So much for making resolutions...

Into the first month and I still havent seriously damaged my bank balance even after diving into the Strand booksale. So far so good, I thought, and all too soon comes an email from Crossword announcing an 80% sale on books and slight discounts on movie and game CDs. For every 500 bucks spent, they're giving away free cappucino (hot or iced...u get a choice) with love from Brio, their in-store coffee shop.

I think God's trying to test my will power.

Also...I'm signing up for a writing workshop. They teach you how to write articles (newspaper etc.), attention-grabbing copy and they've also got a double script-writing session. Ten sessions in all. I am really looking forward to it although I'll be travelling a lot. The best thing is that I'm learning a lot and using my free time to get ahead. No more sitting back and letting such opportunities pass me by.

Wish me luck :)

Part 2 and a duck update!

I finally ate duck here in Bombay. At Mainland China, which is the only place in suburban Bombay where one should even attempt a diversion from set habits and norms. Wedge-slices of duckmeat rolled up in a tiny white pancake with slivers of onion, dipped in plum sauce and savoured with eyes shut and tastebuds open. To be preceded by a prawn sui mai and to be followed by the simplest of fare, seasonal vegetables in a Chinese parsley sauce (amazing!) with a Sichuan fried rice...would even go with a bowl of steamed rice.

And the Chinese green tea kept flowing.

We sampled perfection in the two hours we spent lunching: my friend and I.

Now, back to the meme.

9. Your Favourite TV Show: If I had to pick one, it would be Cooking with Heart and Soul (Kylie Kwong).

I dont really watch it to learn anything...although they're quite simple. I watch it for the way she cooks and the things she does with recipes. I wish I could eat at her restaurant!

10. The town (rather, city) in which you live: Bombay (that's the Gateway of India in the pic there)

A city I would sorely miss if I ever left it, for many reasons. Whether you're at Colaba, Marine Drive, Dadar, Bandra, Borivli, Virar - each part has its own individual characteristics that together make Bombay what it is: a vibrant city with a racing pulse. Time moves at a crazy pace here, the crowds increase every year, pollution levels are going up, you might find slums at the foothills of a swish building complex, crowded but convenient trains, buses of every shape, size and design...and a million other things. Never a dull moment in this city.

11. Your screen name/nickname: The Idle Devil (love the pic that came up; first on the search page)

Why Idle Devil? Because the devil happened to be idle that day and started to blog about it. Ok, I had left my job to pursue my love of writing and get a job doing this...which was not too difficult. I finally got into freelancing and love it so far. So, the devil's not always idle, except when she's playing Pastry Passion with a passion for all things sweet.



12. Your First Job: Assistant MIS Operations

I still think that it was an unfair title. I was more Back Office flunky who got stuck with phone calls, reports and data collection and updating rather than anything to do with MIS. I'm not even sure how they came up with MIS for something as mundane as my first job. I fled after six months of it!

13. Your Dream Job: I have two: either a bookstore owner or a librarian (yes, Reflections! I had the same dream job!)

Unfortunately, you need to be qualified in Library science else I'd have already been one. As for a bookstore, I keep wanting people to leave me one in their will! I kept haunting one of my favourite bookstores back home hoping that they'd offer me a job without the nerve to ask for it myself.

14. Bad habit you have: Not trying hard enough to get what I want.

Taking the easy, non-struggle way out. Giving it up for the meantime and saying I'll work for it later, when it comes my way again. I intend to break this habit starting now. Never give up without a fight! Time I practised it myself.

15. Your worst fear: Loss of any kind.

Losing a loved one, losing face, losing mind, losing hope...they're all right up there on my list.

16. The one thing you'd like to do before you die: Be grateful

I'd love to thank God from the bottom of my heart for giving me a good life. Also, would be grateful to the people who made me what I am, to myself for learning and going on without giving it up altogether, to my husband for loving me unconditionally... I want to have the time to be properly grateful.

17. The first thing you'll buy if you get $ 1,000,000: A bigger home and a car.

We would like to have a big apartment (if not house) with a room each for my in-laws, my husband and me, and my kids (whenever they come along into our life). Other than that, a car so all of us can travel around town more comfortably.

Whew! That's done!

Anyone who wants to do this one can go right ahead.

Image Question Tag Part 1

I didnt have a name for this meme tag so I made one up to add to the title. The Part 1 is necessary coz it can get a bit long. 18 questions! But I promised to give it a shot so here goes.

The meme came from: Reflections

The rules states that for every answer one has to do a Google Image Search and paste a picture from the first Google Image Search page with minimal explanation.

1. The age you will be in your next birthday: 29 Guess what? This image is the logo of a cafe called Junction 29. Perfect way of celebrating a birthday right? I mean, gorging on lovely fried food (why do they call this junk? It's heavenly!)

2. A place you'd like to travel to: Paris
Would love to travel to Paris to have a first-hand look at the cafes, the streets, the people, and most importantly, the bakeries and chocolateries. I visit parisbreakfast every morning to pamper my Paris fix for the day.

3. Your Favorite place: The bed room
Love bed rooms! My bedroom is where I have my desk and the beginnings of an in-house (literally) library. It is my sanctuary from the world. Plus, we dont have a study and if we did, it would have a lounging chair preferably the reclining types. I love to recline comfortably while reading which also allows me to take a nap or two.

4. Your favorite food/drink: Do I have a favourite? They keep changing like seasons. Every season, I have a different favourite food/drink.

This season, it's piping hot dim sums and fruit c(m)ocktails.
It's mostly fruit mocktails now, but I love the blend of citrus fruits along with apples, bananas, watermelon etc. I had one at the Hard Rock Cafe which was really good and didnt make me miss alcohol at all. Dim sums at Mainland China (where I might be going tomorrow) are fabulous and I can drop almost anything (wink!) to get there for a dim sum lunch.

5. Your favorite pet: Dogs

Any breed, any kind. As long as its four-footed and loving. And also a bit mischievous. Like this one (not mine):

6. Your favorite color combination: Pink and white (actually, anything with pink). It's actually scary how Google Image Search seems to read your mind and give you exactly what you've always dreamed of.

Growing up, I always wanted a bedroom just like this! Pink and white and all the colors that go with it. But mainly pink and white. Sigh! This is what dreams are made of!


7. Your favorite piece of clothing: Kurtis (short tunics) and trousers

Most comfortable. Also good with jeans. More brownie points to Google for giving me a pink kurti image.

8. Your all-time favorite song: I pick "Hero" from Nickelback. It gets my pulse racing, my heart speeding, all my senses stimulated...especially to hear it on an IPod, just you and the music. A high like no other (almost!). Plus, I love Spiderman.

To be Continued...

I will answer the remaining questions in the next episode of Image-Question Tag! Coupling image search with questions can get a bit exhausting.

What I did this weekend...

Fun, fun things!

I took the KingLong bus right from one end of Bombay to another. Hubby had a dental appointment which took almost two hours in all so I waited impatiently for it to get over so we could go to the Strand booksale!

The Strand Bookstall has a yearly book sale with books being discounted up to 80% on the marked up price. Needless to say, the not very airy hall which hosted the sale was buzzing with bookworms some of whom had brought their very noisy kids there. My husband went over to the Cook Book section while I took my time over the Fiction and Classics sections.

The list I carried with me was useless as I didnt get any of the books on it. That didnt stop me from buying a few books though. Read about it here.

We were out at 2:30 pm, hot and a little light-headed (mostly me) from tilting my head, craning my neck etc. to read the titles on display. And yes, hunger. In a rare flash of inspiration, we cabbed it all the way to another suburb with huge mills converted into super-spacious and glitzy malls. Lower Parel. That's where we were introduced to Hard Rock Cafe, tucked away in the corner of an adjacent mill.

Super plush interiors greeted us with a warm and alternate-world kind of welcome. We sat in a booth type of seat with comfortable high-backed sofas and ordered a plate of quesadillas with good portions of sour cream and guacamole dips with our drinks, a beer for him and a non-alcoholic cocktail (Sweet Sunrise - orange and a few other marvelously combined juices with loads of ice) for me. We added a side order of mashed potatoes, the centre of which was scooped out to contain gravy made with great-tasting beef broth. With barbequed chicken and fries for him and a plate of pasta with a divine sauce made from a combination of cheeses topped with garlic bread (wonderful, wonderful bread) and a good portion of grilled chicken.

Unfortunately, the portions were a bit much. We couldnt have any dessert. Which was bad because we were looking forward to a Home-style Cheesecake.

Price-wise, it was very, very expensive. We're not coming back unless there's a great band playing live. But the ambience we could enjoy only that day - nearing on 3:30 with only two other tables occupied. I gazed at the costumes and guitars on display, belonging to distinguished personalities such as Madonna, DMB, Aerosmith etc.

Sunday was quiet. My mom-in-law made a great fish curry (dry). Surmai (a fleshy, sea water fish) was the catch of the day and very tasty with the bright red masala (ground dry red chillies, coconut, spices) hugging it. I made an entirely microwaved curry of mixed veggies and mushrooms in a lightly spiced coconut milk gravy. Crushing garlic and cooking them awhile with chopped chillies and onions really turns on the anticipation levels with their lovely aroma. This dish went really well with the spicy fish and rice.

Sunday evening, we went to a flower show (which was basically a collection of wilting flowers decorated in floral arrangements). One arrangement sprung out of an actual wooden boat propped up at one corner. Disappointed at the lacklustre flower show, although we did see some rare flower types, we turned to look at the stalls selling handicrafts. I got beautiful terracotta earrings shaped like sunflowers. We went to the chaat counter where we bought bhel puri and sev puri - two must haves in Bombay. We finished that and headed for the free tea samples with our tongues still recovering from the spices in the chaat. Two elaichi (cardamom) chais later, we bought one of their ready cardamom tea packets.

After a fun hour of exploration and tea-tasting, we headed home to an episode of South Park on the computer as my in-laws watched their favourite Marathi channel on TV in their room.

I dont really hate Mondays when I have a lot of great books to dive into when I take breaks from working.

How did you spend your weekend?

How I met P...

We met with our parents at a specified meeting place near his house. Which meant we had to travel for an hour to get there. Once there, we were early and waited for a few minutes until they arrived. Until then, my parents who forever think of me as a rebel repeated the ground rules: keep an open mind, they are nice people, etc. with an underlying message of "be nice". I'd been hostile with my parents the entire day before this meeting, did not feel comfortable being there.

The minute I met him and his folks, I couldnt be anything other than nice. They were chatty and did not have airs or an attitude. They werent here to judge me, they let us talk and get to know each other without involving them into the conversation. The parents talked with each other just as P and I did, slowly getting to know major differences and similarities between them.

P is the most direct person I've ever met. I loved the way he steered the conversation, almost as if he'd had a plan in his mind (being a manager at work, he does it almost intuitively). He first ordered for everyone which I did not like (analyzed it as being too controlling...dont know where I picked that one...my parents were ok with it never having been to the restaurant before) and purposefully changed my order. After that was done, he told me about himself rather than asking me a few set questions and making it feel like interrogation. I joined in with a brief history about my educational and work life, the usual things, and talked about friends, family, food. And we talked about food for hours. We both confessed to loving pork. He talked about possibly moving to the US for work while I talked about wanting to leave my present job and try something in a different field (something I loved and was finding myself moving away from).

I thought the meeting went ok. Next day, his parents called to say that he loved meeting me and had stated something on the lines of "She's the girl I want to marry" right after they left that day. They were excited. I was scared. I wanted to meet him one more time before saying anything.

I never believe in the first meeting. Be it a friend, date or an arranged match...I know I wouldnt be sure right away. I loved to take it slow. Unfortunately, in this setting, it's the second or third meeting that makes it all final. It's very rare that both people in an arranged meeting might fall head over heels in love with each other. I didnt know if I'd feel the same way about him even after our second meeting.

I'd cried my eyes out before the second meeting about not wanting to get married. I didnt know if I could fit in with his parents...he wanted to live with them to take care of them. I admired that in a man but would I want to be in the same home? I didnt know if there would be unreasonable demands that I'd find very difficult to meet. Every stereotype mom-in-law daughter-in-law situation kept playing in my mind. I didnt even know if he was the guy for me. I'd been in love before only to wound my self-confidence and faith in myself. I didnt know if I'd be with a guy who wanted me as I was or if I'd be another project to develop and make a success of.

The second meeting lasted nearly six hours. I met him and found him very distracted and tense. We went to the restaurant directly and he asked me to order. I made sure he was ok with my suggestions and we had a starter each before having a simple main course of prawn curry (Goan style) and steamed rice. At the very start, he asked me to be completely free and tell him anything that was on my mind. He probably thought of a sinister reason to my wanting to meet him alone. Perhaps a boyfriend lurking somewhere, maybe a baggage of a different kind altogether. I just asked him a simple question "Tell me how you live."

He talked about his parents first probably sensing my apprehension. Of the rituals, his parents are religious and also superstitious since his older brother passed away a decade ago, leaving a baby girl and a young, immature wife. The wife created a lot of difficulties for his parents and walked away with their grand-daughter after some really ugly fights. They still helped her get a job so she could support the girl on her own. They keep visiting the girl every chance they get. He talked about his extended family, how close he is to them and how supportive and helpful they are. He talked about his home life, how they have stayed close since the death and he hopes that they always will. Sure, he said, they find it difficult when I play heavy-metal or rock. But I still do what I want and they give me my space. They are not clingy. Sure, they're scared they might lose me but it's been like that since my brother died. Else, we'd all be more carefree.

He then tells me that they are sure that the girl he marries will be every bit of an individual and as radical as him. They will be ok with almost anything and will set aside traditional beliefs to let her do what she wants. They will be there as a safety net and might get worried a few times but all parents do. I remembered how my dad would stay up until I got home unless I called home and told them I'd be late. At the same time, they would rather the new person not knock their religious beliefs. Each must be free to do as they like and neither should impose anything on the other.

He told me he'd read my poems and they showed him a different world and opened his eyes to new experiences he may never have been through.

His eyes said I'm sure about you. I decided to invite him to coffee...didnt want the meeting to end.

After our second coffee and a lot of stories about his "rocker" friends who've all sobered down so much he couldnt recognise them from the long-haired, beer-guzzling, head-banging biker dudes, he smilingly said "I've got a good feeling about this."

Suddenly, I had the feeling that I'd been waiting for him a long, long time. I said I had a good feeling too.

When I returned home that evening, I told my mom "Well? Arent you going to congratulate me?"

Her first reaction was to call up P and ask him if he hadnt changed his mind. He said No way, he was going over home to break the news to his family.

Two months later, we got married.

A year later, we wish we'd met earlier :)