Weekend Wows

The silly giggles, the light banter, the late night chatter – all this and more transpired Saturday night. We had a pajama party! And boy, did we have fun!

My hubby had been to Mysore for the weekend. My friends, Seema(also my cuz) and Shraddha came home to stay with me.
We started cooking at 8 in the night for dinner. We joked, pulled each other’s leg, patted ourselves on the back, threw in some witticisms, took lotsa photos and finally managed to finish cooking. And guess what, the food turned out awesome! Surprised? Don’t be. We are great cooks. Lol.

It was time for movies. We dragged out the spare beds from under the cots and sprawled them in the living room. Relishing the custard that made the fitting dessert for the night, we made ourselves comfy and watched three movies, back to back. Well, actually two and a half coz one of them was kinda boring and we decided to save the time for the girly girly chat. And chat we did!
It was seven in the morning when we finally called it a day (er, night?) and slept like logs who’d just finished the most grueling tasks of their lives.
We had breakfast, uh, brunch, uh lunch at about 12. We hit the sack again to watch another movie, hindi this time. It was on TV and the intermittent commercial breaks were welcomed as they gave us more time to talk.
It was almost five in the evening when my friends left for the day.

A few of the things worth mentioning:

One of the movies we watched was Fear, which got over at 3 in the morning. I realised I hadn’t kept the plastic bag outside for the milkman to put in the milk. We did not want to be woken up in the wee hours by the call bell and decided to hang the plastic bag. And guess what, we were scared. It was 3, dark outside, we had just watched Fear where the psycho tries to kill a family by barging into their house…. But what the heck, we are brave girls. Two of us huddled together and slowly opened the door. Armed with a pillow in case of emergency, we bravely hung the plastic bag. Closing the door just as cautiously, we breathed a sigh of relief!

Dinner. It was just too good. We congratulated each other as if we jointly won the Academy Awards for the Best Chefs on Earth.

Breakfast. Or atleast that’s what it can be called, since that was the first thing we had after we woke up, regardless of the time. Apart from the everyday kinda breakfast, we cooked hash brown (our version), coated with loads of mozarella! A very fatty way of beginning the day, I say.

Lunch. It was simple. We had ganji. For those who don’t know what ganji is, it is rice mellowed by the water used to cook it. And accompanying that was ghee, salt, and mouth-watering, spicy, yum yum yummy Andhra pickle.

Our chit chats. We reminisced our good old college days when we had loads of fun. We laughed like crazy and talked at the top of our voice though the whole neighbourhood was fast asleep.

All in all, it was a weekend to cherish. Thanks, palz :).

A sure TRP cure

Indian Idol 2 went the Saregama way. And why not? When the latter, the 'star' of Zee saw one of the renowned mentors, Ismail Darbar, stage a walk out, the TRPs shot up. And I won't be surprised if the same happens to Indian Idol 2.

Emotion, drama, tears - these are the mantra to ensure a rise in TRPs. Mere talent of the singers in a no-no. In September last year one of Fame Gurukul's best singers, Shamit Tyaagi, was mercilessly voted out by his best friend on the show, Arijit Singh. Tears rolled down. TRPs whopped up.

Consider all the never ending 'K' soaps (and all the other 'X', 'Y', 'Z' ones, which don't start with a 'K' and never end like one too!). The moment the producers discover that the audience is bored, they fashion a murder or a rape or a deadly accident. And what happens? TRPs rise up. Present Ma'am, Ekta Kapoor.

Atleast reality shows could have spared us this melodrama. But nope, they want huge rating points too, don't they? And what better way to garner this than inundate the show with lots of mushy emotions?

Like they say, It happens only in India ~~~~

A Record Made. A Record Broken.

All eyes were on Mark Boucher as Bret Lee flung at him that speeding ball which could retain or break the Aussie record. Interestingly, the record was made just a few hours back and not decades or centuries ago when the passion for cricket was just as intense. With determination writ largely on his face, Boucher attacked the ball with style and force to script another awesome record on the very ground, on the very same day.

Sadly, I wasn’t following the match run to run. I first came to know of the humongous total that the Aussies assimilated, through AajTak, which was flashing it as ‘Breaking News’. I, for one, could only gape at the ‘434’ which, I later realised, did not seem ‘surreal’ considering it was the Aussies who garnered it. Poor South Africans, I mused.
Hoping to catch some kind of action I fervently changed to the sports channel only to find that the lunch break was going on.

We had rented a DVD yesterday and so, after the usual Sunday nap, we (unknowingly) watched another 'inspiration' of a ripoff, ‘Out of Time’. (I thought of renting the DVD since it sounded like the title of my blog. Lol). The hindi ‘version’, btw, is ‘Zeher’ in which Emraan Hashmi convincingly replaces Denzel Washington as the smitten chief of police.

The moment we finished watching the movie, I suddenly remembered the match. Expecting to see a beaming Ricky Ponting exulting over his ‘Man of the Match’ award, I reverted to the sports channel. And what do I see! SA needs six runs out of five balls with two wickets in hand! OHMIGOSH, I almost screamed. For a full half minute I couldn’t get myself to close my mouth!

It was Bret Lee’s over. Lee sure looked thinner and desperate. Tension was mounting in the Aussie and SA spine. Lee secured the ninth wicket. Anything could happen. Any damn thing could happen.
Boucher faced Lee’s penultimate ball. The crowd was watching with bated breath. And the rest, as they say, is history.

This got me thinking. Even the invincible are vulnerable. What say?

Where are You?

She tried calling him again. ‘The number you are trying to reach has been switched off’. This was probably the tenth time. It was already eleven in the night. It was her birthday and Raj had promised to pick her up at nine. She glanced at her watch again. What’s with him? He is always true to his word.

She decided to call his office. ‘Welcome to XYZ Company. Please dial the extension number or wait for the call to be picked up’. Now what in the world is his extension no.? She hung up.

She searched her ‘Contacts’ menu to see if she had any of his colleague’s number. Ah! Deepak. She had saved his number three months back when Raj called her from his cell since his battery was low.
‘Allo’, the voice on the other end bellowed after what seemed like ages. ‘Hi, uh, Deepak, this is Geeta, uh, Raj’s friend.’
‘Allo, Allo, I’m sorry I cannot hear. I’m on bike, traffic making lot of noise,’ Deepak’s voice was shrill and pierced her eardrums.
‘Do u know where Raj is?’ she screamed herself hoping to hell he’d comprehend.
‘Raj-aa? Don’t know madam. He left from office I think 8 o clock. Bye madam.’
Click.
She felt a tiny shiver run down her spine.
Suddenly the phone rang. Raj! She jumped to receive it. Prema Aunty calling flashed on her screen.
‘Hello Aunty’, she tried hard to sound pleased.
‘Wish you Happy B’day beti. I’m really really sorry, I just remembered. Hope I did not wake you up, child.’
‘No, no, aunty, it’s ok’.
‘So what did you do the whole day? Had fun? So you are 22 years old now, eh? So tell me….’ Prema aunty went on and on.
She wasn’t listening. Raj where are you? Are you alright? Oh God...She wanted to bang the phone down. And decided to do so.
‘Uh, Aunty, actually I was sleeping when you called. I have to reach office by seven tomorrow. Have to wake up by six. Shall I call you tomorrow?’
‘Sure, sure, beti. Good night’ Prema Aunty sounded like she was trying her best to hide her annoyance.
Click.

‘I don’t care, atleast not now’, she wondered what to do next. It was eleven ten. She tried calling Raj again. ‘The number you are…’
Click.

She instantly thought of Pooja. Pooja was her friend and her brother knew Raj. They could be of help. She dialed Pooja’s number. ‘The number you are trying to reach has been switched off’. Huh? She must have gone to bed.

Much as she hated to, considering the time, she dialed Pooja’s brother’s number. And she heard the phone ring.
Strangely, she also heard the phone ringing outside her main door. She hung up. The ringing outside also stopped. She was totally puzzled.
She ran to the door and peeped through the keyhole. She smiled. She opened the door. ‘SURPRISE!!!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!’ about six of her close friends including Pooja and her brother barged in. They hugged her and presented her a big present neatly wrapped with a baby pink wrapper. Raj announced his arrival and gifted her a beautiful bouquet adorned with red roses.
‘Happy B’day, love’, he whispered.
Tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘I hate you,’ she whispered back and hugged him tightly.