Rereading the old blog

A lot. Don't ask. I find all these interesting things I want to return to, 6 years later. Y'all might remember the thirteen post I put up a while ago. I've tried to write those posts often, but well, hasn't happened. But the rereading at least pushed me to think about these things again!

So, thirteen songs against which I had no defences, back in 2005.

Thirteen songs I have no defences against. When I hear them I have no hope of not being whipped across the temporal-spatial continuum. For future ref, none of these lists is comprehensive or static. Just the first 13 in each category.

1. Always – Bon Jovi. I associate it with a time in my life and the people who populated it, and it yanks me back there with a physical painful jerk. Yeah now it makes me snigger. And exaggeratedly sing along, with actions. 
2. Trouble – Coldplay. I could be walking on the road in the blazing noon sun, but in my head I’m in a cold, dark, and empty place of peace. Now it feels more like sorrow than peace.
3. Lightning Crashes – Live. I’m sitting on the floor of the lil room in Misha’s house, its dark and Chica is playing the guitar over the noise of the cooler. You know, I don't think I've heard it in forever. Maybe cos Chica, who played it, is gone and wants no part of my life, and OOF, who sang it is gone and I want no part of his life. It's a nice enough song though...
4. Love me for a Reason – Boyzone. [Stop sniggering you lot! Like Mr. Sumner sez, don’t judge me, you could be me in another life, another set of circumstances.] I’m in the backseat of the car, being driven home from French class, just going round the Public Gardens roundabout. It’s dark and the a/c is on cold. This memory seems to have been completely wiped. Thought I guess I should play it first eh. 
5. Every Rose has its Thorn – Poison. In Scoo’s altima, cruising down the 5 in the carpool lane and belting out the lyrics at 90mph. Yup, still got this one. I guess family stays forever eh.
6. Pal – KK. On the steps of the shops opposite Mata Gulab Devi College Girls’ Hostel, like a buncha shady characters, Ships in her orange white and black shawl, me in my black shawl, on a Delhi November evening. Ahhh released this one too. In fact I find the song a bit whiny these days.
7. Horse with no Name – America. On the floor of Aleya’s drawing room, nicely tipsy, watching Debayan and Chica do their synchronized head-bob with tongues sticking out. This one also stays...
8. Jhanjariya – I have NO clue. This one time my cousin Ajay visited and proceeded to launch into it when someone demanded a fast number. Also erased, maybe cos said cousin doth not inspire the fondest feelings these days...
9. Baar Baar dekho – Rafi (?). Waltzing round the living room – aged about 9 I think – with my sister and my cousin, playing the “guitar” on badminton rackets. Nope don't have this anymore either.
10. Hero – Enrique Iglesias. Crooning along with Adit while trying to control hysterical giggles. This one stays.
11. Yaron – KK. At Bhongir. Chillin. Ohhh yeah this one's gone too. Woo.
12. Cotton-eyed Joe – Who knows??? Standing in the door of my sister’s bedroom in Marredpally, and watching my adorable 1 and a half year old (?) nieces boogie. Hee. Now I imagine Her Ladyship of Wogglesworth boogie-ing to it.
13. Twist and Shout – The Beatles. Room in HMI guest house in Manali, asking my sister and cousin [who is wearing a green jacket, you remember tad?] wot on EARTH that guy was saying. Got this one too.

I toyed with writing a list of songs that move me now, but yeah it ain't the same. Though Angel by DMB makes me purr cos (puke buckets ready ladies), it's my BBot's ringtone. i.e. what plays when he calls me ;)

Grateful

Last night, and this morning, I sat next to BBot and watched him nearly rip his hair out in sheer frustration and boredom, because he was "on a call" with self-important idiots in the US, had nothing to say, has nothing to gain from listening, and yet had to spend hours glued to the phone. I said, "Hah, welcome to my life in corporate whoredom." At that moment I realized that I am now free. And whatever the worries that plague me right now about the choices I have made, or the viability of the path I have chosen, or my own ability to be different and stand by never going back to the Brothel, or any equivalent, I know that I made the right choice.

Snail mail

Recently I received a much abused post card whose ink had mostly been washed off by I hope the monsoon rains. It was from Broom, and was a part of one of her month resolutions to mail a postcard every day.

While cleaning out the endless crannies in my room. I found a huge stack of postcards I bought on various trips, mostly to Europe, in the vain hope that I would gaze upon them fondly when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood. Hah. Fat chance. Forgot they blooming exist!

So, anyone wants a postcard in the mail? Subjects are:

1. Flamenco
2. Spain (Salamanca, Valencia, and random posters of bullfights and flamenco peformances, and two demanding equal rights and the right to smoke in the workplace.)
3. The Beatles
4. One funny one about the characteristics of people in the EU
5. Prints of various Turner, Goya and obscure impressionist paintings
6. Print of Blake's "Newton"

If you want one, email me with postal address and preference, if any.

P.S. Editing to add something of which Mungi's comment reminded me. My grandmother has always sent us inlands, I have one for almost every week I was in college. She even used to send aerograms to my sister in the oosa. Now she writes em out on bits of paper and resident grandchild emails it. However, she caused no small sensation on the small island of Bar Harbor when the Poo was a recipient of a REAL letter from a REAL person with a REAL intention.

OCD

Everyone has their slight tinge of OCD, right? Whether it's someone wanting everything done their way, or needing minions all the time, or not being able to step on cracks or washing hands and never eating food that's fallen down...er... you get my drift. This evening, as I refolded all the clothes the maid had folded, including the towels, whose only crime was that they were inside out as it were, and I could see the label tucked into the hem, I thought I should make a list of mine.

OCD

1. Folding things just right. Shirts and top half things in thirds, evenly, so that they are as small as possible, and then doubled or trebled depending on length. Pants folded with the butt on the outside and the crotch pulled out as far as possible, and then reshaped to fit regular shape. It takes me about 10 minutes to fold a salwar, and I'm usually scared of patialas. Square/rectangular things with corners and edges matching up perfectly, and if they're warped, then the outside must not show anything uneven!
2. Getting every last faint feeling of dirt or oil off the vessels on the outside and bottom as well as the inside. 
3. Putting off lights and fans and switches when I'm not using them. OR someone else has temporarily left the room.
4. Noting down page numbers of books left open facedown, and then closing them with a muttered curse for person who left them so.
5. On a related note, smoothing out all dog-ears in a book before I read it.
6. Needing everything in a system. Even if I think up the system after 95% of chaos has been included, I will spend hours fixing it and then halfway through come up with something new and start over. To wit, the music debacle.
7. Things must be angled. Appa and I have clashed over this many times, because in his universe things must be perfectly aligned and at right angles. Good thing my room is a hexagon!
8. Rinsing dishes out before leaving them in the sink, and preferably soaking them also.
9. Homogeneity in my mouthfuls - every mouthful must have the same proportion of all components. One reason why I love one dish meals, and eating with my hands.
10. Spotless counter before bed. Wiped down with cleaner and all. And scrubbing the sink after doing the dishes to get the lil bits of food stuck to the sides off.
11. How my chai is made first thing in the morning: Measure 3/4ths of a large mug of water, pour into pan, put on fire, add milk to just the right colour, put in one spoon of Society tea leaves, and leave on sim till it comes to a boil. Turn up till it almost boils over and off and pour out onto sugar that was put into the wet mug and has half dissolved already. Edit: The Mungi is the only person to ever have managed to make it just right. For which we love her. And that's why we managed to survive a year living together ;)

Not OCD:

1. Eating off the floor. Really, if it's not sticky and wet and I dropped it, I'll pick it right up and eat it. This one gives BBot the heebie jeebies.
2. Daily baths. TMI people? Hee. You want this blog to revive it won't be pretty ;) As long as it averages out to about 365 a year it's all good.
3. Making my bed. I got into the habit while in college of hopping out of bed and making it immediately, and changing the sheets every week like clockwork. Not so much anymore. If I DO make it though, it has to be perfect...with a king bedspread on a double bed, lengthwise, and the top tucked under the pillows and the extra hanging off equally on every side, and NOTHING touching the floor. While off the bed the spread spends all its life in a bundle on the floor, but details...

People who know me in real life, any contributions?

PS: I'm dedicating this one to BBot, who, over the past year, quietly and uncomplainingly adopted 3, 4 and 8, and panders to 11 by letting me make my own chai, and 2 by letting me wash the dishes. Though maybe some of that has to do with my needing chai long before he's awake, and him disliking my standing behind him muttering as he does the dishes and then not surreptitiously feeling all of them and redoing them...