What's the BIG Difference?

“Do you think I should pick up this dress material?” I ask pointing at the simple but elegant chikankaari material displayed on the mannequin.

“Yes, I think you should. It looks nice”, replies my shopping companion.

“Yeah, everything looks nice on a mannequin.”

As we step into the shop, the young shopkeeper eagerly asks, “Ma’m, would like to see more patterns and more colors?” for which I reply, “Why not?” while my friend goes, “No, don’t offer woman a choice.” I choose to ignore his remark while plunging into the onerous task of finding The One occasionally pausing to consult my friend “You think I should go for this one or that one?”

He adjusts his spectacles to clearly indicate he cannot see the difference between the two. As I begin to pull a long face, he doles out his fave quote, “Only a woman can tell the difference between white, off-white, and ivory”. I completely disagree for I still cannot tell the difference between magenta and maroon, saffron and orange, ebony and ivory . . . I am digressing, so back to my story.

He repeats, “Yaar, what’s the difference? How does it matter what you buy?” I quickly offer an explanation to my friend, who has a high IQ in academics but a pitiable IQ in fashion and other worldly matters, concluding that it DOES matter and that I wouldn’t be shelling out money on something that my friends would not consider new or pretty. Immediately he snaps, “Are you buying for yourself or to impress others?” Try as I might I failed to make the schmuck understand that these are the unwritten and unbreachable laws of etiquette followed by women worldwide.

Having chosen The One after considerable deliberation, we are only eager to head towards the dressmakers. My friend is more than happy to have found a stool to perch his derriere while the shop assistant hands me a laminated card. Holding the card, I turn to him and ask, “Now tell me which neck design will suit this dress?” and he goes, “No NOT AGAIN. What’s the BIG difference?”

Morals of the story:

• Shopping isn’t fun; it is serious business and a lot of hard work. Only we make it look like fun :-)
• Whoever said being a woman is easy must escort a woman on one of her shopping expeditions to learn about the hardships involved in making difficult choices.
• Shopping is the only way we can take our sweet revenge on the male species by using his credit card, by making him chauffeur us, and worse still having him accompany us :-) Small wonder that shrinks recommend shopping as a therapy when we are dumped or depressed.

To Hell with World Cup

Guys will never figure out why women love shopping and gals are unlikely to figure out why men love cricket. I don’t think even Allan Pease can write a book with a title like that.

Cricket, to me, is what one wise man said, “11 [players] playing with 11000 fools watching”. Nothing about that truism has changed except for the number of fools having exponentially increased in the last few years.

Like last evening when I was all excited to watch my Monday sitcoms starting from Still Standing to Frasier. Only hitch being papa dear was hooked on to cricket while I had to wrestle the remote out of his clenched hairy fist. Soon a volley of abuses followed, but who cares as long as the remote was now in my tiny hand. But soon I realized it was just a pyrrhic victory as dad kept asking me to switch to SetMax from Star World. While exchanging a torrent of invectives, I had to keep switching the channels.

As fate would have it, that jerk of a bowler (din’t-care-to-know-his-name from Bermuda) kept giving one wide after another thus increasing the run rate and my heart rate as the over was stretching longer than a Hanuman’s tail.

Worse still, whenever I flipped back to my fave channel, I had to stifle my laughter as someone's face was turning a fiery crimson. Finally Frasier came to an end and I threw the remote not before announcing “I am gonna turn into a murderer before this crappy World Cup is over.” I am sure an all-women jury will not only approve but also acquit me of the parricide.

Indian Authors Wish List

In all fairness, I think there are many Indians who write beautifully and make excellent authors. One of my favorite authors is Tagore. But sadly some of his translated works are such a pain to read that I fervently wish I knew Bengali so I could relish his prose in all its original beauty and flavor.

This year I decided to experiment with two kinds of Indian authors: (i)who are only hype and little substance (ii) those gems who are lost in the heap of fake diamonds, the true Real McCoys.

My reading wish list for 2007 include:

• Tagore's Chokerbali
  
• Rushdie's Midnight's Children
• Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music
• Naipauls' A House for Mr. Biswas
• Amitav Ghosh's Hungry Tide
• Khushwant Singh's The Train to Pakistan
• Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games
• Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss
• Suketu Mehta's Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
• Sudha Murthy's Mahasweta and Dollar Bahu
• David Davidar's The House of Blue Mangoes
• Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

Any suggestions from you are welcome :-)

Indian Authors: Continued

When you think Pulitzer, you think Jhumpa Lahiri. Her debut novel, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories, won her instant fame and recognition—not to mention fans worldwide. Her portrayal of Bengali NRIs and their lifestyles in US was not only novel but also simple and realistic. The book was worth a raed but her second novel, The Namesake, only proved that Ms. Lahiri was trying to use the same tested-and-true formula yet again but in a novel form this time was a huge letdown to her fans. Another book on Bengali NRIs and she would have emigrated to Obliville.

Next in tow is Vikram Seth who is an acclaimed author who has won several literary awards. He’s famous for writing travelogues and autobiographical novels—not to mention thick fat books that one can expect only to finish in a span of 4 months. His latest book, Two Lives, won him the Crossword Prize for Non-Fiction. Incidentally, this was the first book I read of his and I did not find it any big shakes. It beats me why someone would want to pen a memoir of a less-famous uncle who worked as a dentist and married a Jew and dies bequeathing very little to Vikram Seth. (It beats me more why a reader like me should waste time reading such crap.) Methinks the only reason for Seth to have endeavored penning this memoir was to influence his non-fecund uncle to leave him as the sole beneficiary. The love for his uncle turns into resentment overnight after the contents of the will are made known. This fact compounded with the fact that the book is nearly 700 pages makes you resent him.

One other writer who is famous is Kiran Nagarkar. Some of his books include Cuckold, Ravan and Eddie, and Seven Sixes are Forty-Three (Saat Sakkam Trechalis). His latest book, Gods Little Soldier, was launched by Aamir Khan but that did not ensure the book’s success. I attempted reading Ravan and Eddy and shut the book after 20 pages. Somehow he came across as a pretentious author who was desperately trying to find a place among the Indian-English authors. Perhaps he should stick to writing in Marathi.

Other Indian female writers who I have read include Shobaa De, Anita Nair, Shinie Anthony (who edited Chetan Bhagat’s novels and debuted with Kardamom Kisses) who write sleaze passing it off as literature.

Indian Authors: All Hype, No Substance

When I told my friends that I am gonna bitch about Indian authors, they got all patriotic and sentimental and asked me to think and write positive. I almost relented until I realized it’s my friggin' blog and I damn friggin' will write what I want, but yes! I don’t lie though I am infamous for speaking my mind and giving everyone a piece of it!!!

I am not saying that all Indian authors are bad, and now that’s the sad part coz the real good ones--for lack of giant publishers backing them or lack of PR skills-- are overshadowed by the quasi-literary authors earning a cool million dollars as an advance (thanks to Godwin) to produce a book that’s incomprehensible for it’s purely gibberish!

Let me start with the Nobel-prize winning author Naipaul. At an awards function, he thus spoke, “I would like to thank all the prostitutes who gave me company when my wife was way (or sleeping in the next room)” [I am not too able to reproduce the line verbatim but then again is it worth memorizing such a line?]. Now I am not holding his promiscuity against him when I say I don’t like his writing. The House for Mr Biswas was anything but entertaining about a loser’s life in Trinidad. It was apparently a dark comedy but I failed to understand that book and was glad to throw it away after a few hundred pages not dying to know how it ended.

Next in line is Salman Rushdie, who has the distinct honor of winning not only the Booker Prize but also The Booker of Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children, and who never ceases to make headlines—from writing a book denouncing the prophet to getting a fatwa issued to remaining alive only to marry yet again (this time to Padma Lakshmi) to getting separated yet again, his life is anything but dull. But despite his hectic schedule he finds time to discover words that can otherwise be found only in The Advanced Oxford Dictionary for Non-English speaking Morons. I tried The Fury, The Ground Beneath her Feet, and now stuck with Midnight’s Children while wondering what part of his upbringing caused him to wreak such vengeance and so decidedly and repeatedly on readers who picked up books either to gain knowledge or to kill time. When you read Rushdie, you either want to kill yourself for your abysmal vocabulary or want to kill him for flaunting his uncolloquial vocabulary.

When you think Booker, you think Arundhati Roy and The God of Small Things. Rushdie would be proud to call her his protégé cos she writes as obtuse as he does. I am beginning to think that perhaps that is the criterion for winning a Booker Prize. The only people who rave about this book are Americans, who will rave about anything Indian but will strip search a Sardarji mistaking him for a Taliban, and our own Mallu brothers who are plain jingoists. Thanks God that the Narmada project is keeping her away from penning another Big Bore Book.

The other lady now synonymous with Booker is Kiran Desai. I have heard such mixed reviews about that book that I know which one to belive. Since I am yet to read The Inheritance of Loss, I’ll spare her for the moment, but Ms Desai beware coz I will be BACK!

So let’s move on to her mama dear, Anita Desai, who shares the distinct honor of having three of her works nominated for Booker but yet not making it even once. One of the books that made it to the Big B was Fasting, Feasting, which for its obscurity and plain silliness almost made it.

The other author who was famous for his groundbreaking work that later served as a Bible for all ABCDs was Anurag Mathur with his famous The Inscrutable Indians. People still think that it is the most hilarious book while I think someone changed the meaning of the word “Hilarious” since I last looked up a dictionary. Confound him for I can never ever use So long in the traditional way.

How can we leave behind the author who opened my eyes to the world of Indian authors: Chetan Bhagat, an IIT + IIM grad who wasn’t content making big bucks working in an investment firm but came back to India to make some more big bucks churning out potboilers such as Five Point Someone and One Night at the Call Center. He was a guru to the generation that was not only portrayed in the books but who also managed to read the books that glorified them. Methinks the only reason those books ever got read was coz it was priced at Rs 90 and it was sold for much lesser by vendors on the footpaths!

To be continued….

Jukebox Rocks

Jukebox is situated in an unobtrusive corner of the less busier road in Koramangala 6^th Block. The place is dingy save a neon light that unfortunately blinks Jukeb and a flimsy wooden paneled door that welcomes you.

Ambience
The interiors are more dismal than the exterior, which makes you wonder what renovation it underwent when it was shut down for so long. I am sure the owner (music junkie for sure) started with a theme but judging from the interiors, either the owner (perhaps more of a dilettante than a restauranter) lost interest in the theme or the ownership changed hands and thus the theme was buried.

The only saving grace is the pictures of some big names in the music industry including Elvis Presley and Bon Jovi and of course the background retro music that keeps your pressure in check after having one look at the menu card, whose prices aren’t flattering considering the ambience.

The place is not air-conditioned though you will find three air-conditioners that are out of order and out of date.

Cutlery
The cutlery is cheap ceramic ware and the jug is stainless steel—the kind you’ll find in hotels near Majestic bus stand. Glasses are those that you’ll find in any Mallu tea shop.

Service
The menu card reads “Give us 10-30 minutes to be perfect”. It’s their genteel way of telling you “Bugger if you are really hungry, this isn’t the place for you for we’ll take our own sweet time to serve you”. The kitchen, by the way, is upstairs and is dingier than the room where the food is served.

Cuisine
The place boasts of Italian food and steaks and sizzlers; for the old-fashioned there is Indian and Chinese and Persian. I learned from my friend that the place is famous for serving draught beer and it costs only Rs 45.

I tried Meat Balls (Rs 90) and Five-Spice Chicken (Rs 150) while my vegetarian friend tried Cheese Balls and Lasagna (Rs 95). And surprise surprise! food isn’t all that bad. Actually I wouldn’t be lying if I said I relished all the dishes that were lip smacking. Too bad my tummy was full to try out Shepherd’s Pie, but there’s always the next time! It’s definitely worth checking out and definitely more Italian than the food served in Casa Piccola.