An Ode to the Primal Instincts*

* For mature audiences

A creamy bowl of sweet corn soup

Sends my heart aflutter...

Sensual pleasures grip me with

A whiff of mushrooms sauteed in butter.

Hot Fries coated with fiesty red sauce

Crook at me, their irresistible fingers

A bite of those with a gulp of iced coffee

Is a taste that truly lingers.

Hunks of cheese in a crunchy salad

Blinds me with pure lust

Who cares about that extra pound

When offered a topping-loaded pizza with taut crust.

The tender touch of tempered gravy

Plays violins on my tongue

So does garlic, salsa and a dash of lime

Mixed with curd that's been well hung.

Desserts bring on the multiple orgasms

Cheesecake frenzy and chocolates with rum

Sizzling brownies and strawberry mousse

Makes my heart go mmmmmmmm.

Is hunger the more basic instinct?

Is taste more sensuous than touch?

I sit on the metaphorical fence and dream

Of lingering kisses and tomorrow's lunch.

Ego Blog

... for the lack of anything better to feed my blogsy, I blog about... (ta-daa)

How life at MICA has changed me...

18 months since the MICA call

1) From a morning-person, I've become an absolute night owl. My senses of smell and sight, hand-eye co-ordination, alertness and imagination begin to take full effect post midnight, peaking at 4 am. It hit me today, when I was yawning and feeling woozy all evening. I've yawned through 65% of classes in the last two years, which were unfairly in the daytime. Then I write this blog at 6 am, feeling perfectly awake. (6 am at night, not early morning.)

2) My tolerance to mess (my room), small spaces (my room again), loud music (neighboring rooms... not, not you DJ), common loos and bad food has increased.

3) My tolerance for pfaff, stupidity, loud people and slackers has dangerously decreased.

4) I don't need a phone now, so long as I have the Internet. I don't know whether I can work without a phone, but I can live without one.

5) I've started blogging about insignificant details of my life. It's fun to play to an audience... feeding the voyeur in others, hoping to fulfil my own voyeuristic desires.

6) I'm lost without bullet points. And a touchpad... how do people use that contraption named after a common house rodent?

7) I thought Masters would be my last degree... now I might just want more.

8) I've regretted not being an engineer - something I never felt during the pursuit of that crappy Genetics Bachelors degree.

9) I'm not scandalized by anything, anymore.

10) I've learnt that the best way to come to terms with stress and trouble is to not have anyone dealing with it for you.

11) Now I know how to par-tay! And romance Mr. Bacchus. And con Mrs. Hangover.

12) I weigh 5 kilos more. Argh! (I swear they'll be gone in the next two months.)

13) I'm not grossed out by a lot of things - spiders, centipedes, lizards, frogs, dogs, monkeys, weird bugs, butt-wiggling dancers and watching all of the above humping.

14) I eat out more often. A lot more often

15) I read less than one book a month - a sacrilege, two years ago.

16) I brought 12 pairs of shoes to MICA. Different ones for going to classes, going out in the daytime, going out in the evening, going out in the evening (spare), loo-use, room-use, to wear with skirts, sneakers, party shoes, formal shoes, rain-wear and arbit pair. Now I have only 3 pairs. Loo-use, formal shoes and an ALL-purpose pair of floaters. The floaters don't exactly "go" with a lot of outfits... but strangely, I've ceased to care.

17) I'm going to pursue a career that I never imagined I would. (Which kid says "I want to be a media planner when I grow up"?)

18) I've seen that it is still possible to make friends-for-life. Even at 22.

There... that was fun to blog about. And it took just 30 minutes, with a Su-doku break.

A Hard Night's Day...

New thing I did today: Woke up at 3:05 pm - absolutely guiltless and comfortably delirious. Sleep is a very beautiful thing, especially when you know that no history-altering event depends on the state of your conciousness. I used to wonder how people who slept so much could do it with no guilt. Today I learnt how.

9 am: Someone yells for breakfast
Me: Urgmm... go ahead. (Crashes back into pillow)

Somewhere between 9 am and lunch: Didi, kamra saaf karna hai.
Me: Grphgmm.... baad mein, Hansmukh bhai.

Lunch time, anh Shee: Dee, wanna wake up for lunch??
Me: (Untelligible sound 3)

As the sun begins to crossover to the western hemisphere, it positions itself outside my window. And then the process of waking up begins. Eyes still closed, my fingers search for the power button of laptop. As it beeps out of its hibernation, so do I - with a goofy smile of contentment.

****************

Finished with thesis couple of days ago, and with it, finished the last big academic pursuit at MICA. I cannot remember the last occasion, when I spent so much time staring at a word doc. A total editing time of 3033 minutes says the statistics counter of the 61 page document. The experience was quite mixed. Emotions ranged from disgust, to excitement, to nostalgia, to hunger, to boredom, to relief - when I finally printed it out.

It was good fun working on it. Digital media is absolutely fascinating - as is most media.

Also fun were the late night dinners at Chota and the early morning walks with Anj. Early morning, not because we woke up in time to see daybreak, but because we were still up after a hard day's night.

*******************

Yearbook pic time - and I'm having a bad hair day... urggggggh. :(

Tremor in MICA... of the unusual kind...

March 8, 0000 hrs

15 people on the top floor of the library. Working on thesis, pretending to work on thesis but actually chatting, pretending to chat but actually working on thesis. The lighting is dim, the laptops are working overtime. The carpeted wooden floor absorbs all the noise except the gentle whirr of the AC, the tapping on keyboards and a few notes of music escaping from headphones.

There's a tremble.
Who's stomping up the stairs, we wonder? And there's no hostel room upstairs...

There's another tremble...
Stop rocking on the chairs guys... it's a wooden floor.

There's the third tremble...
Dev says "It's an earthquake."

Huh?

Oh, time to run out of the library...

... and then come back to blog about it.

People are mostly giggling.
"The thesis should be cancelled - we're traumatized."

Vocabulary takes precedence over concern.
"Where do you think is the center?"
"Epicenter, silly."

There's some concern...
"Does no one want to save their laptops? We don't have earthquake insurance."

Husbands call up wives.
"Go downstairs... go and stand on the main road. It's dangerous."

The speculators place bets.
"5 on the Richter Scale, I'm sure."
"6 I'm betting."*

Mine's-bigger-than-yours.
"It's my 2nd earthquake."
"Haan? (smirk) I've experienced so many. At least 6 I think."
The quake rookies just shudder.

Mild seismic interruption... Myriad reactions.

We weren't in Ahmedabad in 2001. But others were... and for them, it was a scary deja vu.

(The right answer is 4.5 on the Richter)

An eye for a tooth

Some barter deals that I'd gladly make:

1) 12 hours a day of firewalled broadband for 12 hours a day of Cable TV
Yes, I've had half-enough two years of pointless surfing, random checking of mail, pseudo-attempts at thesis work, mindless chatting with people who live 5 metres away, banned downloads, Googling, Wikipediaing, Orkutting and playing online Sudoku. I was kinda feeling nostalgic about the good old days of unlimited TV access. Largely dependent on the mercy of unfriendly neighborhood cable operator, who'd cut off cable supply if he had a cold, or if BJP was in power, or if it drizzled, or if the guy in the apartment below refused to pay the bill. Was reminded about the goodness of pure TV thanks to this blog. And a sudden urge to be back home and on the couch.

2) Any CD from my collection for someone to finish my thesis. Okay, any three CDs... and dinner at Bombay Blues.

3) A bottle of Whiskey (not mine, but I can still barter it) for Vodka and orange juice.

4) MICA degree for an Engineering degree
How I wish I'd thought about being a techie... sigh.

5) A sachet of Sweet Corn Soup for Cup Noodles.

6) My two month post-MICA vacation for a two-week vacation abroad (Australia maybe).

7) Anything from my room for the Complete DVD Collection of Friends and Sex & the City.

8) A Peach Milk Facial - my style - for the song "Ek nazar mein" from Taxi No. 9 2 11.


All deals will be honored subject to market risks.

... featuring New York, New York

Ooh, ooh... here's another one from the Feb 24th post...

Fantasize about living in New York or Blog? Blog about fantasizing about living in New York. After years of being assaulted with books, magazines, news items, sitcoms and soaps that extoll the virtues of being a New Yorker, I've decided that I want to try it out for a year, when I'm still young enough to absorb their ... er... culture. They're a fascinating species... with their moneyed, fashionable, promiscuous lifestyles.

They're super-rich, but they don't have their own car. They have gorgeous kitchenettes but they're always ordering take-out. Or eating pizza. They're always walking on crowded streets with a styrofoam coffee cup and a voiceover. They're members of swanky gyms that they never go to. They don't mind sitting on the grass in business suits. They've never lived on the ground floor. They're always cribbing about the lack of nice men/women, and have slept with a minimum of 50 people. They can run in 4 inch pointy heels. They pointedly ignore hobos and homeless people. They manage to find lovely apartments with dysfunctional neighbors. Their lives depend on the cabbies... or the subway.

Hmm... it's beginning to sound a lot like Bombay :-)

Madison Avenue... I will be there.

Saturday Afternoon Live from Shela...

... would beat the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa final episode on TRPs I assume.

As the number of hits on my blog trickle to a standstill, and someone slyly suggests I should call it 'A Lot Less Conversation' ... I decide to try and put fingers to my keypad and dish out some crap.

There are 28 days left to convocation.
28 days to the end of this vacation.

It's been another lazy week here in Shela.
Sleeping and surfing and all things vela.

As the people on campus experience last month horniness...
My writing skills(?) suffer chronical corni-ness.

(Shudder) ... I can't believe I wrote that.

Okay... here's a fresh start. In award format...

Hot Guy of the Week: John Abraham, who's an absolute DISH in Taxi Number 9 2 11. Comment if you agree... or disagree. (Ha, devious attempt to get people to comment on blog.)

Hot Baby of the Week: Stewie Griffin, who's an absolute BLAST on Family Guy. That is one addictive show. All thanks to the super-sexy British accent.

Hot Mutation idea of the Week: John Abraham with a Brit accent.

Damn... I can't think beyond guys for awards.