Disengage

I have hunted and I have searched like a dog on a chase. I have set a goal and gone after it like NASA. I have searched (to the extent of being obsessive) like Gholum in the Lord of the Rings. I have scanned malls, street shops, posh shops, brands and any shop in the vicinity … any vicinity ! 

But i fail to find a shoe that I like.

The search started in Connaught Place - I checked Bata, Reebok, Nike, Sundry other shops. The Select Citywalk Mall in Saket - all brands from Mango, Van Husen, blah blah. To Amby Mall Gurgaon - Highly highly priced shoes with no substance. Shoe Tree. Khan Market. South EX . Woodland. GK 2 market … You name it … I have been there.

I still havent found it… Its insanity… All I need is a formal pair and an everyday pair … thats all!! 

So after the crazy walking in and walking out of shops … I have come to a conclusion that I aint going to find one … not here … definately not in this country …

So why cant i get a customised shoe made? A place where all I need to do is log on, select the material, design, colour, stitches, heels, pointed/ non pointed, with/ without the back strap, pencil heel, flats, whatever and give my shoe size.

They then deliver a dummy shoe … I try it on obsess over it make some more changes and say my okay … and in a 30 day time period … vola!!! I have a shoe that fits well, looks and feels like the shoe that I want and is the one and only of its kind :D !!!! Hmmmm … And it will be called My Kinda Shoe (Mera Wala Joota) !! lol …

I love my girlfriends. We bitch. We talk. We laugh loudly. We sniff a few tears once in a while. We drink coffee. Eat. Crib of lack of men (ofcourse). Obsess about my weight. (yup mine only!) Check out other women… Balantly scrutinise them … and then talk really loudly about them. We shamelessly sit in coffee houses for hours and yap and yap

Met two of my dear girly friends at Khan Market, Cafe Coffee Day. They are adorable … One is the sensible chic who knows everything. Makes most of the right decisions. Knows everyone and is the one most likely to fall in love bollywood style and marry in a week of knowing a guy. The other darling is a crazy ex model … who just cant seem to get over her boss … she keeps loving him and he keeps remaining married…. She is full on… on confidence and attitude … and i absolutely love her sense of live life king size

We met after a long time today and with 2 hours of constant yap yap … I was more than ready to take the world with arms wide open…

Every problem that I had was too trivial … I was never at fault … I had always done the right thing … I had completely given it my best shot … I had done more than my share … I was an adorable girl … just wrong place wrong time….

 I was at a safe place … It was a girl place … It was nice … warm … caring …. and felt like that shower that you take after a crazy day of sweating

It was my refreshing dose … that will keep me going for a while … untill we meet again … to do our same thing …. Love u girls !!

I got to go golfing !!! All thanks to daddy dearest.. who gets to work his ass off 365 days a year … so that his darling daughter can have all the comforts of the world.

 

Golf being one of the elite games of the society that hardly everyone gets to enjoy. I had the good good fortune and absolutely unbelievable pleading skills that got me the opportunity to play golf this weekend.

 

I had been anticipating it for months!! The greens the holding of the club, the teeing off and of course the admiring glances of the cute hunks (Am I that predictable???!! and delusional ?? lol )

 

So well when dad finally let me come along for a golf trip … I was excited!! Exuberant!!! And totally pumped up… And ofcourse my joy knew no bounds (are we writing a school essay here?)

 

Well we went there on a nice sunday morning, the place, the prestigious Delhi Golf Club was already teeming with golfers. There were the oldies, the young kids and of course the cute ones!!! The place was quite flooded at 11:30 on a Sunday morning… And ofcourse the ladies … the moms, the girlfriends and the wives .. were looking ravishing (no surprise)

 

It was my first time at golfing and like every firsts I made an absolute complete fool of myself ….

Ofcourse I couldn’t hold the club well .. didn’t bend my leg the right way … my butt wasn’t out enough …. my swing was too swingy … my aim was too lanky …. I had no patience with the ball and my constant checking out of the cuteys was totally not acceptable ! ( ghosh!)

 

I teed about 50 odd balls in all direction and obviously none in the one intended … My shirt flew when I swung too hard and by gods grace the club didn’t slip from my sweating hand and give some one a tight wrap on the skull

 

To be completely honest if it wasn’t for the eye candies that were walking around …and my bosses obsession for the game I would probably skip it cause you not only require a lot of patience but also sweat glands that don’t sweat all that much 

 

A thought did strike me while teeing my 16 or 17 ball (about golf ofcourse! not cuteys) that this game is really like the hunting of old times … that the royals used to do. Hunting basically where the Maharajas with their plethora of soldiers and royal people used to mount on elephants and go on excursions for days together … sometimes coming back with no kill at all and at times a tiger or two.

 

Basically it used to be a thoroughly useless exercise which was done just to show off and spend resources on absolutely non productive exercise …. Golfing fits the bill to the tee … I mean there is a stick, a ball and a hole. All day you need to try and put the ball in a hole and basically walk around in the greens …. atleast of what I saw nobody cared about the game. There were people networking more than teeing off … they were busy saying HI and smiling than sweating it out …

 

And the whole concept that while a cabby trudges around carrying your load you stand there and tee off and then get zoomed off to the other location in a golf cart! Is crazy cause what do u do really? Burn probably some .000001 ounce of calorie in a year!! Ghosh the hypocrisy!! Can we run? Jog? Shout out and pump our fist in the air? Can we be a little less refined??

 

But with all my criticism  … I am all pumped up to go there again … and play it like a pro … bend my knee the right way … butt out a certain way … swing like a champ and flash that pearly white when the ball goes in an absolutely insane direction and ….. oh yeah …. Concentrate on the game a bit more than the dandy candy !

 

Tee hehe to that!

                                                         

I have an obsession … and all week all I can think about is this particular activity……

…while sitting in office … I am thinking of the one hour I will spend with this guy.

Ya … this guy he has the ability to make me sweat … and not just sweat but really sweat!!! 

He is too good… he has me gasping for air …
he has me wanting more….

wanting it but not wanting it….

He starts me off with the usual routine of 20 crunches in a minute, 180 punches in a minute and three minute of intense jogging…   Then there are the 20 kicks in the air from your left feet and 20 from your right … there is the back kicks, the front round kicks … the insane leg bending exercise that I cant seem to do And the absolutely insane tummy crunches that have me wincing and crying out in pain …

…but I still do it … it’s that pain that I like to experience…

My kickboxing class is a prayer … its meditative … and the most satisfying one hour that I have in a day

Eeeeeeeeha!

Delhi is me.
I am Delhi.
I have lived here all my life …
I have hated Delhi, loved Delhi, loathed Delhi.

I have grown up here, fell in love here, grown fat here, jogged here, lied here, lived here and wasted time here.

To be honest I havent given back to the city that has moulded me into who i am now.

And now as summers approach … i feel a tad bit sad … that the cousy winters have gone away a bit too quickly … and now the sticky, sweaty, lazy, sunny days are here (Not that lazy changes …. come winter… summer …spring ….

How do Delhites cope with the summer heat?

When the sweat becomes unbearable, we drive around in our AC cars … the fan does not cool us enough … so we switch on our split AC’s
… we drink Rooh Afza with ice cubes … lemonade with crushed ice … we suck on Chuski available by the roadside in different flavours of Khas, Masala, Rose ….

We try to find a shady tree while out in the city … shield our eyes from the sun and pull our very expensive goggles on

… we talk and we talk … sipping our ice teas… we disscuss ideas or we simply vile away our time

Delhi is harsh in summers
Its harsher in winters

Delhi blows hot .. blows cold …

Delhi is like an unpredictable girl friend … she will keep u on your toes … you will never know what she will do next

Delhi O Delhi ~

Okay there is something about me and jobs. Whatever I take up, I start to detest it after a few months. I hated my first job and now my new job, that is not so new … is reaching that ’I hate this job’ phase.

Obviously the hum de dum of my job has creeped in.

The Oh my god! phase is over … where everything was a Oh my god!

The office is so huge ! Oh my god! …. The canteen serves good food! Oh my god! … The men are drool worthy ! Oh my god! … They are giving me free Internet connection ! Oh my god! …. They have a costa in the same complex!!?? OH MY GOD!

etc etc etc etc

Why does this happen? When and why eventually does this ‘Oh well’ stage creep in?

Why is there this mind numbing boredom slowly creeping on me?

Am i incapable of sustaining anything? Am i going to not like every job i take ? Am I going to crib all my life?

Where are you when I need you with some answers?

The World Economic Forum 2008, has come up with its annual ‘Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008′. This report measures the T&T (Travel and Tourism) competitiveness of economies, by using an index called the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI). The TTCI measures each economy on the following criterion -

Rules and regulations of an economy, how environmentally friendly the economy is, the safety and security an economy provides to its travelers, air transport, tourism infrastructure, natural resources, cultural resources and few others. In total there are about 14 criterion where in an economy is measured.

India ranks a lousy 65. Switzerland comes in 1 and Lesotho is a 130.

India at 65 is something that makes me sad. The recent rapes, murders, thefts have propelled India in the list of countries that are not safe for tourists. UK, US, Canada and Australia have issued warnings to its citizens about visiting India. We are the dreaded country for tourists. Tourists should be extremely careful while visiting India. At every corner in India there is a supposed thief, rapist and murderer, lurking to pounce on well-meaning tourists.

Forget the cultural delight that India has to offer, its historical monuments, different communities living as one, the ever welcoming people, the easy weather and abundance to explore in terms of food, places, clothes and oh-my-god what not!

Please overlook all that.                                                   

All this and more gets ignored as tourists high on drugs and booze, walking aimless on the beach unescorted fall prey to Indian lechers.

Am I being harsh? … hell yes! Cause when i visit a foreign country I read up on the place and take as much precaution as possible and not willingly walk into danger.

India can’t provide a safe haven for drug and alcohol abusers. Period.

Am I disappointed about the ranking? Absolutely not!

All I am saying is there is more to India …. which will probably be overlooked as there is too much of dirt that is floating around about my country.

   

Angels in my Kitchen is one of my favourite places to eat out. It is situated in the Defence colony market of Delhi and houses the most sumptuous cakes, buns, croissants, veg platter (please stop me!) , chocolate brownie, coffee, eggs platter , smoked vegetables, salads …

hmmmm and what not !

I have already recommended it to everyone i know and more than happily taken them there and waited for their gushing reviews about the place, while i smile my ya-i-know smile

The decor of the place is very simple and practical, there are no flowing curtains, no cushy sofas, not even a jazzy wall paint. The place does not pretend to be a lounge (like every second place in Delhi is doing) and is a we-serve-food-here kinda place, with no frills attached.

I discovered it, a year back and since then i have had numerous breakfasts, lunches and coffees at Angels.

I again had the good fortune to share this place with two people last weekend … S and D. Now S and D are insane. Insane is not even close to how insanely insane they are. We had planned to meet for breakfast and S and D obviously turned up late, for a change i wasnt fuming as i had my yum yum hot chocolate to keep me company. 

Conversation with these two just flows … its smooth, no pretence kind of a conversation that is speckled with funny anecdotes and insane ideas. Craziness started with me clicking a picture of these guys and then showing it to them. That was the start of an insane debate called ‘My shoulders are broader than yours’. We then went on to measure each shoulder length with the available cutlery. Then there was the boob story that will be another post. I probably havent laughed that hard at breakfast.

Top it all at my favourite place - Angles in my Kitchen. That was probably the best breakfast that i have had in a while.

The excruciating pain … when your existence depends on an email

Keep pressing refresh … wondering what is taking so long

Is the AC not working? Why cant i hum my favourite song?

Send myself an email to check if all is well with my inbox

The email gets duly delivered… sits there and mocks

Refresh Refresh

Sweat … sweat a bit more

Tapping of my feet

… that extra cup of coffee

Refresh Refresh Refresh Refresh

Refresh !!!!!!

The endless wait into oblivion

Tap Tap Tap Tap