellow) on B.Hills (my note: the chikoo ice cream is a no-miss)
Smell of khus-khus mats hung on the balcony doors (my note: best when a cool breeze flows in gently)
Desert coolers in all living rooms and ACs in bedrooms (my note: never mind the huge electricity bills after all itz only a matter of 3 months)
Chilled Beer parties with wholesome goodies (my note: with frendz on Sunday afternoon brunches)
Bring out the floral colors of peach, pinks and lavenders –from accessories to shoes to bags (my note: if u r the “if u have it flaunt it” types then flash those short skirts and shorter tops)

So given a choice between grey winters and sunny summers, I bet u wud choose the latter. Of course the monsoon heralds different flavors altogether (hot samosas, fried corn, masala chai …) but then that wud b another blog altogether.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

Inspite of what historians might call the British as 'colonists'
who r proud of the axiom "the Sun never sets in the British Empire", I am ever grateful to them for popularizing English in India.
I can’t imagine India sans IT jobs and the much popular BPOs (popular for the wrong reasons though), with Hindi as its lingua franca and still competing with Somalia in terms of itz GDP! Unless US became Hindi friendly and still outsourced jobs to India!
But then I digress too much …

Coming to what exactly I wanted to convey –well itz about the much-loved language –English. (Unless u belong to DMK/ADMK factions!)
We all boast ‘bout (ok not all but at least I do) that we walk, talk and think in English but inspite of our bragging, there are so many phrases and words are not so popular in India but used very frequently in countries where English is a way of life…
Before u can dispose off this write up as something to do with those mails u have received umpteen number of times ‘bout the misuses of English in all the Asia Pacific regions, let me clarify that my intentions are not to compete with that mail. I actually wanted to throw some light on some of the lesser known words/phrases of English not yet heard even in the most Elite circles (whatever that might mean…)

- Wish I could say that “I can fly by the seat of my pants” about blogging.well this phrase actually originated from pilots (the next time u can remember this during severe turbulence) who navigate the airplane during bad weather going by their experience, minus any navigational devices. It is used in the sense “to do a job the best you can by instinct, training, or experience, without outside aid or instruction”
- On open invitation for all –“Come round to my drum” -as it is self-explanatory unless u r confusing drum in the literal sense of the word) means “Come over to my flat/apartment”
- “Mushfake” meaning “designate an object modified from its ordinary function to serve a new function” would be ‘happy’ if it is used more often, so next time u know how to address a hairpin which was used to open a lock.
- Another phrase which has been in existence for more than a century but I have never heard it being used too often is “Katie bar the door” –now don’t mistake it as a command to this vivacious girl, called “Katie”, to close the door because on the contrary it means “Look out here comes trouble”
- An odd word of Yiddish origin “schlep” has never failed to fascinate me esp. because of itz pronunciation (I must remember to blog on words whose pronunciation fascinates me) - well coming to itz usage “schlep down to the shop” as in ‘move laboriously’

Guess thatz all for now, wud b back on air soon with more words n before I go would like to ask this Q –did u know that “kettle” is a slang for watch (as in the noun form of a device to show time)?
English is so complicated and fascinating a language that if it were a man I would have proposed to him :))