Know who to ask

This is how an SMS exchange between Praks and me over the weekend goes ...

Praks: I'm getting a hair cut. This guy is suggesting that I straighten a bit of hair in the front and leave the rest curly as is. What to do?

Me: Go ahead!It may look good, if not, you could just straighten all after a few days

Praks: I knew you would say this! What else can I expect from a girl who colored her hair magenta. I shall go for it :)


Learning- If you want advice you can follow, know who to ask.

They Said It

One of the families I was visiting for one the (many) weddings I attended recently had an aquarium with many colorful fish. Needless to say the thing was a magnet for the swarm of kids running the place over. One kid who must be around 2-3 years old is observing the fish and suddenly runs to approach the aunt the house belongs to and with hands on his hips says in his best accusatory tone ,"Aapki machliyan doob rahi hain!"

Who was it again, saying that 'Saving Fish From Drowning' is a stupid title for a book?!
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Being the patient listener to my gripe about 'its the humidity!' frizzing up my hair, Ser and Aj gifted me a bubblegum pink hair straightener for my b'day. All excited about it ,I'm busy putting it to wonderful use before a party when S walks into the room, looks at me all bewilderment and exclaims,"Why are you stapling your hair with the giant stapler!" :D He's adorable, isn't he?
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S and I are watching the Oscars. The Slumdog Millionaire team is on stage to receive the Best Picture award, there's much applause and noise etc. After a little while Nanda didi - our housekeeper and cook, comes in and sounds all excited and worked up when she asks me - wo chawli ke bacchhon ko prize mila kya? (did the children from the chawl/slum win the award?) She's watched the movie on (an obviously pirated) CD and his son is in love with it, wanting to watch parts of it once everyday.

I do not have the heart to get into the nitty gritties of the movie and not the children being nominated and so on, so I just tell her that they did. She's ecstatic!

To me all the print space CCs and airtime wasted on whether India can claim the movie as its own or not are stupid in that moment. If a kid from the slum (and his mother) feels that its the story of him and other kids like him, who are we to play spoilsport?

Conversation Starters - III

The incident with J that started this whole train of thought.

J goes to a friend's place to visit him, friend is not at home but his roommate is and asks J to hang around and wait for the friend. J decided to do this. While J hangs around a few of the roommate's friends are also around and a girl from this group , in order to be polite and open the conversation attempts a conversation which goes like this:

Friend's roommate's friend (FRF) to J : So ... how many times have you been to the jail?

J : (Splutters, has an utterly shocked expression on face, isn't sure she heard right etc.) Well ... like ... NEVER.

FRF to J : Wow! You never got caught?!

J : (Further shock, disbelief, hysterical laughter starting) Caught doing what?!!

FRF: Oh.

Ha haaaaa. Can you believe that?!!! What I really wonder is the kind of answers this woman is used to getting, which she didn't from J! And J, let us have a talk about you hanging around with shady roommates and I intend to be the elder one in this particular conversation.

Every time J tells this one, by this time in the story I am laughing so hard that I have no clue what happened next and how she got out of this one. Whatever happened next, don't you think this ones takes the cake ... being asked how many times you've been to jail! :D

There's another one ... a story related to me, I'm still deciding whether to tell or not :)


P.S. I do know how to count, thank you. CS-II is still saved as a draft and needs to be completed, I'll be posting it as soon as I find some time!

Converstaion Starters - I

When we come across or are introduced to people we haven't met before, what do we do? We or in some cases 'they' try to start the conversation, so there are plenty of opening lines all of us would have heard over the years, here are some I remember.

• The common ones, of course, are ... What do you do? Where are you from? Where do you live? What's your name? You live around here? You new around here? etc.
  
• Some are rather funny, like this one in a dessert shop, where pointing at what I'm eating this guy asks me 'is it any good?' It was, so I told him its better than it looks but he won't get to find out as I ate the last one! Ha! :)
  
• OR a friend of mine asking another friend of mine, with me being right there, 'how do you know this devilish woman?'
  
• There are those embarrassing ones where visiting aunts from long past pinch your cheeks and say ... 'she's the one who did this and this when she was young, isn't it?' and the worse , which I have been witness to but never been subjected to ... 'oh, how can I forget you, you are the one my chotu/nikku/bunty wanted to marry when he was in kindergarten!'
• How about the 'I've heard about you from so and so'!! In reply to which people end up saying silly things like 'i hope it wasn't all bad!' or 'Is that so!I will have to ask him/her what she's been saying about me'. I am very tempted to, just once, out of pure spite say ' I hope he/she didn't tell you what I think about you!' Ha ... would be fun!
  
• There are plenty of shopping related ones where either I have or someone around has given friendly invited and uninvited suggestions with merely a wrinkled nose, a thumbs up or an expression. One which I have been asked often exclusively by women in trial rooms and have NEVER asked random strangers is ... 'do you think this is making me look fat?' post which they wave me happy byes and say 'nice-to-meet-yous' and 'thank yous'.
  
• I'm sure there are plenty more and I may come back and add them. If you have any you could tell me and would add them too!

I have lots more to say on the topic so there's more to come. I will also post the hilarious incident J told me about which made me think all this.

Paint it Red!

Some days back I painted my toenails RED. For the first time. Here they are, in the company of my red shoes and turquoise booties, sunning themselves outside the Itmad-ud-Daulah tomb in Agra :) In fact I have painted them an even brighter red since then

It excited me (and a few others) sooo much and they just made me feel so good that I had to report it to PK. So I set out to tell my dear friend PK about it during one of our marathon phone conversations. This is how it went :

Me : You know what? I painted my toes RED. For the first time ever in my life!Yipee!!
PK: Really?
Me: Absolutely! (more yipee etc.)
PK: So you are saying that, the only time, the very first time you colored your hair you went and got magenta highlights BUT you've never painted your toes red?
Me: Uh, ya, I guess that's what I'm saying ...


P.S. Aren't those toe rings damn nice? (Enlarge to see them) I loveeee them.

The Crane Sisters

This is one of the best conversations i've ever had. Its with J and it happened after we chatted about something that was on her mind.

J: Every time I have some trouble and I talk to you, I feel a weight has been lifted off me

Me: :) Which means I am your crane!! I will always be your crane and will lift the weight :)

Just so you know, its taken me many years to become this for you, where we are more equal as friends and it does not always matter who the elder one is. But you, you’ve always been my crane :)

J: That is not true , you have always been my crane too. Its just that being younger you never realized that. You have always inspired me to be a better person and you have supported me in no matter what I did. You are my crane!

Me: :) :) That makes me very happy! We are the crane sisters!! :D

J: how cool, the crane sisters!