The week looms...

This week is an odd combination of excitement and excruciating anxiety - many things will probably be achieved by Republic Day - a big one would be a pad to call our own here in Mumbai. For a family that never really believed in owning anything 100kms from Pune... and most certainly never thought Mumbai would ever be something they'd call their own, it's a momentous moment. Of sorts.

I say 'family' cause this Mumbai house wouldn't have ever been possible without the collective efforts of the late father, the mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, cousin.... ex-brother-in-law's very loyal staff (go figure that one out, its just too complicated to even attempt explaining) - I'll stop right here, cause the house is yet to become ours completely and one of the wise old men (there seem to be a few in my life) has taught me that you've never really won the race until you pass the finishing line. And as my own unforgiving Maharashtrian genes will keep reminding me 'there's many a slip between the cup and the lip' - so I'll stop here about the real estate and ramble about other less important things.

My weightloss effort for instance. There's nothing to write about there. Simple cause I did absolutely nothing. And I won't bother with the 'now I will' etc etc. Cause I really don't know if I will at all. This week I plan to embark on a sugarfree soujourn - I have successfully done this in the past, but ever since I'm comfortable just resting on those laurels...

I could say 'watch this space' again, but heck, it's not really gonna go anywhere, so you can relax...

Walk this way...

I've often said that this blog needs direction. And done nothing about it. Pretty much like my life, but that seems to be on some sort of track now - I'm doing things I never dreamt of doing, like buying a hole to call my own in Mumbai, trying to have a 'regular routine' - even if that includes not doing much...etc. etc.

So, coming back to my usual tripe, in order to give this blog some sanity, I've decided to blog my walk to weightloss. Yeah, I know, sounds like a cliched New Year resolution but part of the new improved life I plan to lead says that don't shy away from the regular just because it's regular. In other words, live like everyone else. It's okay to conform, it's perfectly fine to be average and it's even better to gloat about the sheer mediocrity one is allowed in this world!

Off we go then... watch this space...

Stately woes...

I usually reserve my regionalistic fervor against the Naarth and everything Naarth Indian... however the annual pilgrimage to Goa has proved a long standing 'tick' in the back on my mind, that the South ain't all that cool either, specifically Karnataka.

For a while now I'd secretly harbored not-so-nice opinions about B'lore (trust me, my B'lorean buddies who are reading this really don't care, it's part of being Banglorean - to be above everything and everyone!) - under the guise of being tech geeks who read Milan Luthra and other such exotic sounding authors, B'loreans are riddled with a wide range of complex complexes.

Nothing showcases this more than a meander thru the state.
Take for example the fact that all the road signs on the national highway passing thru Karnataka are in Kannada. It's bad enough that most of the places are completely un-pronounceable (Hebbal, Utur...) but to have them written in a script thats just impossible to make sense of is just plain and simple criminal.

This wasn't the only thing that ticked me off - what irked me further, is that I was stopped by two shoddily dressed 'cops' just short of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border and asked for my papers. They refused to converse in Hindi - and I'm dead sure they both knew Marathi. And with all my papers in order, their only issue with me seemed that I didn't know the local language - there were other unfortunate 'catches' like me with them. And the cops seem to revel in yelling at them in Kannada and further perplex the 'outsiders'.

This trip has increasingly confirmed my stand that Maharashtra is just too bloody nice to the teeming unwashed millions who like to make us their home. And in some places their loo.
I've yet to meet a Maharashtrian cop who'll refuse to talk in anything but Marathi, I've yet to see highway signs only in Marathi (yeah, it reads like Hindi... how brilliant!) and am yet to meet someone on the highway who'll feign ignorance at being asked directions in Hindi.

Before this becomes a diatribe against everything non-Maharashtrian, let me also say I do really understand the other side sometimes - like for example in Goa, I can completely understand the Goan disdain for the tourist, or their interpreting all tourists as sheep - an animal born to be fleeced.

One look at the tourists who pour into that beautiful state and you realise why stereotypes are stereotypes.
There's the Mumbai brat pack - for whom Goa is nothing but some sort of massive club with a beachwear dresscode, there's the Naarth Indian (can't avoid them can I?!) for whom Goa poses as some sort of buffet, smorgasbord, if you will, of everything they'd never dream of doing or seeing in their home turf - explains why 6 guys from U.P would cram themselves onto a single beach-lounge chair just to try and ogle at some cleavage, and then there's the gora brigade who all seem to have come to this exotic asian ashram to 'find' themselves.

It's a circus.

Anyways. I'm back. The trip was largely uneventful. We brought in 2008 gorging on some excellent Burmese food.

And most importantly, I managed to avoid bumping into anyone I knew, even remotely.
That's a great new year in Goa!