Bird song

The birds are chattering away outside my office window. Or rather window wall, because thats what it is. We see tree pies and owls and crows and parrots and squirrels all the time. But yesterday, we saw a Brain Fever Bird. Which made me think of Vikram Seth at once. I have to admit I expected it to be something altogether more exotic-looking (such an evocative name!), but maybe thats just me.

Normally I dont much notice them, not being much of a birdwatcher, but they are making an absolute racket now. Or maybe its just that there's just me and the Poo in this room, quietly working our way through yet another doomed book. Pin drop silence, they used to call it in school. What a quaint expression. You dont hear it much these days.

Yesterday was the last day at Cygnet Noir for one of the 'pillars of the establishment'. He joined the company as a 19-year-old. Thats thirteen years that he's spent here! Almost half his life. When I joined here, the Head-girl said "I hope you'll be with us till you retire". I laughed when she said that. I still do. But sometimes I dimly see that its not an impossible thing. There is comfort in the familiar. Be it family, friends, workplace. Or perhaps thats just an illusion. Everything changes. All the time. Some we notice, some we dont. But nothing stays still.

Whats the point of all of this musing? I wish I knew.

Mad women

Having watched two complete seasons of Mad Men in less than a month, I now feel incomplete without a smoking cigarette in one hand and a tumbler of whisky in the other. (Apparently the actors smoke herbal cigarettes. Wonder if we get them here.)

Such is the power the TV and storytelling. You start feeling nostalgic for things you never knew in the first place.

The Fame Monster

Big news! The pal and I had made it to Glam-Sham after all! Yay!

Lookee! Lookee!
(in the What's On page)

Tra la!

Obliviate!

Even if this were possible, do we really want it to be?

2010

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER

Cant wait!!!

The MadHatter's Year in Review

See, I'm a good girl. I wait till the very last day of the year to review 2009 as it happened to me. Not like the articles you see in newspapers and magazines, which basically ignore whatever happens in the latter half of December, because they cant meet their deadlines otherwise. So here goes...

Plus: Promotion! For what its worth, I am thrilled to have got it. Even though I am flummoxed when people ask me 'So what are your new responsibilities?' or 'So who's reporting to you now?'. Er..
Plus: I have stood on my head. And I can report that the view is infinitely better the other way round.
Plus: The cauldron doth boil and toil. The other Two Witches at work are alive and well. And kicking. Bless them! Simply cannot face work without them.
Plus: La dolce vita in bella Italia! And the Golden Temple. Definitely worth going to Punjab for!
Plus: I love love love 'aqua con gas'. Tastes better than anything else on earth.
Plus: New friends, particularly my Man United loving pal from the UK, who makes it that much easier to get through the day, and who also brings me stuff from...
Plus: ...the wonderful and miraculous eBay UK! Completely engrossing and addictive. Where else can one find old Enid Blytons, discounted perfumes and all manner of completely desirable things.
Plus: Facebook, Gossip Girl, Rapidshare. Tremendous contribution to my life and to the internet bill.
Plus: Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse and indie music (maybe a little too much indie music).
Plus: I dont seem to have put on any weight. Tra la!

Minus: I dont seem to have lost any weight. Its becoming my holy grail. Unhealthy.
Minus: Cant get no water with gas in India.
Minus: Lady Gaga. She gave me many an ear worm. So bloody hard to shake off.
Minus: I kind of lost one of my best friends. Not in a mortal sense, but in that we're no longer best friends. Just people who once knew each other. Which is definitely sad.
Minus: I didnt get to go on some other trips because I was the only female in the group. Grrr.
Minus: Didnt make it to page 3 even in Thinathanthi. More grrrrr.

A most splendiferous new year to all of my incalculably vast reading public!

A book was launched but not my career as a page 3 girl alas!

Last week,I went with a pal to the launch of Nine Lives by William Dalrymple at the Connemara. I really should learn to be laid back and arrive at these dos at half an hour late. Becausing arriving on time (or 15 mins before, which is what I normally do) means you get to soak in a mausoleum-like atmosphere for a good 45 mins. At the end of which you feel distinctly ghoulish. And since my pal managed to confuse Connemara with Coromandel, I had no one to joke for a goodish while. A drink or two at this point would have helped, but the Connemara people (unlike the smart, kind people at Coromandel) chose to withold the life-restoring elixir till the reading was over. Grrr.

At first the 'ballroom' was sparsely populated, only by people strictly over the age of 90. Some of them were in waterproof rain gear, which was quite incongruous in the 'ballroom'. But slowly a few bedraggled looking journo/lit students turned up and I didnt feel like some completely out-of-sync young(ish) person who's gatecrashed some Senior Citizens event.

Anyway, eventually WD showed up, in kurta and pyjamas with a veshti wrapped around him for good measure. The first thing I noticed was that he got a nice tall glass of beer. Sigh! He spoke and read from his book for about an hour. It was entertaining in places but the mind tended to wander in others. He talked about three of the nine lives (though it felt like a lot more at the time). After the usual inane questions at the end of the reading, my pal and I got our copies signed for each other. We also found out that in Scotland, its pronounced 'D'rymple' not 'Dalrymple'. We thanked him for the signatures and he thanked us for coming. All very civilised,if rather dull. Then it was off to the bar! At last!

But before we could get there, several photogs stopped us and asked us to pose for them. We even gave them our names. I think we were the only young(ish) people there, hence the interest. In fact, come to think of it, some of them interupted us mid-drink and got us to pose, claiming to be from 'a popular national paper'. But did that mean our photos were splashed about liberally on the page 3s and party pages? Did we get calls from loved ones enviously asking us about our glamourous lives? Nope. Not a whisker. Nothing. I wonder where the photos went. Into some void where they never see the light of day? Hopefully not to some internet porn site. Its such a tragic waste of posing and needless delay in getting to the drinks. Never will I let this happen again.

But the pal and I, sweetly unaware of the dastardly behaviour of these callous men who trifled with our innocent child-like faith in the universe, spent an hour or so swapping gossip on people we know (and hate). Have torn these people apart, we finished our wine (it would be more accurate to say that I finished our wine) and traipsed back home quite happily.

Is book launch season upon us? Looking forward to more such evenings!