Wondrous discoveries: noodles/ pasta cooks well if you don’t constantly sit it on the gas. The less you toss, the better. Yesterday, I put in the scrambled egg, pasta and cheese sauce while the cooking pan was off the gas, mixed it and put it back on the gas for a few minutes. Turned out very well.
And carrots cut very fine and fried just a little bit taste lovely in pasta. Also, mushrooms need to be fried a little more than my mother did yesterday. Yesterday’s pasta rocked! :-D I cooked it with carrots, onion, mushroom, celery (I don’t care for it) and scrambled eggs and a dash of cheese sauce. With the pasta, cheese sauce and scrambled eggs added to the fried veggies off the gas and tossed just a little. The less on the gas, the better. Yum yum.
I only wish all my tomato based thingies didn’t taste the same. Do different varieties of tomatoes taste different? And man that cheese ragu is expensive.

I read such sad, dire stuff in a blog right now, but my day has been, well, pleasant, though I think Woody Allen’s words “Why are we here? And why is it so terrible?” rings a strong bell of recognition. I went to my colleague’s house today for lunch. She has a large flat and though she cribs about it not being well done-up (she wants one lemon yellow and another purple wall), I love going there, despite the hellishly long distance. The walls are white-washed, there is not a lot of furniture or things hung up on the walls and there is a balcony with large glass doors. She cooked us tubey pasta and lovely keema. I also had Amul fat-free chocolate ice-cream I took with me, a thing to be avoided at all costs from now on. I cooked some linguine pasta myself yesterday, with tomato-based keema thingy and scattered a lot of grated processed Amul cheese on top, and despite it not being parmesan as the recipes keep demanding, I think it was the best thing going for the dish. Rachel of racheleats, I WILL make that tomato sauce you wrote of so lovingly, some day to go with pasta. Next: the celery has to be finished off before it goes the same road as the basil. Likewise for mushroom. And there’s the leftover tuna and the huge jar of cheese sauce and the rapidly-becoming rancid cheese. This pasta phase will go on for a while yet. Also, I think I like linguine more than this bizarre array of penne, twisty or shell-shaped nonsense. Kissan grape squash is also very very good. I almost wanted to crush grapes and make some myself.
Aaand my dog and I went walking again. It might be monsoon time, but it’s still hellishly humid when it isn’t raining. So I almost melted and my dog was hot and panted for a good half hour after we returned. And how she sniffed. Offfffff. No lamp post, tree trunk, car tyre must be left unsniffed. Add to that the fact that we have a dog in our building, who I am sure pees on the stair landings because my dog bends her front legs and half sits, with hind quarters raised to sniff out every bit of its scent. I had to drag her away from some of these lamp posts because she wouldn’t stop sniffing. This was all quite tiring because it was so hot. The 5am walks are far more pleasant.
My dog also ate a small plastic packet and vomited today. When she was very little, she had enthusiastically made a hole in a one-litre packet of cooking oil to drink it. Then she vomited all the boiled vegetables my mother had painstakingly fed her.
I think my dog is the funniest when she raises her hindquarters, with front legs bent, to concentrate on something she is excited by, like say an insect. She also likes to push her way and create a space between the sofa backrest and a person she likes who is sitting on it. She then lodges herself firmly in that space and lounges. She also tries, occasionally, to bite your butt when you aren't looking.

Grey’s Anatomy is a truly horrible, simpering serial. I exhausted myself just reading about it on Wikipedia (pronounced waikipedia by my mejo kaka, very cool, I think.)
So anyway, it’s raining and all. Ma’s doc is decent, the appointment went well. We also bought plums, peaches and cherries. I hadn’t eaten plums and peaches before. We like. Also, tonight we shall have chilli chicken and rice noodles, hneh hneh. And perhaps, just perhaps, I will finally iron today.
I stayed up the whole night, yesternight and night before and went for a walk with my dog afterward. I am a little worried that she’s not so curious about other dogs. With four dogs standing close around her (these were our dogs, not the strangers), she looked casually at them for a bit, then went back to sniffing. She sniffs obsessively, uff. Sometimes lowering herself comfortably on the raised footpath while we stand on the road. Getting her operated has made it much easier to take her for walks, I suppose, since she isn’t giving out the come hither smells. The peyara gachher daal also helps significantly. Also, in the last one year, I’ve become more comfortable with street dogs. I saw yesterday that our old white one has one giant yellow side tooth and no teeth in front, that was one gross and scary sight and I am still traumatised. The little one was eating a dead rat yesterday (big yuck!) and licked my hand with the same ratty mouth, dirtying my jeans by lovingly putting up one grubby paw on my leg. The black one, the one my mother loves most, barked and barked and barked when she saw my dog yesterday. She is the most bheetu of them all. And today, she sat close to us and kept looking sideways, but when my dog tried to come close to her, kept running away. I think she is a big bhodu and a boka kukur to boot.
I was also re-reading my old, meagre stash of Mills and Boon. I think I will go and get myself some second hand ones.
My new salwar is pretty, but looks a little like a school uniform or the uniform of a nurse who works in a really dreary hospital. It’s khaki in colour.
I watched Eastern Promises yesterday. The texture is dark and almost haunting, but in the end, it’s just a whimper, which is so sad. It reminded me later of Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. I want to watch it again. That Armin Mueller-Stahl again plays a cruel man with a placid face, uff.
In the latest of a long list of incidents of self-mutilation, I scraped my right thumb while taking out a bedsheet from the almirah and drew blood yesterday night. It still burns, I don’t know why. Therefore, I ate with my left hand for the first time, today. I can tell you, my mouth is far more dexterous than my left hand. It made me realise why Harrison Ford looked so daft eating with his (right) hand in Sabrina.

So. Back’s better, though I am losing no opportunity to complain. Well, basically I am saying that I love the way Bibek writes, here and here. So much prettier if we were a composed sum of our best qualities, instead of scatterbrained and waif-like. At least that’s the image I suggest to myself of myself. It was a good day today. Boyfriend got computer working again. Ram spoke to Vellore and found out what had to be done for duplicate death certificates, there’s a chance my savings account and our new fd will be done yet and I applied for the vellore DD at the bank today. I will send off the vellore application tomorrow and go with my mother to another bank to close an account and get some other work done.
On Saturday, we have an appointment with ma’s doc. My salwars are ready too and can be picked up from the tailor’s. I am quite excited about them.
On Monday, I went back to the municipality (site of fall and subsequent back hurt) with the last receipt and paid the outstanding taxes. No worry till April next year. That was another accomplishment. But on the way back, there were no buses. I can’t sit in an auto without back hurting. So I walked almost half the distance (a fairly long distance) in the unbearable humidity. I had eaten almost nothing and was feeling slightly ill and was getting late for office and a little worried about my back. Well, I got a bus eventually.
Now, it’s not so hot and so humid, so everything is more bearable. You can think with greater clarity, do more without feeling drained. I bought lots of interesting stuff today. Orange crush, tuna, rice noodles, macaroni and kaju and kishmish. Can’t wait to have macaroni and tuna for dinner, hneh hneh. Of course provided mother makes.
And Castle, hneh hneh.
And True Blood season 3 from next week. Hneh hneh hneh.

I fell down the stairs today. Slid down a few steps on my butt. I had gone to the municipality to pay long due taxes. Slid while getting out of the building. It hurts very much. I can neither sit, stand not lie down without feeling pain. It’s the tailbone I think.
It’s also very muggy, I have a cold and a sore throat. I don’t know what to do, so I am just riding it out till I feel ok enough to take decisions.
It was quite sunny when I set out and I was sweating very much. At the municipality, people were willing to help, which was a good thing, but they also have not maintained any record of payments. I hadn’t been able to find the latest bill, so took the bill before that. The man asked me to bring the last bill, he would update his records and take the money.
While coming out, I slipped and fell. Much vigorous hurting later, I went to the auto stand, sweated in the auto line, then, after getting an auto, sat and sat until the jam cleared. It got a little uncomfortable after a while, as my back was really hurting and I could shift positions only very gingerly. The cold aggravated the sweating.
Got back home. Hunted for an hour for the bill. The cold got a little worse, I think, since I was sifting a lot of dirt, so I took an anti-allergic. I did not find the bill and decided I felt too ill to search any more. My mother kept asking what I wanted to take for tiffin and asking me with great concern to not go to office. I did not want to miss office since I had taken a month’s leave in April and there are other considerations as well. But explaining that would not really have made a difference, I suppose. My mother kept asking what I wanted for tiffin until I agreed to what she was proposing. She would not take ‘I don’t know’ for an answer.
I ate, dressed, messaged my boss that I would be late because I fell down the stairs etc. All of this was interspersed with the same sms on my cellphone from my bank informing me of a bank transaction I had done today. I kept rushing to check the message because I wanted to see what my boss would say. I probably got the sms 14 times today.
He called later, expressing great concern and asking me not to come. I said I was fine and was on my way.
I walked slowly to the bus stop, taking 15 minutes, perhaps, instead of the 7/10. I got up on a bus that had just arrived instead of the waiting auto, thinking I’d save a buck and sit perhaps more comfortably. After I sat down, I realized I’d forgotten my wallet. I hurriedly got down and began walking back slowly to my stoppage. I was wondering whether to get the wallet and come back, something I’d hate to do even on an ordinary day. I told myself that it was important to do one’s job, that one went to office unless one were physically incapable.
I ask for others’ opinion when I know the right answer, but want someone else to say the thing I want to hear. I called my boyfriend and asked if I should go back. He said, do if you want to. I felt the old sad anger at the detached answer. I said ok and disconnected the line.
I went back, climbed the stairs and rang the bell. My dog howled when she realized it was me. My mother opened the door and after my dog had put her urine-dripped paw on my fresh white shirt in welcome, said, ‘be careful, she just peed her.’ She then asked, won’t you go to office?’ I said, please be quiet. She then said, open your earrings.
I went in and changed, came out and sat and watched TV. It was hot, I was sweating constantly, my throat was sore and I felt quite ill. There was nothing interesting, so after a while, I switched it off. My dog and I went into my room. I ate my tiffin on the bed, while she sniffed greedily. I didn’t give her any. She’d had lunch, she has meat everyday and it was teaching her a bad habit. It still felt bad, however. I offered her my sweet after I finished eating, but she wasn’t that interested. I could hardly sit and didn’t want to change position, get up and coax her.
I lay down for a bit, saw afternoon become evening, took a few phone calls.
I have since left the bed, watched some TV, had a cup of tea.
My mother asked me whether she should give tomato in the chicken she was cooking for me. I said, I don’t know. I then shouted that I had told her I had a cold, I was asking for tea which she refused to make and she still kept asking whether she should put tomato in the chicken. She would have to decide for herself. We shouted at each other for a while.

In the last few days, I have hurt myself more than I usually do. Day before, I singed my calf a little with the mosquito coil while I was sleeping on the floor. That was actually a new thing, and I was a little kicked. But I keep bumping into things, stabbing my toe, ramming my elbows into walls. Is something wrong with my coordination? While bathing in the afternoon today, I remembered my father falling down the stairs before he left for Vellore. This is a story I heard much later from the residents in his building when we went to where my father lived and worked, to settle his final payments. I always imagine the incident, instead of remembering the telling. He hurt his head or back, I think, because he was returning home from office, climbing up the stairs.
My mother had a very bad fall a few days ago in the kitchen. She let out an unearthly scream, a thin, long drawn out keening cry. Until I rushed in and saw her, I didn’t know whether it was her or the dog. When I heard it, I thought the worst might have finally happened, life as I knew it was over now. When I saw that she had slipped on pickle oil and then, when she started blaming me for hurrying her, I did not freak. I helped her up. Her foot swelled up and she had a nasty cut on one of her hands. It’s ok now.
But I feel very afraid when slightly older people start falling.

I felt very helpless a while ago. With everything going wrong in a way that was hard to ignore.

What in god's name is this?


If I suddenly stop trying to do everything I am trying to do, jump up and get married, will everyone be happy? Will my boyfriend be happy? (he won’t), will I be happy to have done what is expected of me and not feel so bitter about wasting my life? I mean, the marriage will be the visible thing, everything else will be subtext, non-existent unless I utter it.
Another flurry of marriages, 30 is closer than I ever thought and I am no nearer doing any of the things I had thought I would do. Living on a pause button. It’s scary how much things don’t move unless you do something about it. Scary how ok it is to snarl, claw out what you want because you want it, because you believe it your right, scary how much time I wasted thinking it to be impolite, scary that people I live with still think it so, think it better to wait hesitantly in the wings forever, doing your damnedest from there to be noticed.
Why is it that at 27, I am still waiting? I have been afraid for a long time that if I did what I wanted, I would not have something else I dearly wanted to keep. And I have done my time. If I still don’t have it, obviously the process is wrong.
But oh oh, to think of all the things with which I decorated my life: the dogs and the little kindnesses, laughter and smiles. It is habit to cling on to what you have, perhaps it is only others for whom everything is unfurled like a dainty planned process. Others just have to settle for Gulkand, believing it to be a tasty dish. When you know, in your heart of hearts, that sweetened roses with nuts and raisins cannot but be horrible, horrible.

If you felt like an insect and wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out for a long time, you could, right? Will going away change this?

I returned today. And stayed back since the Duronto Express (yes, it is a joke) was two hours late. It was a good day to return, it was not sunny, there was a cool breeze in the middle of afternoon, it was cloudy etc.
But then, it is not joyful. It is like returning to the site of your defeats, to your biggest heartbreak, where your heart is breaking even now, where things have not changed for you at all. Where there is no challenge because you have lost several times over and are only returning to face the consequences of your defeat and to lose some more.

It's a Sunday afternoon in Delhi. I am sitting in my dusty house, typing this out in my emphatically non-qwerty keypad and waiting for the mistri who's to come an hour later. So, well, one finds oneself inhabiting moments that, even though one doesn't mind them, are very far beyond the realm of the expected. There's a nirvana-like quality in sweating out the mild heat of the apartment, hoping for an undisturbed hour, hoping to avoid catching a cold from the dust, staring at the faded fabric of old jeans. It would be pleasant to settle down, wouldn't it?, but there are so many things that must be taken care of into which it is difficult to factor in someone else: they might not want to be factored in.
Can i say that i find the challenge of making this house an inhabitable place mildly exciting & therefore want to take it on?
I don't like this locality. The houses smell of joint families & ghee, that it's far from what for lack of a better word one calls cosmopolitan. It's hard to figure how the Punjabi or Marwari or Jat thinks, one only knows to be wary.

So, i am sitting in an extremely dusty house that belongs to us, which i fought to get back. I have a cold, so it's not such a hot idea to sit in the dust. I got glass fitted to the empty window frames day before & boarded up a doorway. I'm sitting on the floor with my back against the peeling wall & feeling apprehensive at the possibility of trouble from the Society. It would be easier with one other person with me.
So, door got fitted. Still waiting for a mistri to give an estimate for some work on the balcony.

I didn't realise this was the extent I could ask for. I'm tired of asking, tired of stooping to beg. It's otherwise very amiable. Just that, after a certain point, there is an absence, a vacuum, where no word or appeal has an effect that is any different from that reserved for any other friend.

Does one ever take away lessons from experience? Are you ever wiser? Little indicates I am. It seems I am unfit to take on the affairs of the world, so inept I am. What am I doing? Why does it take so long to wise up to things? Why do I ignore my gut feelings so easily. And Rohini is so very far away. And Dilli is so hot. Lawyers are crooks. Police are always an uncertain quantity. Ananya's words often ring true, that you are always alone. Why should one have to repeatedly ask for, beg for help from one one counts as one's own? Why do so many words have to be expended, repeated ad infinitum, why the need for explanation at all? Isn't it evident? Unless my impressions are deemed untrustworthy, or that I have not given enough to command so much in return? What are faulty electric meters, office jokes, being needed in office on a Sunday? These are non-existent reasons. Am I wrong to expect another to look at my problem as I look at it? A was saying you can't, except of parents and I knew this to be true once, but I, well, I have had so much for such a long time that I expected nothing but entire commitment. I am tired of having to explain, of trying to speed things up because someone is in a hurry to return.
I spent six hours on two commutes to Rohini yesterday, I stood in the sun for say, an hour and a half at an office and by the end of it, had almost lost sense of my surroundings. I was ill from the heat, with a tummy upset and feeling like vomiting. We had left at 8am and returned at 3. I could hardly eat. I was journeying back to Rohini by 5 for an appointment that eventually didn't happen. This was the second time it hadn't. I returned at 10.45, having hardly eaten anything through the day, ate a little rice and waited for a phone call. By then I was running entirely on adrenalin and didn't know how to switch off, so I read a couple of stories from ma's sananda. It was quite relaxing. But then I again had to explain why I couldn't do it alone, that another head, another pair of hands would be very handy, would be like being given the moon and that it was not only about reassurance.
My back still aches a little from lugging around the knapsack, my feet doesn't hurt as much from yesterday's hail auto=buy ticket-hold ma's hand through escalator rides, stand in metro-change metro=more escalators- more hand holdiing, rickshaw ride. I am glad hot blasts of air didn't lash my face and make my eyes sting. Maybe someone else would be more resilient, more cussed, more determined, more go-getting, maybe the way I am does not work in Delhi, maybe my thinking that I will get this done come what may and how badly I am actually doing this does not tally. Who knows? I did lose baba at the end of a month, so I am probably not that good a fighter. I held F's picture on my phone close and cried today. At the helplessness, perhaps, at the struggle, out of fear, disappointment??. Am I bad because of that? I need a break, at least a day's, even though I can't afford it. Am I wrong that I can't keeep working, days on end, that the weather, the stress gets to me so soon?
I sound selfish, accusing. But well, I am still there, aren't I?

my heart is clenched. i dont know why i thought this would sort itself out at least a little today. my heart sank when i realised. it seems i've stayed away so long from all that i like. F was operated today. she was being trouble, so I had to put the choke chain on her. oh, she must have been so scared. she has probably been scared all the time since she always snaps at people there. what a badly-brought up dog, I must think. such a small dog, and who knows how she must feel being all alone.
it was so good to have ma today. i thought i'd cry from hopelessness on the way home. but she was around, to just have someone else who cares is so strengthening. at other times, when i have sat at home and will do for the rest of the week, it seems like i have been placed in an alien planet, where i have no roots, no purpose while everyone i know has a concrete day to day reason for being here. i feel like an exile, here to take away something that belongs to me in a place where i dont belong, where i have no right.
each day i sit doing nothing, seems like a waste of life blood: room rent, cost of food, travel: all for cooling my heels waiting for a time when something MIGHT happen.

Hey bhogoban, what now? Is this all there is to it? Then I shall just keel over and die.

Oh, just get me a man though. To do this with. I am weak with relief though it might mean just nothing. It's been this way so many times in the last 2 weeks.

F goes to stay with I tomorrow. One can never appreciate a dog enough. You get used to its fur and that you will find dog hairs on your person at the strangest times. That a kyabla face will look at you questioningly and that you will receive occasional tail-lashings.

But let's not gush. It is probably nothing and we will return to the heart-clenching, bone-wearying grind.

I am very very tensed about upcoming work. I couldn’t do it without the help of boyfriend and I realise again and again why people come together, marry, form communities, why those bonds are stronger than friendships. It means a commitment, a duty that goes beyond like or dislike. I am grateful for this. I feel scared, insecure, and spiky about having to take favours. I want to come back to my own space soon, where I do not feel obliged and guilty for being unable to repay the kindness/ help.

Reasons to be irked about today:
BSNL has mistakenly added last month’s bill to this one’s and barred outgoing calls. In the midst of never-enough-time, kal will have to run to Salt Lake to get that fixed. Online billing? No no sirree. In fact, offline o thik kore korbo na.
I was hoping for the closure of the first phase of duplicate marksheet story. No hope in sight. Duplicate marksheet wanter hasn’t written back clarifying what she wants, and I have left stuff with Dibbo. So sorry.
And then, no cook, no maid, ma at dadu’s, so go home clean dog, prepare other dogs’ food, wake up early when ma is back tomorrow routine. Feed own dog, who will throw all kinds of tantrums, stuff food down own gullet. TALK: v.important to figure out stuff.
Getting a form signed by someone. Speed posting it.
Making a v.important call from home. (Oh brilliant, no happen tom, because no phone, no STD. So figure out a niribili place in office to phone from.)
How I will do all of this by tomorrow, I have no idea. The BSNL thingy really really didn’t have to compound things.

Plus, I am apprehensive about Dilli trip. It seems like a godforsaken place, much worse than Nagpur. Perhaps by the end of the trip I will have resolved to never live or work there.

NB: Para dog seems ok.
I hope SSS’s cat will be fine. Its name is Mieville, like Dora’s cat.

So, er, this is more an update than anything else. Just because I can.
I went to Indrani’s and this is what I wrote to Oli and the sexy sadistic spanker:
Dog is well, calm, even happy. And somehow, even clean, though obviously not given a bath. It was very relaxing to be there and indrani herself talks in a language that is familiar: she talks of dogs like they are people, she told me about my dog: what she's been doing, how she loves mangsho bhaat, but rather dislikes milk. And how she can eat and eat. She hasn't pulled at her bandages either, wagged her tail at Indrani and let me pet for a long time when I went into her kennel, looked curiously out of her kennel whenever she saw us come up to her. Her other dogs were also lovely: clean, fat and friendly.
Indrani has gotten young Mowgli adopted. Mowgli is a very spirited young pup that M and I saw when we went to her place. And another two will be gone too. Which is very nice. One should be able to think of some things with unrestrained happiness and right now, thinking of her and the dogs she keeps, makes me feel that way.
Among other things, I have feeling addle-headedly affectionate towards boyfriend again, without much reason, so I don’t know what to think about it. His g’ma died and he loved her very much, indeed and I was occupied with doggy stuff and feeling uncertain and blah blah things happened blah blah we spoke while I cried a little and no solution or way forward really came out except that well, I am not worried and disappointed and sad and since I can’t understand why I should feel this way, well, I can’t keep thinking about it anymore.
A cousin married. I visited their house yesterday after they had both come back from her parents’ house in the evening. My cousin looked so glad to have gotten married, it was nice. And we shall go to the boubhaat (ogod I am referring to rituals I don’t care for by name) tomorrow and I shall have to iron out my mountaineous salwaar kameez and wear it in this heat and turn on my public self and it’s work but hopefully will not be prolonged. And an uncle said, sheshe tui ekta leri kutta ke pushli. I am too outraged and well, what’s new, but is it so very hard to expect basic sensitivity, decency? You might not care for it, but you are talking to me and you can extend the same politeness, if nothing else, that I extend towards you even if I might think that what you do is bullshit. I am polite and I try to engage you in talk about what you do even if I think it’s all hocum. Is it so hard to want the same back? I dunno. Maybe I am perpetually in guilt on account of some fault of birth.
The purpose of my Dilli visit will not be sorted out easily. But I do so look forward to meeting friends. I am a little alarmed at the thought of how hot it will be, but ki ar kara.
Since I saw the sufferings of para dog, I look at my own in a new light: I had gotten used to her, but now it seems to strike again how precious her life is, how tenuous too, like everybody else’s. I pet her more often, hold her closer, smell her again and again. When I come down with food at night and my downstairs pup goes ballistic with joy (it goes ballistic at the slightest of reasons), leaping, rolling over and trying to lick all the other dogs, my heart fills with delight.
Crazy dog lady shall accompany to Harinavi for stuff she has to get done. :(

http://www.eloiseleyden.co.uk/slum-dogs

Thank you Dibbo for everything today. Mane, I am just a stupid oaf bumbling through everything. I am grateful you knew what to do, from getting the taxi, deciding on the fare, lining the seat with newspapers, petting the dog when she was on the operating table and not losing your cool once, petting her and holding her reassuringly in the taxi, paying off the driver. Also, for telling me that she needs to be walked before being made to get in. This too I didn't know at all.
Twenty four hours have seemed too little in the past three days and I am not sure what tomorrow will bring, but the pressure has eased up a bit now. And I am writing this.

Amar kalo chokchoke kukurta shob bomi kore phelechhe.