Wouldn't it be Loverly?

Inspired from Kanika's lovely blog, from this post right here, I'm formulating an 'I Want' list too. (Partly also because I'm convalescing from a two day illness and feel the need to contribute to the world. You know, creatively).

1. I want the locality I live in (in Pune) to be a little less noisy. No, a LOT less noisy.
2. I want to be in Germany. Despite the biting cold, because I looooove (Germany, not the cold).
3. I want to be fitter. Okay, leaner. Umm...healthy. Oh f*&^ it. I want to be toned and  thin (the right kind. You know what I mean) and flexible like Samara Currimbhoy from NDTV Good Times. Have you seen the woman stretch?
4. I want to understand a little sliver of fashion (trying to be realistic here).
5. Before I live anywhere out of India I want to be able to (a)Pleat a sari (b)make a 'typical' Indian meal (c)do some yoga
6.  I want Goa. Forever. Almost.
7. I want a faster internet connection
8. I want an ektara.
9. I want to speak perfect German. And eventually learn Portuguese, French, Dutch, Italian, Bengali, Gujarati (Hmm...not being realistic at all but while I'm making the world listen to me, I might as well, eh?)
10.  I want a clear face. Pretty please.
11. DSLR. DSLRDSLRDSLRDSLRDSLRDSLRDSLRDSLR. World, I cannot emphasize this enough. And just in case you forgot, DSLR. Okay?

Oh, and you must see this (from 00:50 if you want to jump right to the main bit. But you shouldn't). I abso-bloomin'-lutely adore the way it's sung:

 

It's rather dull in town, I think I'll take me to Paree.
Mmmmmm.
The mistress wants to open up
The castle in Capri.
Me doctor recommends a quiet summer by the sea!
Mmmm, Mmmm, wouldn't it be loverly?
  

All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air.
With one enormous chair,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
 

Lots of choc'lates for me to eat,
Lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat.
Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
 

Aow, so loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still.
I would never budge 'till spring
Crept over me windowsill.
 

Someone's 'ead restin' on my knee,
Warm an' tender as 'e can be. 'ho takes good care of me,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly 

 (more about the song)

Yours yearningly,

The  Cyniqueen

What a feeling

1. Having the flu - feeling the strength slink slowly out of you.
2. Getting that thick, coagulated bit of cream in your mouth at the end of a hot cup of milk with haldi  (to get better faster).
3. Catastrophic soreness and dryness in your throat, which makes you feel like a gazillion horses (high on dope) tap danced on it. And then the beach tipped all its gravelly sand down it.
4. Brilliantly elegant sounds of "hack-hack-haaaaaack-sputter-groan-hackhhhhh' issuing forth from said dry throat when it doesn't let you sleep at night.
5. Having nothing to do and using that nothingness to sleep through some of the illness yesterday. What bliss. :D
6. When the sun comes out at the end of a cloudy day.
7. Smell of really old books. And new glossy magazines. And textbooks.
8. My star-shaped pillow, which I hug in my sleep.
9. Craving fish. Like craaaaaaving (I know that isn't the most creative way to express just how much I'm dying to eat some nice fresh fish. But that's actually just how much I want it. I waaaaaaaaaaant, y'know what I mean?)
10. Chewing ice cubes.
11. Underestimating the squelchiness of a jogging track after last night's heavy downpour. Trying to run. Giving up. Walking briskly instead.
12. Saying the word 'Squelch' out loud and loving the onomatopoeic element (Go on. Say it. You know you want to). Squelch is one of those words that can have no other meaning than the one it already does. I always imagine gumboots and soil thick and slushy with water and the shoe-prints left behind. And that sound. Never disappoints. Yes. Sensory pleasure.
13. Food getting spoilt and having to throw it away :(
14. Images of Berlin slapping you in the face from nowhere. Missing Hackescher Markt (remember? about which I told you that one time?).
15. Googling very silly things. And people in your life.
16. Remembering old video/PC games like Wolf and Sonic the Hedgehog and Prince of Persia. I loved this game called Jazz Jackrabbit, which was so funny and brilliant, with the most entertaining cheat codes I have ever come across. I miss Jazz.
17. Considering peeling your face-skin off to see whether it would look worse than having a new crop of acne. A week before your birthday.
18. Waking up very late. 
19. Waking up very early.
20. Stopping writing this post because you remember something about not watching too much TV/ staring at the computer screen when you have a fever.

Love,

The Cyniqueen

Ruminating...

I hate being all sombre and morose and vague in this blog, I do. But every day I just keep realizing that there are people in the world doing so much more, and tapping into whatever potential they have. Like him and her and her and Brad (who prefers to be called Adam, apparently, so that's what I shall call him henceforth) and CC, with his Love Sex Dance Magazine, (an online fashion magazine which you really should check out, especially the current issue)...I realize I spoke about people who are not in India, which is just a coincidence. The point is (as I see it), either they're doing what they love or working towards it; and logically speaking, that's how it should be for all of us. It shouldn't have to be an extraordinary thing, but it is. I admire people like this so much. And the weird thing is - nothing's stopping me but the shadows of my own mind.

I am happy for some things in my life though. Like for instance I took the more sensible (and harder) decision of staying on in Pune (instead of Goa, which hello, is fabulous) whether I get through the German course for this session or not. I'm happy that I'm doing something more to stay healthy. And today, I joined Guitar class, which I have wanted to do for so very long. You see, technically I've been playing the guitar since late 2006. But I mostly learned it on my own, off the internet and with very little personal help. So while I can play some things, there's so much more that I need to learn and (eeep!) lots and lots of wrong playing techniques I need to change. I hope this goes excellently. This still counts for something as far as the whole tapping your potential thing goes, does it not? I hope so.

I have a total love-hate relationship with my birthday, which approaches swiftly. In my mind, it waits there ahead of me (now at a distance where I can see it) and rubs its hands together slyly, not divulging what it has in store for me. Birthdays are frigging unpredictable, am I right? Even if I remain occupied the whole day, there's always this little voice in my head that whispers alluringly, sinfully - it's your birthday, you're supposed to be having a superamazingcrazilyexcitinglymindblowinglyecstatic day. And even though until then I've been pleased with the day, it suddenly begins to seem not-good-enough. And yay! becomes eh. Also, having a normal, routine day on your birthday is somehow anticlimactic and depressing. 

I think it has everything to do with the fact that most birthdays when you were a kid actually did seem  superamazingcrazilyexcitinglymindblowinglyecstatic because of the presents and the attention. Sigh. I wish stuff meant just as much now. Although I must admit, if I could have bought a DSLR on my birthday, I would have been disturbingly elated. So anyway, I was talking to G about it who says it wouldn't bother him at all if his birthday were like any other day or even if he were alone. It's going to be hard, but this year I'm going to try not putting any pressure on the day and let it take its own course. 

And now, an attempt to brighten up and sweeten this post:

This was a sprite flavoured cake (baked using sprite instead of egg. How cool is that?) I baked during my CMYK (photography) course for the whole class and Saloni clicked this picture. The gems (which got displaced on the way from Margao to Mapusa) are supposed to spell click! and there's a smile there in the middle which drowned in the icing. But look - colour can spruce up anything :)

What do you do on your birthday?

The Cyniqueen.

Hyderabad Hues

Shot (a little shakily) from a car window. I fell in love with the old architecture.

Oh yes, I did! Family holiday to Hyderabad happened, and it was so much fun, mainly because we (my parents, my sister and me) were all together. And because I don't have the patience (and admittedly, the time) to relate everything in loving detail, I give you, impressions in bullet points:

 

• Biryani at Cafe Bahar and Qubani ka Meetha (this apricot and date syrupy sweet dish, served cold. It sounds funny, but trust me, it grows on you. Mmmm...) and Dil Pasand (how cute, no?) and a lot of very comforting cups of Irani tea, which I was completely infatuated with. It's a wonder my clothes still fit.
• Hyderabad has loads of Bakeries at every corner, beautiful flower decorations outside of some shops (because it was Diwali), Telugu and hyderabadi-hindi (which, without a doubt, rocks), some very nice places to go to like a drive through the IT area of the city and Charminar, the Salar Jung Museum, although after a while you do start to get a little tired of looking at antiques. Although may be you wouldn't, Carolina Primavera, fan of antiques :)
• It also has some not-so-great places to go to like Snow World, which if you've ever seen real snow, I plead you to stay away from. I don't know if they've changed the way they are supposed to do things, but we did not enjoy being shoved into a line, given jackets and gloves, made to hand in our footwear and given gumboots (wet from the inside) to wear and what I very strongly suspect were used-socks (ewwwwwwwwww. eww,eww.), and then jostled into another room with ice (which seemed to be mixed with sand or something like that). Eh, I don't want to get into details about the crazed people who were throwing ice at every surface (including our camera). There were things to do of course, like some sliding thing, but it was so annoyingly crowded. Then they announced that there would be snowfall in two minutes. We left pronto, not wanting to get that weird sand-snow in our hair. It was okay, though. We did get a lot of laughs out of the whole thing.
• I love Pune a little more now, because Hyderabad has more honking and noise and traffic than Pune. Which I had not thought was possible. So yes, Pune-1.
• The Hyderabad airport is magnificent (although they do charge you this UDF Fee which is Rs.100 for domestic outbound passengers and Rs.800-something for international outbound. Not so nice). But yes, it is a vision of loveliness (as much as airports can be) and quite comfortable. 

***********

Impending birthday looming in the horizon of my mind (and calendar), and I have no plans. As I was telling my friend Unmesh, I have a very specific grudge against birthdays (I mean, my own) and he agreed (and bitched in his blog, here). But that's for later. 
And now I find my righteous fingers staring at me reproachfully (drumming themselves on the table. Heh), and I must devote typing-activity to other, more fist-eatingly boring work.

What did you do over the weekend?

 

Yours, 

The Cyniqueen

If my life were a pillow...

New source of merriment and distraction

If my life were a big white pillow, someone would be fluffing it right now. I can feel my life changing, ever so slightly, in the smallest little ways possible, but I like it. I'm growing (not horizontally any more, thank God for that), I'm evolving and it feels nice.

What else has evolved? Stupid Diwali cracker bombs, that's what. They've gotten louder, noisier, and show 60% increased chances of me turning into a serial killer (note: aforementioned figure may not be completely accurate). Yes, crackers can be fun (even though they cause pollution and all). Joyful even. But I seriously fail to comprehend how a eardrum-cracking sound can bring happiness into someone's life. How? I get the ones that look cool and colourful and fiery. But think about it, really, Mr.Pipsqueak who lives in my neighbourhood and finds some hidden pleasure in this bomb thing - your idea of fun is a loud noise? Really? Sad.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a list of random things I bought in the last few days:

• A table fan. Which has these beautiful blue blades (Uh, huh. I alliterated the hell outta that) that look like a beautiful blue blur (aaaand, I just did it again) when the fan is switched on. The thing is that it took long to actually get to my house from the time I wanted it and it is something I have picked out entirely on my own, after sifting through catalogues and discussions with my mom about prices and features. Needless to say, I was constantly distracted on the first two days, and I kept toying with the regulator and the device that makes it rotate. Needless, also, to say, I must find better ways of occupying myself.
• A tea strainer to strain ant-infested honey. Yum yum :-/
• Two eyeliners - The company that used to make my favourite, favourite water-proof kajal has done that awful thing - stopped production. It is as if a rug has been pulled off from under my feet. My plan is not to panic and find a new, cheap and waterproof brand of kajal before my last stick of the old favourite runs out. Pity. Why does this always happen, just when you get comfortable with a product and begin to take its availability for granted, it sniggers sardonically and slinks quietly out of your life forever. Almost like some relationships. Sigh.
• 2 huge steel dabbas (with a bag of sugar inside each one) to give to the maids for Diwali, instead of a part of their Diwali bonus money. Which they vehemently rejected. Huh.

Anywho. Happy Diwali :)

The Cyniqueen.

P.S - Family holiday is going to happen, so yay!