PS- Everyday I get to know myself a little better. Today I learnt that my two favorite authors are Murakami Haruki and Milan Kundera.
Ofcourse, there are the one-time genious as Khalid Hosseini and Arthur Golden.

1. I like new blogger.
2. My Christmas break is uneventful, to say the least. Childhood friend is visiting, we are close but not close. Close because we share the same friends, school and college. But it was nice having her here, kinda got to know her better. For example, I now know that she hates cheese and animated movies.
3. Miss Jolly. Miss bombay more. Miss it more because Jolly is so busy partying and experiencing bombay the way I've always wanted to. With friends. And at 20.
4. Boyfriend surprised me with lovely chandelier swarovski earrings. AND the Aladin DVD. OMG. That was the cheapest, but in my opinion, the best-est gift ever just for the sentimental value that movie holds for me. Dont ask me why. Aladin, 'A Whole new world,' magic -- I grew up thinking that fantasy was my life and the song was the background to my life. The poloroid also arrived. Me ecstatic.
5. Random 'gaav' ke cousins are now on orkut. Alerted boyfriend to not scrap. Reminded myself to delete all scraps that allude to the his existence.
6. New year resolution: 1) make more friends, meet more people 2) create something, make it big 3) hit the jackpot,bring home the million.
7. Philly tires me sometimes. Need to make new friends here or need to convince existing friends to move here.
8. Boyfriend moving apartments. Weekend and 31st will be spent cleaning, moving and cleaning some more. No regrets. Will miss him though from my apartment :(
9. Joined belly-dancing classes.
10.Fell a little bit more in love with myself.

I was browsing through orkut, evesdropping on random lives and in a general state of wonderment at the lives people lead when I chanced upon photographs of a friend's new born. He's a friend's friend and my connection to him was brief, but when in college, you are privy to everyone's dirty laundry. Ofcourse, mine was washed out on the front lawn too.

His story was one of love and longing. They met in grad school- dated for almsot 2 years - the parents approved and just when wedding bells were about to ring, they called it quits. A year later, he got married to a doctor from Delhi and bought her to Amrika. Another year later, they made a baby in their recently-bought house.

I wonder about relationships. I wonder about people. Everything is so calculated once the mind begins to understand and want. I think, it's life. It's so calculated. Milestone after milestone. It's like we are forever ticking off items of our THINGS TO DO list. Graduate, First job, first car, grad school, 100K+ job, new house, marriage, babies, blah blah.

The thought almost stifles me. Like suburbia. Moving up in life, climbing the social ladder. It doesn't have to be that way, you know. It doesn't have to take you 30 years to make your first million. Or you don't have to get married at 27. and make babies by 30. There are no rules. You make your own and yet, just a few realize that.

Funny I say that, when I'm shackled by the same bloody rules.

brown girl in the ring
tra la la la la
she's a brown girl in the ring..
traaaa la laa la
brown girl in the ring
tra la la la
she looks like a sugar in the plum
plum plum

I'm rooting strongly for a kitshcy little Polaroid camera with blacknwhite and color film to magically appear on my doorstep this Christmas. I've also been hinting very heavily at the person most likely to gift it to me. Back home in Santacruz my mom treasures a few faded, yellowed, polaroids of our family taken back in the 80's by my American mama who endlessly fascinated us with shiny, new, objects and technologies from America. The polroid was the big deal in the 80's, our commonplace Konica was no match to the strange whirring machine that instantly produced first-class photographs. Last year I bought the inexpensive Sunflowers perfume by Elizabeth Arden- a perfume that trendy fashionistas will sneer at if they caught me wearing it but it brings back sweet memories of rain-soaked days, metallic smell of the BEST bus and cobalt blue pinafores. And I'd do anything to live one day in the past.

I hope to document my domestic life with the Polroids. Moments that vanish with time, moments of comedic meter and heck- if I try a lovely dress in a dressing room, I'd like to click an instant picture for posterity.

Yay!