So………..
Instead of saying what i have been doing, what I will do is just copy-paste from recent mails.
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friday:
ok, a mail after a long time…basically i am doing nothing in the office so am gonna write down something. hope it’s long. :-D

New Year was FUN, you know….my plan until the morning was to go to sleep early ( that’s what i have been doing throughout my life ). Monami ( that’s my batchmate from recw, who also works in pramati) suddenly says that she wants to dance, and that she will sponsor the night if i take her otu to a dance. then hrishikesh and abhishek ( my flatmates and compatriots ) call me up and say theat they want to go drinking, and ask what my plans are. Then gayatri calls up ( now wait, gayatri is an OLD friend of mine from cotton, she is now working in Indian Express, Chennai as a features journalist, she had come to hyd to visit kongkona, another ol’ friend, who had come to hyd to visit HEr sis, who’s studying here….) and says she is ditching kongkona and wants to join me for the evening….

so finally five of us venture out to a pub/disco and thoroughly enjoy ourselves….me and monami were the non-drinkers, so we basically stuck to dancing, while rishi and gayatri went berserk after a while…i mean, rishi is normally a quiet kind of a guy, he just takes his specs off and dives into the dance floor!!!!!!! should have seen him move!

after coming back ( at one ), rishi made some BITTER black tea…and we decided to go for a walk….me and gayatri discussed the intricacies of English literature along Necklace road…that road incidentally is one beautiful stretch , overlooks Hussain Saagar lake, and is beyond compare at night. there were people raucously partying all along the road….it’s not too cold here though….
we finally came back and went to sleep at 4 am.

so that was that. my first wild night of partying! i now feel like a true professional! :-)

rishi and abhishek have both gone off to bangalore, so i am all alone this weekend, got a huge backload of books to catch up on, some akira kurosawa movies to watch, and of course, lots of new albums to listen to!!!!!

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saturday:
the cd of “Let’s Talk” has just come in Music World, saw it yesterday, but I hesitated a bit before buying it outright, because it’s going to be in Bangalore too, and rishi is there right now.
He might have this weird idea of surprising me, and buy it there. So….i think I will wait until Monday.
:-)

After u left, both of us went to a second hand bookshop and got some new old stuff. I bought a Dilbert hardcover, and also something interesting, a novel called “Chapatti or Chips?”. I had seen this book in Crossword and had skimmed through the first chapter, ’twas good! basically about an Indian gal born and brought up in London, about to be married off to a goody-goody indian chap, and she’s got an English friend, the biggest womaniser in London, and a guy who’s dead against anyhting remotely resembling a commitment; she’s falling for him and he doesn’t know it….
neat dialogues, i am really enjoying myself with this, and trying to make it last….

(i can imagine cash reading this and shaking his head glumly. some things never change, da!)
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Finished three books on the same day. “Samraj” – the pseudo-Mahabharata, the last page of the book, with the references for the book, are interesting…I didn’t know there are books called “Sex in The Mahabharata” and “Mahabharata in a historical context”. The only reference I knew was Kamala Subramanium’s version of the epic.
Some interesting points: the authoress is an American, and she points out that non-Indians have a problem keeping the names of certain characters in mind. For instance, Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra and Dhristadumnya cause a lot of confusion among Occidental readers…so in the book, the names are changed to Suyodhana, Drita and Panchalya, respectively.
Another important perspective: being married to 5 men is NOT easy. Draupadi is a female torn between her love for Arjuna ( she was to marry him, initially) and Yudhisthira’s love for her ( I never noticed, but Yudhisthira didn’t marry again, the others did. ), her duty as a queen ( beautifully brought out in the novel), and the social stigma associated with being a polyandrist..
The Mahabharata is a brilliant work, but what I hate about the epic is that the heroes are worshipped by (these bloody) indians. And what about the time period? The vedic times were an age when a lot of empires flourished. This book brings them all into the picture. “Baron” Sakuni introduces a drink called “azle” to India; the origin? Egypt. He even has an Egyptian slave named Zesnor. Vyasa is portrayed as a shadowy figure who knows more than he lets on. One major complaint: Krishna ( most often referred to as “The Vrishni”) becomes just another character. Ms. aron should have worked on that. ( And no, I am not a rabid Harry Krishner, thank ye )
Karna remains as he was in the original text, a victim of circumstances.

Last word: This book is NOT the Mahabharata. It covers only the empire-building part, the ending making sense and managing to send that shiver up your spine, because you KNOW what’s going to happen….the gambling game and the War. It’s basically a story of Yudhisthira and Draupadi. Considerable licenses are taken throughout. But Ms. Elaine Aron, I thank you all the same.

Second book: “Chapatti or Chips?” If you like words like “porking” and “shagging” ( i DO ), you’re gonna love this. Even if you don’t, if you’re gonna love this. A long marathon reading session alter, and I had to read the last three pages 5 times before i stopped LOLing.

Third: A Robert Heinlein novel, called “Orphans of the Sky”. BAsically filler material ( or so I thought ), but this is one sci-fi writer who manages to amaze me with his sense of humour. It was pretty short, and I didn’t try to look too much into things. Just plain good reading.
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Music: I finally got Bjork’s “Debut” cd. And the Spiderman OST from Rishi. A gift! :-D Thanks, dude!
Better ( heh, heh, heh), he bought Indian Ocean’s
Kandisa, the cd.
Was listening to Talvin Singh’s “Ha” on Sunday night, and i must say it’s real good.
Hey, Talvin Singh played the tabla and arranged the strings for Bjork’s first album “Debut” (which i got yesterday) I knew he had collaborated with her, but didn’t know he was this famous even way back then…..there is a song in the album where the violins sound exactly like in a Hindi movie.

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Am Brain of the Week AGAIN at K-Circle. Am conducting it this Friday. :-D
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Count so far –
Kaante – 2
Saathiya – 2
Die Another Day – 1. ( that’s going to change today)

“Bollywood/Hollywood” is good.

As always, I promise myself that I won’t buy too many cds, I won’t piss people off too much, and I will update this journal regularly.