If only you'd come back to me...

Don't wanna weep for you,I don't want to know
I'm blind and tortured, the white horses flow
The memories fire, the rhythms fall slow
Black beauty I love you so

My phone slipped from my hands and fell down between tracks 3 and 4 when I was transferring it from my pocket to my bag.

SHIT!

This was all during the churchgate fast's fifteen second halt at Dadar station, on platform 4.
Jump, yelled the lady next to me.
Can't, a train is aproaching on the next track, and there isn't enough space. I'm too scared. Not enough time to push through the crowd and get off on the platform. I'll just have to get off at Bombay central and catch a train back.

Meanwhile, I kept asking random women to call my number, but it was immediately 'out of coverage area' . Clearly someone had jumped at the oppurtunity.
Took me a full twenty minutes to get back to Dadar, and the frequency of trains at Dadar was now frightening. When I finally got down to the tracks, my phone wasn't there. :'(

I had prided myself on not having lost a single phone in the last five years. Which, if you know me well, is quite an achievement.

*poof* and it's gone.

Photos from my trip

This was taken before the thread ceremony...

Here are some photos from the photo session after the function.

My entire family- Grandad, dad, his three brothers and their families...

Here's one of my grandad with all the kids..



The kid with the 'Punk' Tee is the one who was 'no longer a boy' since that morning...:)


And here's an apt photo of the twelfth standard boy :

Aargh part 2

Been ages since I updated. Got bored of my own blog for a bit, and I've also been impossibly busy.
Back to my Bangalore trip. Where were we?
Yeah, the family get-together from hell.

At this point let me state that I was not the only person in agony. Another cousin was expecting his twelfth standard results in a couple of days- the poor boy. The entire family was around. We all know just how eager relatives can be when it comes to board results.
He also had to give engineering entrance exams all of that week.

Once the party was done with, we finally got a chance to sit down and talk, but not for long. We would all have to wake up by six the next morning. All seventeen of us.

Seventeen people, two bathrooms, and sarees to be draped on.
Fun!

So yeah, we had the token photo session before leaving for the thread ceremony, and here's a pic of me. edit: had problems uploading, see next post...

It was a regular family function, with loads of small talk and polite enquiries about long-lost cousins. And then there was the severely annoying interaction with an old dude who I wasn't quite sure was even related to our family.

Gruff voice "How tall are you?"
"5'10''
"Married?"
"No"
Dirty look "Parents are going to have a tough time getting you married"
"None of your business, you silly old SOD!!"

Of course, I couldn't respond like that, so I had to nod politely in agreement.

I was told later that he was my aunts neighbour. Not even a relative. Too bad. I could've accidentally toppled the kumkum holder over him if I had known this earlier.

Caught up with cousins, and made plans to watch Gangster with them sometime later that week. Just an excuse to move out and explore the city a bit. :)

Aargh - part 1

So many things to crib about.....I'm actually bored at the thought of typing it all out.
But of course, the blog must not be neglected for too long, and special requests to update must be considered.
So here goes!

Discovered an annoying bunch of threads on the tifr community on orkut that disappoint, both with regards to the opinions being posted as well as the people these opinions are coming from. I guess I expect too much.

And then of course, I must share my delightful experiences from the bangalore 'vacation' , if i may use that word.

Predictably, the trip was crazy hectic. The purpose of the entire trip was for me to attend a first cousin's thread ceremony, and of course, I was made to attend two random weddings - the justification being ' Since you are in the city, it would come across as extremely rude if you chose not to attend these functions'.

I understand. It would be rude if the bride/bridegroom had any idea who I was.

Got to Bangalore on saturday evening, and spent close to two hours getting to my uncle's house. When I finally got there, grubby and exhausted, I was greeted by loads of partly-recognisable faces (I was seeing a few people after over five years), and walked from the door to the bedroom saying Hi! about forty times. It was decided (by my mum) that I would change into something more presentable for the pre-function family get-together, but I ditched the idea considering everyone had already seen me in my true grubbiness...

Over the years i've noticed that my extended family is getting increasingly fond of getting together. And such events are a lot more fun when there's alcohol and dancing involved. On this particular occasion, however, despite the free-flowing alcohol (that I stayed away from), the mood was sombre - my future had to be decided!
Was marriage more important than investing the five prime years of my life (that could be spent in making beautiful, healthy babies) in a PhD? Would I get any of the 'good' boys if I opted to look at the mature age of 28?
The debate raged on, and as you would've guessed, I wasn't the one asking these questions- Two grand-uncles were close to muscling it out over this issue- one who is a PhD himself, agreed with me when I said i couldn't possibly get married while in grad school, another believed that marriage was top priority - over everything else.

I left the room when it occured to me that at no point were they going to ask for my inputs- no questions on whether i was already making plans with someone else. The debate continued after my exit..

All of this within two hours of stepping into my uncle's house. I was bracing myself for the rest of the trip- it was bound to get worse.

More in my next post!
Oh, the monsoon has descended upon Bombay, in all it's fury. Waded through mud to get home yesterday. Not fun.