blending in haaaaaaahah!

5 photos, scroll down, scroll down. sandhya, salma, pompy, zia, dhiraj, aryaman, ainu, mrinmoyee, sabir, ayesha, abhishek, ninad, nita, and kids. Mumbai, Guwahati, Mirza and Haflong

Apples and ChuDells

I called Pompy. It was late, around ten o' clock, I sleep by ten.

‘I want a new laptop,’ I wailed to her.

The large twenty inch desktop computer that my organisation had sent to my house was becoming a pain in the a**e.  The USB ports on the front side didn’t work. Every time the electricity failed, the UPS would go ‘toooont toooont tooont.’ It was Guwahati, Narender Mudi had not yet won the elections, and even when he did, the state government remained the Cogress as state elections would be held only the next year. Am trying to explain the frequent current departures to you folks. The wi-fi was a problem, and only on my computer, we have three more at home. 

So I needed a new laptop. I wanted Apple. I, who used to be a firm believer in cheap mobile phones because all I needed were email and phone calls and messaging, got an iPhone at the outrageous price that the newest model sells at because of Steve Jobs' biography. I had been a hardcore Blackberry user (second hand from my husband, who sold it to me for one thousand rupees more than he would have to a non family member, the logic does seem a little weird now) and had read a review that the brainy used Blackberrys and the superficial used iPhones and had been in total agreement with the review. Until I read the biography. 

I had been vaguely aware of Steve Jobs until his death and even then only after everyone started R.I.P.ing him on Facebook. Then I googled him and bought the biography from an online store, I still fail to understand how online stores and credit cards can make a miser spend enormous amounts of money that he would under no circumstances part with in cash. It was a big book, but I am a fast reader, and the day I completed the book, I declared to my husband, 'I want an iPhone.’

And he bought me one. With his credit card. Which he regretted after a couple of years, i.e now. Which I now consider a kind of retrospective revenge for a deed which I never imagined would occur. 

Therefore now, when my Dell was behaving like a ‘ChuDell’ (not original, sweeties, coinage courtesy F.B.), I wanted an Apple. An airbook to be precise, because I did not want to carry anything heavy. I weigh only seventy seven kilograms, and couldn’t bear the two kilograms weight of the conventional laptops. I did post a requirement for the airbook as a gift in one of my blogs, but no one seemed to take the hint. (hint, hint, I still haven’t bought it.)

So I told Pompy to do a market research and suggest to me the best option. She knew how much money I had in my savings account. I had been complaining to her about it. There was a negative balance as I had suddenly come to know that a lot of my payments were past due date as they had carried over from the year of my absence from the city. ‘Sweep in’ facility ensures that the cheques don’t bounce, the money is brought over from your fixed deposit and paid. And that is how one has a negative balance in one’s savings account. In case you were wondering.

She advised me to get my ‘ChuDell’ rectified. I took it to my IT colleagues and the ghost was exorcised from my Dell, who is now a Dell. I am writing this on the Dell, and s/he has not hung up on me even once. Juri happy.*happy smiley* Will take my software colleagues out for lunch. Or dinner.

Roots of vegetarianism

I've turned vegetarian. Stop laughing. I had turned veg several years back, but the anaemia demanded I start eating total proteins again. Now I've decided once again that I do not like animal proteins too much so I turn veg again. Right, an explanation is due. It is Nita. She took us to a vegetarian Italian restaurant, mind you I accompanied her very cynically, you see somehow 'vegetarian' and 'Italian food' did not exist as a single phrase in the Wren and Martin of my food grammar.

And the food experience brought the Buddha out in me. Cynicism and judgmental thoughts were banished with shame. I was under the impression that I had evolved beyond such attitudes in my year of near solitude. And before I could understand the rationale behind my making this statement, I turned to Nita and said, 'Nita, if I learn how to cook such meals, I will turn veg.'And then the light eyed beauty replied profoundly,'If I can convert you to vegetarianism, I shall have achieved some success in life.' And Devashish said,' Please stop sounding like a religious preacher.' But I was converted by then.

Nita is stinking rich and a Jain. In the Wren and Martin of my grammar of Sociology, stinking rich vegetarians/Jains is a phrase very much in existence. Before you say 'Bill Gates,' I say, in the parts of India that I have grown up in, I've seen a lot of rich who are vegetarians. Frog in the well, you might want to say, but I counter that with 'so be it.'

I pointed out my observation to Nita. She was inclined to agree. Karma, she said. She believed it. I asked about Jain food. I knew they did not eat roots. Onions, garlic, ginger did not exist for them. She looked quite well inspite of having grown up not eating so many foods. I asked her recipes of Jain food and got interesting food items like the thick fleshy skin of the banana, and skins of other vegetables as ingredients. Very little was wasted, my dears, it was actually very inspiring.

I've suddenly grown to dislike animal foods.I'm certain it is no medical condition that has inspired me to do so. It is Nita Doshi and the vegetarian Italian restaurant that are to be credited this conversion.

I asked Nita what they did when they heard non-vegetarian conversations. She stammered and fumbled, and there was a prolonged silence as she turned as red as the fair Indian skin can turn. Same as the food, I answered my own question as she seemed temporarily unable to converse.*naughty smiley*

I forgot to ask Nita what they ate when they went to meat eating countries. Those vegetarian travellers who travel too often to countries where vegetarian food is usually an assortment of uncut rocket leaves, what do they eat? I think I'll call her tomorrow and find out.