Postcards From J

8 JUNE 2018 4.57 PM: It's Friday, and I am looking at my to-do list and hoping the day gets done soon. That I get to go home and enjoy the start of another weekend. One of the WhatsApp groups buzzed. "Anthony Bourdain is dead. Shite." I was the first to reply. "NO". "WHAT?" And then I started to Google with a strange mix of anxiety and sadness.  Say it wasn't true. Bourdain was gone. 61 years young. It was surreal.  I pinged D but knew he would be asleep as he was working the night shift. Gawd, D will be devastated to wake up to this news. My mind was racing. Bourdain would feature in our conversations often over the years and I didn't know anyone who was a bigger fan of the chef-turned-storyteller. Still can’t believe it. People were shocked but I was in another zone. My hands had turned cold and my brain was blank. What the hell had just happened? That it was by suicide was equally perplexing. And v...

"Kalina?", I yelled as he screeched to a halt.  He nodded while three women and four tiny children kept popping out of his rickshaw. I was too tired to notice the expression on his face. Soon, I was seated inside with my bags - groceries and handbag and laptop bag and lunch bag and office Diwali gift. Phew. "Aap <mumble mumble mumble>?" "Kya kahaa?" ("What did you say?") "Kya aap Hindu ho?" ("Are you a Hindu?") I was a bit zapped at the question. Thinking I had said 'yes', he continued... "Dimaag kharab kar diya. Yeh sab Islam waale... itne saare rickshaa mein baett gaye..." ("They've given me a headache. These Muslims... so many of them occupied my rickshaw...") I cut him short. "Aapka kya matlab hai? Iss mein dharm kahaa se aa gaya?" ("What do you mean? Where did religion creep into this?") Sensing that I was not particularly thrilled...

The following conversation happened one morning last week on the office shuttle*: Colleague (sitting behind me and pointing to my hand): What book is that? Me: *shows the cover of the book without saying a word* It was Devdutt Pattanaik's Myth = Mithya | A Handbook of Hindu Mythology . Colleague (surprised look): Oh! Why this? Me: Why not? Colleague: Yeah, why not. Me: *smiles* After a full 60 seconds, as if hit by a brainwave but still a little puzzled... Colleague: Are you getting married to a Hindu? Me: Bwahahahahahahahahaha.. . :D * Shuttle = a mini bus that ferries us from the railway station to the office in the mornings, and the other way around in the evenings. PS: Let me know if * this*  font looks better with the blog. Fonts are the only thing bothering me about this blog template. #ABC POSTCARD 29/31

The exhaustion from all the Sunday packing and shifting has taken its toll - been rather low and under the weather since the weekend. This morning was a real bitch... Imagine waking up with a pinched nerve in the leg! The pain was unbelievable. Add to it the fact that the home Internet connection has been disconnected and I'm grumpy about that. Now imagine living without the www!!!  I mean, I barely get home around 10-11pm, have dinner, take a shower and sleep. The television remote is not under my control, and everyone gets pissed off if I stay up late to watch something that I want to. You see, the light (and not just the sound) from the TV disturbs everyone. So I've given up on most of my TV-channel-surfing. The Internet is my only saviour for any entertainment! But now, even that has temporarily betrayed me. Using my phone's GPRS is a solution, but trust me, once you get used to tweeting/facebooking/emailing/etc using a wifi connection, life's not the same. Worse, ...