incognito

in a bid to be a little more prudent about the information that's out here in the open, i have decided to remove a few details and pictures from here.... i know with a blog address like this which is a dead giveaway, this is the least i can do..... so for those of you who know me otherwise, please know that it is still the same ole me....

its not that i want to create some mystery quotient all of a sudden, but i need to do this to protect my family..... since they make an appearance far too often here....that much i owe them.... if i am making stories of their lives, the least i can do is this.....

i have been reading a lot of blogs these last few days and i realised that in this space of cyber world, each one of us, has found our bearings....fought battles of the mind, found solace and most of all camaraderie and affection that fellow bloggers seem so generous to share.... something that is becoming lesser and lesser in this cynical world we live in....

going potty!!

my days are not filled with work of the office type.......despite the fact that i can choose to do what i want during the course of the day, there are times when i want to do nothing....

so i spent it doing what i love best, powered by the fact that i had been privy to a fabulous roof garden over the last weekend....i spent some time with my potted plants.... pruning, digging and loosening the earth..... each time i do this....the first thing that strikes me is guilt because i have to prune and then throw away the cuttings....i just have no more place to accomodate them anymore... and then i always wonder why i dont manage to remember to wear the pink latex gardening gloves i own.... they're as good as new.... but it doesnt feel the same to be playing in dirt and doing your bit when you're gloved up.... i anyways think of it only when i wash my hands and see the scratches on my fingernails....

i grew up in a house that was on a huge piece of land... in the middle of the city...and we had enough trees...yes trees and not plants.... to have koels and other birds waking us up with cacophony each day.... i would trade places anyday now...thou at that time, i thought it was embarrassing to speak over the phone when birds were having a row in the tree tops...to be asked by freinds on the other side of the phone line, what that noise was....now ask me....trying to shuffle about 80 odd pots of different sizes on my two balcnies....they're spilling out into the corridor and on the parapet wall of the service area too....

brings me to how i started off.... i started with 6 yogurt cups...the ones that hold 200 ml of yogurt.... and soil so hard that it killed off most of the plants!! on one trip, amma filled a plastic bag with some soil from the side of a dug up road...and brought it home...and then we filled the six empty yogurt cups with it and put in some plant cuttings....i was too embarassed to even look at them for days....they looked so silly.... so i went out and bought some plastic pots..... about 12 of the smallest.... no larger than a latte cup..... they looked better than the yogurt cups!! then some more and some more....till i now have about 70... in different sizes.... everytime i go somewhere, its hard not to come back with some plant life.... a bulb, a cutting, some seeds..... hell i even have asked friends to send me seeds.... of exotic herbs they grew....and tantalised me with the pictures....back from a holiday in the hills, i was so excited to come home only to repot and plant my booty of orchids and pepper and a kind of lemon so small but so sour!! they lived for a brief while.... frequent travel (mine and k's) killed them one by one.... 

then another trip, where i paid more for the porter to carry the carton than i did to the nursery i bought the plants from.... roses and crysanthemums and some other lovelies that promised to add colour to my collection....they all died too.... when i went on a holiday and a friend forgot to water them...i dont think she recovered from the guilt for weeks!!

after which i decided on much foliage and no fancy...stuff that would be ok with 3-4 days between watering if the need arose...and this works so well for me!! this is where i am now.... lots of green and colour .... but no more... i mean any more additions will mean i will be seriously jeopardising the state of my marriage!! and i might need another house.... i am waiting for the carpenter to arrive to put up the hanging pots i managed to smuggle into the house without k noticing!! 

i have them in old pickle bharanis, tooth brush holders, broken cups, bottles and some even growing in water.... 

i now have progressed to a few herbs for the kitchen....chillies, curry leaves....and now finally some cherry tomatoes and yellow peppers......and loads of basil sent to me by a blogger friend....

its a place i love to hang out .... its what makes me so happy.....its has always seen my bad moods lift into something better.... its funny, how something like this can make such a big difference....but it does...and its inexplicable (if you havent gotten it by now, that is...)

sure i would like a real garden someday....but for now...this will do....potted and planted and hanging around the house....

K's Labour of Love

So so here it is.........after weeks of cribbing and spilling my gut onto my status messages..... K's Library!! finally done and i hope well worth the pain and money!!

K has wanted a library of his own for as long as i can remember...it is one of those long cherished wishes.....for the last four years now we have gone back and forth between making one, or buying readymade bookshelves.....he saw something that he liked in a bookstore in pondycherry and asked me to replicate it at home.....i would like to think we accomplished it quite well.

the library which began as the simple building of a book case on one open wall in our third bedroom, soon engulfed the whole room, making us tear down the existing wardrobes (sniff....sniff) and going the whole hog..... if you didnt hear about it from me, you were'nt a part of my life as it happened!!

the Library has been built against both walls on either side of the room.  

on the left of the room, a work station sits between two more panels of books. the workstation houses the laptops (hence we have two tiers) and it needs those rectangular wicker baskets on the top shelf to hold the board games, stationery etc....i sacrificed my precious embroidered table cloth to provide cover for the soft board (the white with delicate coffee coloured vines on it). this will be yours truly's home office. it needs a chair as well, that will have to wait for the state of the pockets to get better.

On the right of the room, is another book case with the glass display shelves, that we had to put in because of the pillar that was there....

everything has been polished in walnut. there is our ancient Rattan sofa (tho i prefer to call it the couch), an ancient armchair, a bean bag, one coir stool and one small table....ample seating for those who might want to spend some time inside. we contemplated putting a TV for good measure, but reality in the form of our empty pockets made us exercise restraint.

feedback is very welcome.....although i would really like it if it was limited to praise.....and anyone who has alternative ideas about the seating/furniture or the lack of it/ blinds instead of the curtains etc, are welcome to (a)write me a cheque (b) take me shopping (C) both of the two.....

Congratulations my love....and i hope this was all that you wanted and more!!

done and dusted

finally finally after all the cribbing and sulking and even more cyber ranting....the library...k's preccciouussss is done!! 

Gawd!! i never thought these past weeks that i would be able to say it!! "it's done!!" it took a while and a lot of money...but we've finally finished it.....

i know that i have never been happier to see something end!! its great to have the house back to myself....with no one knocking the door at 9 a.m sharp to stay on till 9 p.m most days.....i dont even have to make litres and litres of tea...twice daily!! plus there's no trail of dust and dirty feet and ....well...you got it right.....

last weekend was spent getting things in order....putting back stuff and generally clearing out the aftermath of the mess..... k ignored me for a whole day while he obscenely & lovingly took all his books to their new home......he refused food and water till he was done!!

We cleaned and washed and swept and lifted and arranged all the other worldly possessions till i was made very aware of long forgotten parts of my body and the rusted but very tired muscles all but gave up!! for the first time in about two months, we completely vegetated on sunday and oscillated between sleep and watching TV....it was so awesome to do that!!

Goan Diary - V

We drove to fort Aguada.....the drive was fabulous....all the greenery coupled with the winding roads, one side of which is the mandovi river and on the other side are houses, mountains or fields depending on how far away from civilization you are.....

Fort Aguada was spectacular...but i could really do with better behaved tourists....most often our own....what is it with them?? why do they have to lech and catcall and generally make such fools of themselves.....if they think road romeo like behaviour will get them the attention of women....they really have their heads screwed onto the wrong end of their bodies....

the views from the fort, the ramparts that lead to the sea, the drop to the ocean, the small island in the background and the sight of smalll steam boats chugging along....i could have spent my whole afternoon there....but it was so punctuated by noisy rowdy crowds...but then i already mentioned them!!

we drove out to panjim so we could book a river cruise, only to be told at the counters of three different cruise operators that there were no “dolphin cruises” which started “only in season” (meaning tourist season)……… I wished I had my blogger friend A’s number so I could call her and possibly visit her….i had managed to lock my bedroom with the keys to the room and my phone inside at home before heading out the airport……and the last thing my family would allow me to do was get online to find her number…..

we lunched at Hotel Mandovi at the Restaurant called Riorico …. It was a weird thing to sit in a place decorated with a Mexican theme, there were large sized boleros and cactus all over the place and order goan food!! we went there 30 minutes closer to their closing time…..they hastened us into ordering….. forgot a few of the things we ordered…..and the guy who took our order was by then off duty….. whatever food they managed to serve us was good, but I am surely not going back to a place that seems not to care much about my satisfaction….

We got back late afternoon and rested for a while before finally walked in the sand – on the baga beach…. Rachel got to play in the “matti” sand or soil in telugu….and I built castles (well they looked that way to me anyway) after many many years….took an obscene number of photographs because I just discovered the multiple capture option that my brother’s hitech camera had including tones of pictures of beach dogs (you cant call them street dogs since they’re not on the street but on the beach…. We spent a lovely evening watching the waves, which were very rough, the people, some of who braved the tide, i though they were just being falsely brave....and politely refusing the wares of several women who came around speaking impeccable english...offering shells, necklaces, hair braiding and sarongs.....

later that evening, while we still were soaking up  the sunset on the beach, we were told that two youths got sucked in with the tide, one got rescued and one paid for his bravado with his life....it shook me up..... 

dinner at Souza Lobo's was spot on..... but my mind was elsewhere.....what if it was me.....or someone i knew.....why couldnt those silly boys see that the sea was too rough to pick a challenge with....