Hey Upper East Siders...

Rumour has it Curly Girlie has fallen into the trap of watching the most addictive television show. Will she be able to fight off the addiction and go back to leading a normal life? or will she be joining her colleagues in gossip girl rehab when there are no episodes? Only time will tell…
Xoxo
Gossip Girl

I've been quite active I think in the recent past - watched Dev.D, Underworld - The Rise of the Lycans and He's not that into you. I've not read a lot tho I finished Jasper Ffordes 'Big Over Easy', another crime novel and in the middle of 'Something Rotten'. But what I really have been doing for the most part is watching 'Gossip Girl' - yes I know how scandalous is that? My life could not further away from that and yet that is pretty much my highlight of the day - what will Blair and Chuck do now? Will Serena and Dan make it? Will Little J ever turn out to be a nice person? Will Nate find one girl and settle instead of trying it on with every chick he meets? So many questions....I watched 18 episodes of season 1 across 3 days - trust me I was not answering the phone, I was not moving my eyes from the TV screen lest I missed one minute of the Upper East Side life!
In other Televison related incidents, recently, I have been obsessed with Kyle XY [I follow this on TV so it's even harder], Desperate Housewives Season 5, Heroes [of course, but this chapter leaves a lot to be desired], and my current comedy favourite - How I Met Your Mother - if you have not seen this show, quit reading this right now and go watch!! It is one of the funniest sitcoms to start this side of the 21st century. I have to say tho I'm a little bit addicted to the new 90210 but I think that it's just a throwback to the original Beverly Hill series which all of us have good memories of espescially me with Luke Perry - I wish he would do a guest appearance on the show.
So as you can see, Ive been slightly involved! What is it about TV shows that make me forget my real life and get involved in the convoluted imagination of a script writer?

**the note on top written by colleague who introduced me to GG!

25 things...

I was tagged on facebook but cannot face the thought of the many random people I know reading stuff like this so decided to do it here

• My life is planned from holiday to holiday
• I want to be a travel writer but don’t know where to start
• I’ve visited 12 countries in the world and 12 states in India
• My favourite holidays are the ones taken with my best friend
• I really want to visit the following places before I have kids
  Greece – coz I think it’s ultra romantic
  Turkey - coz it’s practically the centre of the world
  New York – can you imagine dragging kids to all those bars?
• I only read fiction however my favourite book is a true story – Tuesdays with Morrie
• I am a beauty product junkie
• I love to play games – hidden object and word are my favourites
• From my educational institutions, St. Joseph’s gave me a foundation, St. Xavier’s gave me a personality and SIBM gave me a fun time!
• My first job taught me practice makes perfect, my summer training taught me presentation makes a difference, my second job taught me stick- to itiveness and my latest job is teaching me patience and tolerance!
• My favourite fruit is mango but I hate mango flavoured drinks!
• I’m an internet addict and think blogs are wonderful way to make you realize there are other psychos out there and you are not alone!
• I honestly believe friends are the family you choose for yourselves and tho I adore my family – it’s my friends who know exactly who I am
• My best friend had a baby and I have not held him yet – I hate the fact that other people get to see/hear/stuff about her first!
• I’m a jealous possessive bitch – if I think I own you, god help you!
• I hate the thought of having a job – it creates limitations on what you do!
• I adore television and have to know to put life on hold when I’m watching select programmes
• I’m completely crazy but I have a lot of balance in my life – this is thanks to my parents and the way they raised me leading me to make good choices
• I’m not introspective but I acknowledge my own motivations, inspirations and pettiness
• This should have been point 1 – I’m an only child so quite self centred as you can see by the number of points beginning with I
• I make a lot of friends but I ‘talk’ to really few – fact is till date, no matter where I am or what time it is, if I have an issue, I only want to talk to R [ this does not count for S and A since they boys and mostly concerns them!]
• I love films and aspire to be a film critic as well
• I used to write poetry in school but stopped when I realized how mediocre it was – I wish I had continued tho just as a release
• I am incapable of committing to writing – maybe I think if I do it, it will ruin the pleasure it gives me
• Writing this reminded me of how much I hate being out there – which is why I barely blog personal and when I do, I tend to unpublish it for a while as well.

Body Swap, anyone?

I stayed up late last night watching the movie 'It's a boy/girl thing' where the next door neighbours who hate each other inexplicably switch bodies - what follows is your regular movie plot - thrashing the other person's reputation, making the most of the physical changes, and finally ending up completely understanding one another. Other examples of this genre of movies is 'Prelude to a Kiss' where Meg Ryan during her wedding to Alec Baldwin kisses some random old codger while wondering what it would be like to be him and lo and behold! she was him, and In 'Freaky Friday' where mother and daughter exchange bodies in order to create understanding and harmony between them.
I enjoyed watching the movies but was cringing at the thought of a body swap with a boy like in 'It's a boy/girl thing' like the female in the male body has no idea what to do with the erection every morning or how to pee standing up - also the thought of exchanging bodies with an old man is not making me very happy either and my mom least of all tho can you imagine what that would do to women with Electra complexes?
It makes me wonder tho, would anybody really like to exchange bodies with another person keeping your mind and soul in place and even if you did, who exactly would you be? the person outside or the person inside coz the person inside is defintely influenced by the outer packaging and vice versa? so over a long period time, would you be you, would you be them or would you evolve into a third person creating a whole new identity for the new amalgamation? or would you just be a split personality?

6 Degrees of seperation

Swimming in an ocean of words....

.....that's really the best way to describe some of the books I read in the last year - The Jasper Fforde series starring Thursday Next are set in fiction {I know, it sounds very wierd when I type it but I have no other way to describe it}, with guest characters from all your favourite novels and even nursery rhymes. He easily wins 'Idea of the Year' much like J.K. Rowling did for Harry Potter - that kind of creativity amazes me.
All in all, I think I got a lot of reading done this year, inspite of having taking a hiatus since December - can't seem to get through one decent book - read loads of contemporary fiction but cannot get through new literature.
I just wanted to recap some of the things I read this year which have really stayed in memory:

• Jasper Fforde: Thursday Next and Nursery Crime
  
• Marian Keyes: Sushi for Beginners, Rachel's Holiday, This Charming Man -
  
• The Time Traveler's Wife
  
• The Painter of Shanghai
  
• The Zoya Factor
• Almost Single
• The Devil Wears Prada
• World according to Garp
• Lovely Bones
• David Baldacci's Camel Club series - The Camel Club, The Collectors and Stone Cold
  
• 3 Candace Bushnell Novels [did not like even one - tho I love all the TV shows]
• P.S. I love you
• Interpretation of Murder
• Sister of My Heart
• Princess Diaries [totally online!]
• Compulsive Confessor's cliterature: You Are Here
• Swati Kaushal - piece of Cake
• Chris Kuznieski - The Sign of the Cross and Sword of God
  
• Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary
• Steve Berry - The Last Templar
• Jeffrey Archer - Prisoner of Birth
• John Grisham - Playing for Pizza
• Julia Navarro - Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud
  

I've kind of started a swapping sytem with the BFF so that pretty much leads to an interesting stream of reading since he comes across different literature. All in all, this year has been quite heavy on the religious fiction, chick literature esp Indian cliterature and the off beat novels of which my personal favourite has been the Time Traveler's Wife - cannot explain why - just really liked the novel and the circle of life it represented.

Farewell 2008....*

You went by too soon and let's hope what started with you will be succesful in the future.

I love recapping what happened in the last 365 days - it gives me a sense of what I accomplished and What I did right. Yes, I know - I'm like an ostrich - I hide my head in the sand and hope disaster can't see me but I like to focus on the positive so here is the recap of my life circa 2008.

• Started a year with a trip to the Golden Triangle for 4 days with The R's and the boy
• D got married
• Visited Mussourie
• Another Engagement
• Relationship doubt
• Visited the S's in Hong Kong
• Holidayed in Vietnam for 10 days
• Reconnected with the Apostles
• Self doubt
• Job profile changed
• Still have the boyfriend
• also discovered the boy looks like Luke Perry - Yay!
• Discovered 'How I Met Your Mother' as the new favourite TV show
• Decided to cut unhealthy associates
• Enjoyed Christmas with loads of old friends
• also enjoyed the new years with them

*This blog has been sitting in my draft folder for like 10 days - I've just decided to publish without photies or anything so I can have a black and white reminder of the last year.

Poetry, Paisa and a pinch of salt!

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee."

This is what I have just heard, along with Aubade - Vikram Seth, Pablo Neruda and Simon Armitage [who ride beautiful dark humour but I digress] at an engagement - Yes! I repeat... there was poetry reading at an engagement and this has just confirmed my opinion that I am a reverse snob. I look down from my pedestal of an ordinary middle class individual and laugh at the pretensions of the high and mighty who lament the loss of the Taj as their 'adda' and think reading poetry at their engagements proves them to be English aficionados or whatever else they are trying to say. I have realised I revel in my "Shopping in Linking Road" status as much as I enjoy the occasional visit to a 5 star. I look at my sense of balance and think that I am better than them coz I can do it all - I am not limited by the excess of money to only wearing certain clothes or eating certain foods. And while I readily admit to the pang of jealousy about the lack of economy that allows the rich to travel whenever, I take comfort in the fact that this very fact makes the experience novel for me and my eye is not jaded making every new location fresh and undiscovered and hard earned. The sad part of this is that eventually, I am no better than anybody else coz I am also looking down at people who I think are not worthy of my attention since they have it all!

Another example of how I express this is the fact that I think SRK is better than Aamir Khan mainly due to the point that Shah Rukh is very clear on who he is and how he brings SRK to every role - he does not have pretensions to histrionics or wants to spout about the skin of a role - he says I act like myself in all my films and you know what?? It works - that kind of attitude is refreshing and I appreciate the honesty though it may be a platform/gimmick - it is much more believable than going on about your 'Art'.