The Voice In My Head…

Recently I went out to Bombay’s newest coffee chain - Gloria Jean’s Coffees. Though it’s a brand that started out in a small coffee and gift shop in Chicago USA (named after it’s owner - Gloria Jean Kvetko), it’s really big in Australia. I remember thinking on my last trip down under that Gloria Jean’s Coffees was just everywhere, just like Barista is here in Mumbai seemingly around every corner.

When I entered the Gloria Jean outlet in Bandra (where Lemon Grass used to be, near Pot Pourri) I was stunned - it was completely full (& remained full with constant in & out flow the whole time we were there). I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised, it was new after all, people are still interested to see what it’s all about, what’s so special about it.

Then later I realised - this is the case with every coffee place I’ve seen in Bombay - be they Barista or Cafe Coffee Day or Mocha - all of them are always completely full or getting there. It’s like Bombay thrives on it’s coffee culture.

Incidentally, the Mocha at Bandra has been shut - I have no idea why yet - there’s a plastic notice at the entrance which though I saw from my car, I was unable to read. Will go and pry later. Or if anyone knows, feel free to enlighten us.

Meanwhile, I’d like to be the first one to say (but I’m sure many have said this before me) I’m waiting for Starbucks to come to Mumbai. And I’m sure it will, and I’m sure they’ll be as full as all the other coffee shops.

Will you please send me this Bible?

I know I’ve got many other Bibles, but I just feel like I need something new to re-kindle the fire I’ve always had for reading your word.

Thank you

Hugs from your (favorite!) child,

Melody

PS: Thanks, was walking in the valley of the shadow of darkness, but as you promised you were right there besides me. The worst is over.

You may or may not know this about me, but I am an IMDB junkie. Well, it’s not like I visit the home page & browse through, but without fail, I check out every movie at IMDB before I decide to go.

A high rating usually prompts me to go & vice versa - so much faith I have in the imdb guys.

But apparently they’re not god; apparently they make mistakes too (shudder).

Yesterday cute boy calls up & asks me out to see ‘Iron Man‘. I’ve never heard of the movie before, so naturally I check it out with imdb.

The rating is 8.3 / 10 - which even a non imdb user can tell, is bloody high. Add to that user comments like this one:

“Robert Downey Jr. is perfect! Gwyneth Paltrow is perfect! Terrence Howard is Perfect…and Jeff Bridges is brilliant!”

Honestly, for a moment there I wondered whether the review was written by a 12 year old, but cute boy was very enthu, so off we went.

And of course, I didn’t like the movie (oh come on, with the title & the intro, you didn’t get that?).

I think there are lots of reasons I didn’t like the movie; to start with, I didn’t know it was based on a comic book. Maybe if I had, I’d be more forgiving and less expecting. I also thought that the movie tried to do too many things - it tried to be funny, suave, serious and all techy all at the same time. I cannot take squirt me with a gas gun haha funny to war in Afghanistan serious two frames from each other.

Cute boy loved the film, though he agreed with me that Oscar winning Gwyneth is totally wasted in it (I personally think she did it only for Apple. My thoughts on ‘Apple’? Another time).

A lot of the plot was completely lost on me - the whole movie was like a Hindi movie in English - except for a few parts, which really were in (a funny accented) Hindi (I kid you not!) with wrong translations.

Though undoubtedly the specials effects of the movie are good - but honestly special effects have come such a long way that I wasn’t really impressed by any of that either.

All in all though, not a waste of a movie experience. Why? Because I was with cute boy of course…

If you can get him to go with you, you might even enjoy the film

Further to this post, let’s start at the beginning.

There is a saying, “Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it”. It’s obvious that the old me had *no* idea what I was getting myself into, because one day, I actually asked my mum to look out for proposals for me.

Yes, I admit it, I opened Pandora’s box.

I suppose, like Pandora, I was curious. Perhaps I wondered what sort of men were out there. Or perhaps I thought it would be fun. Or that I’d actually meet someone I’d like. I don’t really remember my motivation back then - we’re talking about 3 to 4-ish years ago now.

Anyway, whatever was the motivation, I asked - and indeed, like our good Lord says, it was answered.

Well, somewhat.

I was out of Bombay, on holiday with my parents at the time. I had of course asked a while before then - and had *no* idea of what was awaiting me.

An aunt (who I admit was well meaning) conspired with my parents & we land at her place for lunch - and voila! There’s Husky.

I catch on pretty quick (I’m a bright one, I am) and immediately realised why Husky was there. Not a little annoyed with my parents (I mean seriously, they could have just told me), I was actually all *yay* in my mind. Silly me, this was all quite new & exciting, an adventure of sorts!

So, there I was - suddenly all alone - with Husky in the living room (enthu aunt had whisked away my parents on some pretense to another room).

Seeing as it was my first time, I was not sure what I should be saying or not - and I was DESPERATELY trying not to SMILE - I was having such a brilliant time inside my head.

Now, at this stage, let me give Husky due credit & tell you that he was very cute.

In fact, like mum pointed out later, he looked quite like Paul Rudd, though she didn’t quite say Paul Rudd, she said “Phoebe’s Mike” (you know, Phoebe’s bf/husband on ‘Friends’?) - and till today we call Husky, Mike. But I digress.

Husky / Mike was cute. Very cute. I’m actually thinking - nice, this proposal thing is not so bad!!

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I mean seriously, this is me - Melody, who gets bored with things after a while. How long could I stand the jarring red??!

Well, it was good great for the longest time, but I just looked at ze old blog today & was like OMG, seriously: there’s *waaaay too much color* there.

Remem?

And so, we go colorless-ish. Barring the header, which, yes indeed, is:
(a) sepia &
(b) me (not a photoshopped image, I really did get all dressed up for those pics, long story).

Have no idea for how long we’ll keep it this way. Till we get bored again probably.

Anyway, for all those who’re new fans (yes, we do care about you), here’s what the TVIMH used to look like, early in the day:

Before

Before before

(yes, then it had a different name too, brilliant of you to catch on).

Meanwhile, I haven’t added / edited tons of stuff: tags, links, all the other pages etc. ‘pose will do so eventually. But you know what, I just had to change. And I love the fact the whole exercise took me only a few minutes. Wordpress is brilliantly easy to use & maybe I’ve finally made it upto ‘terminal junkie’ level!

(yeah exactly, a marathon of blogging)

(click on image for official site)

These are the topics:

Infrastructure: Sunday, 20th April 2008
How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

Politics: Monday, 21st April 2008
How do we change the focus of politics from caste/religion to grassroot issues?

Entertainment: Tuesday, 22nd April 2008
Does Bollywood overshadow regional cinema in India?

Media: Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Why are Indian news broadcast channels not as mature as their International counterparts?

Gender: Thursday, 24th April 2008
What are the challenges that society faces in accepting the concept of alternate sexuality? How can we address them?

Sport: Friday, 25th April 2008
Are ‘media’ and ‘commercial interests’ in cricket the only reason that are killing other sports in India?

All you have to do is decide which topic/s you’re going to blog about, do it on that day & then add these technorati tags to your post blogathonindia, blogathonindia1

I’d also appreciate if the bloggers from Mumbai who’re participating - and there ought to be *LOTS* of us - leave me a comment here with links to your posts.

I’ll be blogging for the Blogathon too & so will cya there! (well, it’s on cyberspace, but you know what I mean

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Edit: So, I did not blog for the Blogathon. I was down with Bronchitis for the last week, and well, there’s always next year.

It is a truth universally acknowledged in India, that young lasses in their late twenties are just crying out to elderly aunties (known and unknown) for help to get married. “Find me a man, any man - it doesn’t matter; if he’s male, he’ll do”. This knowledge firmly in place, many an aunty has set out on that seemingly daunting task - playing God - by setting out to find suitable Adams for every Eve they know.

I’m pretty certain many of them maintain books with details of young girls and boys, which are then swapped gloriously, hopefully, gleefully with rubbed hands and delightfully fake humble sighs - “It’s only our duty to help”

Many a such trials has this fair (ok, wheatish) lass had to endure. Out of pure love for you her blog groupies (nay, it is a love slightly tainted by her desire to club certain aunties and so-called suitable suggestions) this lass will recount her [mis]adventures with the men who were offered as mates.

Today I am breaking earlier vows of silence and introducing you to the world she has inhabited over the last few years. My friend Arnold thinks my “I’m sure ____ doesn’t read my blog” thinking should be recorded for future vindicative use against me - though honestly, I really don’t think any of these guys read my blog, so I’ll be as honest as I can about all the incidents without giving away any names.

Some of the characters you will meet from this world are:

* Husky the Sailor Boy
* INot (I’m not talking) the Psychiatrist Boy
* Playboy the Pilot Boy
* Serious the Chef Boy
* iDoc the Surgeon Boy
* Smiley the Builder Boy
* GOPTIP (Great on the phone, *Terrible* in person) the Banker Boy
* MaMeN (Marry me now) the second Pilot Boy
* Quiet the Dentist Boy

and of course, my pièce de résistance - the story which beats all my friend’s proposal nightmare stories hands down (yes, of course we swap stories) -

* PFH (the Proposal from Hell) who was, the Proposal from hell (seriously) Boy (perhaps)

AND EXTRA (don’t you love the number of things you get with this blog!) you will also get to “meet” the aunties, the friends, you will come along with me & suffer with me a little hopefully, even while you laugh out loud.

Keep reading!

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If you’re new at TVIMH, you might want to acquaint yourself with these true stories:
Weirdass Proposal Story
So, we’re talking and then
White Lies and White Wine (a bit of the former, none of the latter)
Men: Falling for me. Falling on me. And taking me down with them.

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Based on whether you love Bombay or not, the words you’d chose to describe the city would be - crowded, filthy, noisy, spirited, alive, fun!

Whether positive or negative though, you’d probably never describe Bombay with these words - Vast, Green, Old World Charm!

And yet, that’s exactly what St. Pius X College (commonly referred to as the ‘Goregaon Seminary‘) is like (see an aerial view here).

It’s a fact not commonly known, that I was conceived in Goregaon Seminary. My parents were doing a ‘Marriage Encounter‘ there, about 4 yrs after their wedding. And lo & behold, I was formed! Not an immaculate conception (!) but a blessed conception for sure! I know lots of other facts about my pre-born state that I’m sure you all are dying to know but this post is about the seminary.

I went to the Goregaon Seminary for the first time in my (post-born, lol) life two Saturdays ago. It was like taking a trip outside Bombay, or perhaps to Bombay, but in a century long ago - All the the greenery, the sheer vast openness of it all.

And the building itself was so beautiful! Old World Charm all carefully preserved in an air of quiet and sanctity. I spent the weekend at the Seminary as I was attending a Bible Seminar (nope, I’m not becoming a priest!).

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Is that even possible?! - one brilliant soul is experimenting to see if it is.

I’ve just spent the better half of the morning going through every single post of Gaurav Mishra’s ‘Off Consumption’ blog (which is also going to be a book soon!) on his experiments thus far with a year off consumption.

While I surfed through his 2 week journey so far (yeah, it’s still a baby blog, you can catch up) I found myself laughing at his washing bucketfuls of clothes, amazed that people were getting so into the whole thing that they want to turn it into a reality TV show and in general, enjoying (to quote a commenter) his funny “Wodehouse like” posts on his dates off consumption.

His latest post (on his insatiable craving for a McDonald’s Paneer Salsa Wrap) makes me wonder whether he’ll actually make it through the year?!

I found myself also wondering if I too could give up consumption for a year - that thought quickly perished when I glanced at the sexy new Guess shoes I’ve just bought (one really can’t have too many shoes, right?). I’m not crazy about buying things, but how does one live in Mumbai, for a year and not buy any new clothes or shoes, not go to any restaurants or movies or any paid entertainment?! Seriously!!!!

I know I have enough of resilience in me to do it for a cause - I did after all live in an Ashram for two years - but to stay in the world and completely be off consumption, just to “see” if it’s possible - gee, I don’t know..!

Anyway, I’m wishing G the best of luck & will be following the entire experiment closely!

Meanwhile, what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think you’d make it through a year? Would you want to?!

Related thought - if you had to do this (don’t ask me why, just assume someone put a gun to your head or something), what do you think would be the main thing you’d miss being able to do/buy? - I think mine would be giving up restaurants / coffee shops - basically would cut off my social life, I think!

After the chilliest winter that Mumbai’s faced in the longest time, it was bound to happen - Summer is not only fast descending but it is going to be hot, hot, hot.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but I don’t have a sense of smell - in a city as overcrowded and filthy as ours, I’ve always maintained that it is a good thing! However I can smell something is it’s very strong - so if I smell something I know it’s bad.

I recently had the misfortune of being around one individual who was - and I mean seriously - wreaking with body odor. This guy was stinking so much, even I could smell it strongly! I felt bad for the guy though because people around him really made fun of him when he was not around - he’s apparently got a regular BO problem - which I don’t think he even is aware of.

So though he doesn’t read my blog (at least I don’t think so) I’ve made a list. It’s written mostly for men since I think most women do these things anyway but if you’re a woman who doesn’t, feel free to apply the list too:

Melody’s TOP 10 Guide, to be STINK FREE this Summer!

(10) EAT RIGHT! - Have you heard the saying: what goes in determines what comes out? Yeah, I’m talking BO caused by what you’re eating - or not. Check with your doctor if you have a Zinc or Magnesium deficiency - these supplements help balance your body’s metabolism and reduce the cause of bad odor. Maybe BO is just a pill away! Also while you’re at it take your vitamins (ok, so I’m feeling all motherly at this point)

(09) Wear Cottons and materials that ‘breathe’ - Synthetic fabrics don’t allow the body to breathe. If you’re not sure which of your clothes are cotton, check the labels (yup, that’s one of the reasons they’re there honey).

(08) Tight is not always right - This is because loosely fitting clothes allow the body to breathe better than tight clothes by allowing perspiration to escape.

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