Go Fish!

Observe. The fisherman pants from the land of eternal sunshine, Goa. OK, so that was cornily put and those are pink pants (magenta!) which go around your butt and you draw the ends of the string together to put it all in one piece. Devilishly comfortable. Though the family hates it. I love the fisherman look.

Perfect for a nice lazy Sunday brunch, na?

(O, and yes, that;s my messy room, complete with 6 foot narcissistic mirror, loads of books and photo frames and painted mango crates with clothes inside.)

...And then there was Light....!

It's crazy, the number of lamps I have in my li'l room. Have bought bulbs and bulb holders and wires etc from the same electrician, and whenever he sees me walking down the road towards his shop, he asks straight away what wattage bulb I want. Scary shit.

But I love them. I think they look damn neat. Diffused lighting, yellow and not so bright on the eyes. There's the garden mashaal up there, whose gas cannister I replaced with a bulb. The cannister holds fake plumes now, ae you can see down there, and it's against this nice blue vase which has a bulb inside.


Then there's the red and black polka dotted vase which is teamed up with a paper mache lamp shade from Fabindia, with my rakhis from last year strewn on the four sides. :)


And finally, there's the blue candle holder with four coloured candles, given to me by Sharon in January. Used as decoration right now, but would be a deadly romantic aid, methinks.

Jack-o-Lantern

The new lamps have been attached to my window extension. The plan is: move out a mattress there and new cushions, and voila, I have my little own verandah reading spot.

Ok, ok, so calling it a 'verandah' is a gross misrepresentation, but wat-eva!

It's pretty!

High Rise

TV is all about how the real estate prices in India are rising. And no where is this more apparent than in the case of Central Bombay, where I live. This place epitomises change - from the mill workers' colonies of once-upon-a-time to the land of malls and uber-swanky skyscrapers that dot the landscape these days. Looking out of the window in my room, you can see three tall cranes in succession, busy grinding and groaning away at some task. Strange that the tiny short cut I used to take to my earlier office leads into a now-defunct textile mill (now it houses offices of graohic design companies and a bank), which then meanders into the back yard of a very expensive skyscraper. :)

My bai's chawl is directly behind the skyscraper.

Shoe-shine

Back home in Calcutta, my mum and grandma would go shopping at the Gariahat market for little knick knacks every Saturday evening, and invariably return with a pair of new but not-so expensive slippers for mum. My mum loves shoes - even though she abhors spending more than Rs 500 for a pair. And while I used to joke about her shoe-fetish then, it turns out that her genes are pretty strong in me. :) That's my shoe-box up there - a crate stuffed with all ten pairs of them. My inexpensive Oshos (two pairs), my white Nike sneakers, my black Adidas sneakers, my black leather office-going shoes, my tapering black witchy-bitchy shoes, my hyper-expensive white Red Tapes, my all-weather Lee Cooper slip-ons, my felt brown Gasoline sneakers and my Woodland boots.

Back home in Calcutta, I have another pair of Adidas sneakers, a Holyfield pair in brown leather, black-and-brown twins of forgotten heritage, and a couple more sandals.

It's obvious, I don't share my mum's abhorance for the upwards Rs 500 price tag. *sigh*

Knock, knock

Picked up the nameplate for my apartment from this squat old man who sits near my office at Fort. He has a tiny detachable-retractable stall, and it's clustered with NO TRESSPASSING, Dr Shyam Ahuja, MBBS; Flat 207 KHANDELWALS, and DO NOT DISTURBs screaming out in the busy road. I knew what I wanted: something simple in brass or copper, simple sheen, with my name and my flatmate's in nice big capital letters.

Of course my poor mother, who's already quite flabbergasted at me 'living with a woman', as she puts it, will be quite stunned, shocked, horrified, morified, terrified when she sees the sign this December. *groan*

Chick-lit Fan

Books on my shelf again, two which seemed kind-a familiar. Read DevilWearsPrada first, after seeing the movie. Was with Rajat, trying to shop for a birthday for his nephew, and instead I picked up Weisberger's matinee hit work. The book was loads different from the movie though - Andrea was much more whiny - not a change which you appreciate at first, when you start reading the book after having seen the movie, but then the book drawns you in, nonetheless. Has its own charm.

And then there's Diary of a Married Call Girl. Thought I'd identify with it *grin*, thought I'd laugh with it - but not really my kind of book. I'm a mushy-sappy creature at heart - and this book... just isn't. It prioritises the Job over all else. And I don't get that. So, even though I finished the book, and was glad that the call girl was not getting divorced in the end (at least for some time), I was glad it was over and I could pack it right back in the shelf.

Makes for a pretty picture, though. :)

Her Highness

So yes, after the pushy bitch decided to barge in, I decided to call her Piggy (pronounced: pi-jee). There she sits all day long, and thankfully, none of my clothes have been soiled yet. Friend of mine at work suggested I name her Penny, but that's more of a magpie name, isn't it? So, she remains: Piggy the Pigeon.

Kumbhakarni

My flat mate sleeps. Sleeps. Most of the day. And on the one-off chance that she's awake, she's glued in front of her laptop, downloading/reading/watching movies yadayadayada. Actually, she's up most nights doing this - that explains her comatose state in the morning.

I hate that nightdress!

Jhanda

Seen in the picture:
1. miniature flag - stolen from office of job no. 2, after the cheapskates refused to give a holiday for Independence Day.
2. Bausch & Lomb contact lens solution for my eyes.
3. framed print of some famous picture, obtained free of cost from an art auction press conference during the journo days. It was a Neville Tuli event, and the prices were simply staggering.
4. books: Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys and Suketu Mehta's Maximum City. Read and loved Suketu - yet to start on O'Neill.
5. plug from my standing mashaal/garden lamp, which I've put up in a corner of my bedroom.
6. birthday card I received from brother darling, earlier this year. Yes, it's mushy.