La Dolce far Niente...

...that's Italian for the "the sweetness of doing nothing". And boy, do they have that right! I am beginning to feel some of these European countries really have their priorities sorted out. I mean, the Italians have a phrase like this which pretty much advocates laziness, the Spaniards have their 'siesta' or afternoon nap - another beautiful concept. After yet another hard week's work, I feel sweet idleness is the true road to nirvana.

I mean, seriously, why is doing nothing so bad? Is it because the work ethic is so deeply instilled in us that to do nothing is seen as defeatist? Why do we push ourselves so much, constantly striving to reach who knows what - more money, a bigger house, a better car. And we slot our pockets of relaxation - one Sunday a week, one week off every six months or so. And even then there's this pressure to "do" something, "go" somewhere.

The more I think about all this, the more I find myself wondering what is the point of all this rush - waking up in the morning as soon as possible, rushing through breakfast, spending 11 stressful hours at work running between meetings, briefings, mails, desperately trying to finish a piece of work in the vain hope that it will give you some time to breathe, hurrying back home because its late, rushing through dinner and then trying to squeeze in some quality time with family before collapsing into dreamless sleep. Then there are vacations which have to be planned, social networking to be conducted, keeping oneself up-to-date with the latest news and views. And we do this day after day. No wonder we often wonder where the day, the week, the year disappeared.

Why this tearing hurry which leads nowhere, like running on a treadmill of activity? All we are doing really is sprinting through life, just hurtling towards the eternal end. What we really need, what I really need is to just Stop and Take a deep breath. Spread my time for "Niente" through the day rather than just once a year. Cut down on all the fevered activity and consequently cut down on a lot of stress. It is time to take control of our lives, to realize that the present is what we need to enjoy. The past is done with and the future may never be ours. If you are not at peace with yourself and able to savour your own company, then all the activity in the world cannot help you.

Peace is not to be found in travel to exotic lands or in going to the poshest clubs. Even something as simple as sitting beside your window looking out at the rain can be peaceful or watching your baby sleep or realizing how each petal of a flower is a work of art or looking at the shapes the clouds make in the blue sky... So to adapt a popular tagline, 'doing nothing IS possible'. I just hope one day I can achieve this. Best of luck to me and to you! :)

F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Forever

"I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour...
I'll be there for you, like I've been there before...
I'll be there for you...'coz you're there for me too!"

Yes, these lines are from the popular and much-loved US sitcom, FRIENDS. I caught myself humming this tune the other day and realized that I knew the words to the whole song. I had memorized it without even realizing it. And that's just one example of how this serial becomes a part of your life. I am a huge FRIENDS addict and have seen not just all the seasons but also multiple reruns of the same. In fact, FRIENDS is one of those rare serials whose appeal does not diminish over time and which is consistently funny.


FRIENDS started off in 1994 and continued through 10 seasons right until 2004. I remember watching an episode on Star World (or was it still Star Plus back then?) and then catching another on Zee Cafe on the same day. FRIENDS was and still is, one of the best ways of passing a lazy Sunday or enlivening a tired weeknight at home. Every episode with the sitcom's central characters, Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Monica and Phoebe was sure to generate several grins, a few chuckles and a couple of belly-laughs.

The gang who hang out at Central Perk the New York coffee house, became such a big part of my life growing up that my friends and I often refer to their exploits or try to decide which FRIENDS character we are most like. Here's a short roundup of the six key characters around whose lives this serial revolves:


Ross Geller (David Schwimmer): Thanks to him, we know what the word "paleontologist" means. He works in this capacity at the New York Museum. He is quite geeky with his love for dinosaurs and fossils and is not street smart at all. He is Monica's brother and has been Chandler's college roommate. He has long had a crush on Rachel and has an on-off relationship with her. Despite being a decent guy who wants nothing more than to settle down happily, much to his chagrin, he has been divorced three times. The first time (to Carol) because his wife turned out to be a lesbian, second (to Emily) because he said the wrong name at the altar and third time (to Rachel) because he got married when he was drunk. He has two children: a son Ben from his marriage to Carol and a daughter Emma with Rachel.


Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston): She starts off as the spoiled daughter of a rich doctor who runs away from her wedding. She finds her feet with the Central Perk gang by learning to live on her own by first working as a waitress and then using her natural fashion sense to work as a buyer in fashion house of Ralph Lauren. She also knows Ross and Monica from high school and shares a room with Monica. She is always very stylish and the kind of girl all the guys fall for. She is also credited with giving us "The Rachel" - a layered haircut that she popularized on the show and which was then adopted by women all over the world.


Monica Geller (Courteney Cox): The mother hen of the group who loves being the hostess. By profession she is a chef and is often rustling up some delicacy or the other. She is also known for her obsessive-compulsive and competitive nature. Everybody knows Monica will get mad if there is any kind of mess around. Monica has a history of being extremely overweight and some flashback episodes show her like this leading to much hilarity. Monica eventually finds love with Chandler Bing and marries him.


Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow): The singer of "Smelly Cat"! Phoebe is an eccentric masseuse and musician. Phoebe is known for her toneless self-written guitar songs which everyone pretends to like. She is in her own words, "flaky" but is also street smart having to be on her own on the streets of New York City. Her previous lifestyle and wild stories often shock her friends. She also has elaborate stories about her previous lives. She has evil twin sister named Ursula who is completely self-centred and with whom she doesn't get along. She has also acted as surrogate mother and given birth to triplets for her step-brother and his wife. In the last season, she marries Mike Hannigan played by Paul Rudd.


Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc): He is a struggling actor and food lover who shares a room with Chandler. They initially live across the hall from Rachel and Monica. Joey finds fame (and stalkers) with his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey is a womanizer with many short-term girlfriends throughout the series. To woo the girls, he uses his standard catchphrase, "How you doin?" to great effect. Joey's key charm lies in being a child at heart and a loyal friend.



Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry): He is the wise-guy of the group and is always cracking sarcastic jokes about everything. He used to work in a vague analysis job for a large multi-national corporation but is not happy at it so he quits and becomes a junior copywriter at an advertising agency during season nine. He has had an unhappy childhood with his father being a Vegas burlesque dancer and his mother an erotic novelist. Chandler hates Thanksgiving since his most vivid memory of Thanksgiving was when he was nine years old and his mother and father told him they were getting divorced so his father could run off with the house-boy. Chandler therefore refuses to celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way. So every Thanksgiving episode has a backstory about Chandler. As Joey says, "It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Chandler bumming us out!" Though he started off as the one with the most problems with commitment, Chandler is the first of his friends to settle down happily with Monica.


Due to its popularity, the show has also seen several celebrity stars appearing in guest roles. These include Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck, Julia Roberts etc. And one of the best parts about FRIENDS is that the actors became good friends even in real life. They negotiated jointly for pay hikes and insisted on being treated as an ensemble cast without any member being given more importance than the other.

Essentially FRIENDS was a story of six young people on their own and struggling to survive in the real world using the comfort and support of their friendship. It struck a chord with so many viewers because one could identify with each one of the characters at some point of time or the other. We have all been a little geeky, a little sarcy, a little control-freakish, a little crazy and so confused a lot of the time.
For those of you who have watched it, you know what I mean. And for those of you who haven't, go watch an episode now...you don't know what you're missing!
Here's a toast to one of my favourite serials, something that has brought so much laughter into my life: a promise to be FRIENDS forever!



Picture courtesy: Google Images

Auld lang syne

The story of my life as written on a T-shirt - "So much to do, so little time".

Have been completely submerged in work post X'mas. Hoping that this is just a phase and will pass and really worried that this may be for keeps. I am used to working hard and generally average around 10 hours at work each day. But at this time of the year, when winter finally, unbelievably and enchantingly, descends on my city and all I want is to warm myrself in the sunshine, I am spending around 12 hrs cooped up inside office. And while I get all existential and wonder why I am screwing my happiness like this, my fingers (and toes) are crossed hoping for a better time soon.

Okkkk...now that I've got the self-pity out of my system, let's talk about happier things. I have quite a few good novels stacked up and waiting to be read since I went on a book-buying spree recently. Currently reading Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants". It's a voluminous tome but pretty interesting so far. Also finally purchased Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns". I had really liked "The Kite Runner" and I've heard good things about this one too. My Sherlock Holmes is not over as yet either. Also pending is the third book in the Millennium trilogy, "The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest". Have lost interest in this though due to its long-winded writing style, replete with unnecessary details. Also have a Frederick Forsyth ("The Afghan") and Wodehouse ("A pelican at Blandings") waiting. If you are a book-lover, you will understand the joy the very thought of these treasures brings me. I am a member of a library near my office and those hurried walks in the evenings to reach the room full of musty books is sometimes the high point of my day.

Since we are into the New Year and New Decade, its clearly the time for resolutions. I hadn't thought of any new ones this year since I realize that a 'copy-paste' of last year's would work fine. The goal I've set myself is to do at least one new thing - join a gym, a music class, a language class, learn to drive. Start with minimum one activity. My focus is also going to be on watching what I eat since am beginning to gain weight. But two weeks into this year and the report on this is pathetic. In fact, am dreaming about a Cheeseburst pizza even as I write! Who would have thought the perennially skinny kid, whose mom tried everything under the sun to make her gain weight, would one day have to think twice about food. Blame it on our sedentary lifestyle. Gone are PT classes, the Lock 'n Key games, the long walks to the Metro station, the running up and down staircases. Just some of the things the last decade took away with itself.

I remember my graduation and MBA days as some of the best of the last decade. I studied what I really wanted to, saw some academic high points, gained the confidence to participate in more extra-curricular activities and made many good friends. I also started working in the middle of the last decade and stepped into a whole other dimension of life. I gained financial independence, the satisfaction of tackling new and different challenges and best of all, the chance to travel to lands beyond India.

The last ten years were also a period of great change for me emotionally, turning a shy, reserved girl into a much stronger person than she could have ever believed possible. This girl saw some tough times especially in the last few years when death and disease struck at her family. She felt ravaged by pain unlike any she had known before. But she also discovered a small flame of optimism in her that refused to go out. And so she hopes that this decade will bring a better time, a happier time. For her family, for herself and for you too. Touchwood!

Happy New Year and may God bless us all!

Holiday Season

Warm and fuzzy. Quilt warming toes. Brain buzzed with hot coffee. Eyes dreamy and mind hazy like the cotton candy I had the day before. At New Market. Christmas shopping at New Market...a unique experience. So crowded as to put one off people forever. So alive that anywhere else seems to pale by comparison. Christmas trees, glitter, Santa Claus and stars. The warm aroma of freshly baked cakes everywhere. The ridiculously long queue outside Nahoums Bakery as though drawn by the Pied Piper. People looking ready to lay down their lives for cake. Plum cake, fruit cake, plain cake. Chaos and carnival time.

Lunch at Mocambo on Park Street. Of course we have to wait for our table. It's Christmas eve! Once inside, we are crammed into tables placed so close to each other that eavesdropping is not optional but inevitable. The restaurant is decorated with holly leaves, wrapped around the red lampshades. I look around at all the people wondering what their story is, what their plans are for the day. When the food arrives, it's delicious and the conversation at the neighbouring table is entertaining. Lunch is a success.

South City mall was also lit up like a fairyland. Santas here too. Multiple. And reindeer pulling his sleigh. And snowmen having a snowball fight. And penguins apparently come down from the Arctics. Shine and dazzle everywhere. Who dare feel unhappy in this riotous display? Shopping, that new opium of the masses, brings a new high in these surroundings. One can't get enough of the cakes here too.

Exhausted but still not done for the day, we try our hands at baking. Some experimentation later, more cake! The house smells nice. It looks nice too with the small Christmas tree and Santa Claus standing guard over the ornaments. And the deep red roses everywhere. I love this feeling of festivity. Life should be a celebration. This is the chance to live it the way it is meant to be lived.

Merry Christmas everyone!

White Noise

A trip to the hospital to get a simple test done. Then again that's an antithesis - can any health related examination ever be simple?
A sense of stupid surprise that there are already so many people thronging the place. It's quite early in the morning but I guess time is not a variable in this equation. Making my way through the masses trying to locate the fastest possible route...with the sour realization that I am actually expediting a process that I dread. I run about and figure a way out of the maze which is hospital administration. It's not too hard though and it gives you something to keep your mind occupied.

Quite soon, too soon, I am sitting outside a white door in a white room amidst a group of motley strangers. I can see them try to guess the nature of my illness, my back-story even as I speculate about theirs. We stare gamely at each other pretending we don't care, as if this is something we do everyday. The hospital staff rush around taking charge. I marvel at the doctors, nurses and assistants as they pass by thinking about the courage it takes to spend all your waking hours here - in the presence of fear and disease and death. I for one cannot wait to run out as soon as possible. I already feel like I have been sitting on this hard plastic chair forever. I look around once more to distract myself. There is a television tuned in to the Cartoon Network. Someone has a sense of humour.

I look around to see if anyone waiting is watching the TV. No one is. There is an elderly woman who looks irritated with all the fuss, a few middle-aged men looking grim, a couple of them chatting away, just passing the time of day, there is a newly married couple sitting very close together on this winter morning. Some people just look resigned - been there, done that. There is an inmate of the hospital who has been brought in a wheelchair. Her face screams fear even as she sits immobile and soundless. Her daughter and husband are with her trying to draw her out of her misery. A boy who cannot be older than 10 is wheeled in. He is scared too. He clutches his grandmother's hand and picks away at the seat of his chair with the other. His voice rises in pitch as his grandmother leaves him alone for a bit. He is too young to be here I think.

I pray that he is alright. I pray that the woman in the wheelchair is fine too. And that the newlyweds have nothing to worry about. And I pray for myself. I know its nothing major (probably) but I realise that at this moment good health is the most important thing on my mind. Later I will worry again about a dozen other real or imagined problems...but right now I just say a short prayer.

I know that in that white room that day, my prayer at least was answered.

BBC's Top 100 books

Have been tagged by Scarlett. Given below is the BBC's list of the top 100 books of all time. According to them an average person has read 6 of these books.
I'm marking the ones that I've read...let's see if I am par with the average or whether I'm an outlier... (Excuse the researcher speak! :P)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hmm...not bad, if I say so myself...that's 32! :) I'm one of those people who simply can't remember the details so just going through this list has made me feel like I wouldn't mind catching up with some old favourites again...so, thanks Scarlett.

I'm also a bit surprsied that some books didn't make it to the list - 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand for instance...

I tag anyone who wants to take this up.

Break ke Baad

Hello ji...am back! The last few weeks whizzed by a little too fast for me to devote any time to blogging. But now I've decided that if I am to make this blogging thing work, I have to work at it quite seriously. It would just get tougher to write, the longer I stay away. And yes, its the only good outlet available to me now, of indulging in some creative self-expression. Okay so there you have it - in writing - my commitment to THE CAUSE. (Note to self: read this post whenever laziness rears its ugly head).

I was on leave some days back and realized anew how a break is necessary to maintain a sense of perspective in life. (And no, this is not a plug for 'Break ke Baad'. Which, by the way, looks extremely predictable). The holiday came at just the right time as I had been swamped with work for some weeks and had begun to reach that stage where cribbing about it becomes a mantra that you repeat frequently. I felt claustrophobic, paranoid and people began to get on my nerves. Just before I turned into a grouchy bear, I decided to apply the 'Ask and you shall receive' principle. What's that you ask? Well it basically states that if you ask for something, you increase the probability of your receiving it. You might get it or you might not. But if you never ask for it, you will never get it.

So I applied for a few days leave, putting forward my argument for the Defence by pointing out how much leave I had accumulated which would go to waste once the year ended, how long it had been since my last leave etc. In hindsight, the only error I made was in not applying for some more days. Anyways, all's well that ends well. My leave got sanctioned and I quickly booked tickets to visit my two aunts in Chennai. I had last been there around three years back and had a great time on two side trips exploring Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram. This time the weather played spoilsport (retreating monsoons) so I couldn't go anywhere out of the city. However, my aunts pampered me no end and I was happy to relax and de-stress in their beautiful home. I went to the beach and just soaking my feet in the sea seemed to cut my worries in half. I also shopped a lot which basically left me content and broke. Let me reiterate - there's no therapy quite like retail therapy!

I also find it interesting to observe the life, the pace of a different city. Chennai has good infrastructure and hardworking people. It is a city that constantly seeks to upgrade its lifestyle without losing out on its traditions. The people generally wake up early and make their rangolis (kolam) outside their door after their bath. The city is bright with women in colourful sarees and flowers in their hair. I was impressed with the aesthetic and efficient construction of a lot of the two-three storeyed houses that lined many of the streets. There are huge malls and all manner of basic amenities. The local fishmonger hands over a card with his number which you can call to receive home delivery of your required items! Vegetarian fare is of course very popular and I enjoyed one such meal which had 15 different items! In my home city, it is quite unthinkable to want veg food if you are a non-vegetarian but since I enjoy it, Chennai was great for me in terms of cuisine. The main grouse I have with the city is that the most common mode of transport is the auto-rickshaw where you have to negotiate the fare to your destination with the driver. What does a newcomer do? It can be really difficult if you don't know the place and doubly so if you don't speak the local language. But something to pick up and something to be proud of everywhere I guess. And homebird that I am, I began to miss Kolkata, after only a week and was happy to fly back and share the treasure trove (read: sarees) from Chennai with mum/masi/sis and bask in the mellow November sun...

A holiday is like a cocoon that we weave for ourselves away from the stress of daily life out of which we emerge refreshed and rejuvenated. It's like living a different life, seeing new places and things, taking time to stop and smell the roses and most importantly, realizing all that life has to offer you. And hence for me it always serves as a way of bringing balance into my life, of revising my perspective. Of reminding myself anew of what is important and what really doesn't matter at the end of the day. Human nature being what it is, I don't know how long I can hold onto this simple realization, this positive vibe. So my challenge is to try and carry the holiday glow with me till my next holiday. Cheers to that!