Gentle Whispers

I watched an Ellen DeGeneres show a few months, perhaps years ago, where they had a man on who had a major weight loss transformation, and he said something that has stayed with me ever since. "Being fat is isolating." It hit me hard and has stayed with me ever since. Being fat is isolating and who would know that better than I? Being fat has somehow made me less of a person. I'm defined by my weight, it seems now. Ever so often I hear, "She's such a pretty girl, but...."; "She's so smart but.... "; "She has such a pretty smile but... " I've been looked through, skimmed over, ignored, even when I know what I'm talking about while others skinnier have received all the attention in the world. It's been assumed that I can't do anything but eat. My interest in football, in being outdoors, in books are all somehow secondary to the kilos on my scale. The comments/the jibes/the hurt - they've come from all direc...

So here I am on the eve of my 30th birthday, my very last day of being 29, just about 4 hours left of being a twenty-something. A couple of years ago, I remember snidely chuckling away to myself, when a favourite blogger of mine turned 30, believing that it was so far away, it could never touch me. I'm regretting that now. And to be honest, I thought I would be okay, I really honestly truly believed that I would be greeting this new decade with a casual insouciance and indifference that would normally be characteristic for me, but I'm not. I'm terrified of how quickly my twenties have zoomed by and how little I've accomplished and perhaps that is what is upsetting me. On the cusp of another decade on this planet, well, I feel like a bit of a failure. No, scratch that, I feel majorly like a failure. I'm drowning in self-pity and anguish at wasted opportunities, at thrown-away chances, at my inherent laziness and procrastination, at my never-ending ability to p...

Over the last two days, I've slept for a grand total of 7 hours and therefore, I am now finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on the mountain of files piled on my desk and screaming to be dealt with. Instead, I am overwhelmed by the urge to blog, but what about, I wasn't too sure, my writing muse having last been seen cackling madly and disappearing away into the sunset. When in such dire straits, what else is there to do but take up one of the millions of tags floating around the Internet. So without much further ado, here we go: 1. What have you realized recently? That I am not the model of perfection I always thought I was and some changes might be in order.  2. Have you given your first kiss away? I'm not one to kiss and tell. Well, not on public forums anyway.  3. If you were to be stranded on a deserted island, who are the 5 blog buddies you would take? Ahem, hard choices, but fine, The Mad Momma , Una Madridista , Not Quite Nigella , Y...

I've been wanting to blog about my recent interest in baking for a while, well if you can call three years recent, that is. But I've always wanted to talk about the joy that baking brings me and how much I enjoy it. The calories, not so much. By nature, I am a rather random person. I don't function very well when neatness and precision is necessary. I like to think of myself as a big-picture person. Not for me the analysing of every detail and the nitpicking and the perfectionism. But it is precisely this side of me that baking, the exacting science that it is, challenges and I actually revel in it. There's something about creaming exactly 100 gms of butter with 50 grams of sugar and mixing in 300 gms of flour. Measuring, measuring, measuring, beating, whipping to create a cake that is so much more than the sum of its disparate parts. The exacting nature of baking allows me to put my vagaries aside and focus with a 100% on the job at hand that pleases me. For someo...

This was originally supposed to be a list of resolutions for 2016, but I think I'd rather make this about the year that was. In the last few years, the years have been in a pattern of peaks and troughs. 2012 was great, 2013 sucked, 2014 was lovely and so on... But 2015 really, it's hard to put it into words. If 2015 were a colour though, i'd pick blue. Sometimes turquoise, sometimes indigo, ever so often a bright vivid cerulean and rarely azure, but mostly, mostly it was just plain blue. I'd love to spill it all out here, the reasons, the anxiety, the sadness, the emptiness, but I can't. Not while people I know still read. Not while I still feel too vulnerable to deal with questions and comments and criticism. More than ever now, I wish I'd left this blog anonymous. But maybe some of it, yes? In 2015, so many life changes have happened around me, to the people closest to me, to those around me - jobs that necessitated moving out of the city...

We live in interesting times. We’re blessed that way. The world is changing rapidly. The way we work is changing, the way we live has already changed. Entire industries are crumbling, and more are growing on their ruins. People are empowered to express themselves, to create, to become a part of a global conversation and transformation, in a way that has never existed before. What will you do with that? What will your place be in this new, interesting world? Will you have a voice? Will you be a creator, or just a consumer? Do something. Do something interesting. Be a part of the conversation, and say something remarkable. Create something unique, new, beautiful. Build upon the works of others and transform it into your own. How to do this? Write a book. Or an ebook. Write poetry and publish it on the web. Create interesting, lovely or funny videos, put them on You Tube. Be passionate. Write a web app that will solve a problem in people’s lives. Become a watchdog to re...

A few months ago, I sat with my BFFs (I think now might be the time to stop reading Cosmo) and we spoke late into the night about life, love and careers. What was going right and where we'd gone wrong. What needed major surgery and the bits that needed a little bit of tinkering. In the contentment of being all together after what felt like a long time. It didn't matter that it was 4 AM. It didn't matter that I had to be at work bright and early the next morning. I didn't even feel the ache in my bones or my eyes struggling to stay open. But that's not what this is about. A conversation came up in which I participated very little. It was about Kindles vs eBooks. 'Books are books', they said, 'Kindles are nothing'. While I sat back chuckling to myself, wondering, what exactly were we arguing about here? I'd be the last person to tell you that Kindles are all good. I love old books and I love new ones. I love sinking my nose into the spine of a b...

27. I often repeat it over and over to myself. Trying perhaps to get myself to believe that I am actually this *old*.  Such a nondescript number, 27. No one ever asks you what you did on your 27th birthday. Seven months since I turned 27 and I'm still reluctant to answer the question of how old I am.  Perhaps it's because 27-year-olds are meant to have their lives sorted by now. Maybe I still haven't perfected that easy response to the inevitable question.  At 27, I thought life would be different. I thought by now I'd have the man of my dreams by my side and we'd be living and building our forever right now. That I'd have the person I could see myself spending the rest of my life with. There have been boys - lovely, kind, interesting, handsome boys, but not THE ONE. Boys I've loved plenty, but not enough to walk off into the sunset with.  Compromise? Don't comprise? Or that most favourite of Indian words, 'Adjust'. Should I?...

Ah, 2013. Where do I begin, but I think I can safely say that I am rather glad to see the back of you. You've been a tough year. To borrow a phrase, from the Queen, my "annus horribilis." It was the year of self-introspection when I realised several rather discomfiting facts about myself, that were hard to take and even more difficult to accept and understand. But more on that later. In my work life though, 2013 has been a mixed bag. I left a job I adored for another very similar one, only to realise how different organisations can be. From the first moment to the last of those miserable seven months I spent there, I can't say that I ever truly felt happy or free. So I did what family and friends told me was foolhardy in the extreme, I upped and quit and refused to put myself through that rigmarole for another day. One month of unemployment later, I found a new job. One that entailed me making a switch from journalism to marketing. It gave me the clarity to k...

*Image off Pinterest just don't have the same magic. “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” - Stephen Fry

For the first time in years, I've spent New Year's Eve at home and despite what many around me seem to think I've actually had a pretty good evening with my books and some television. And if how your feeling at the stroke of midnight is any indication for how the rest of the year will turn out, hopefully I'll be as content and as at peace through 2013 as I was this evening. The New Year is a time for resolutions . To make pacts and to promise yourself however foolishly that this time your going to stick to your vows and not abandon them halfway through and I've been thinking about my resolutions for the New Year ever since November and I think I at least have my basic goals and aspirations for the year ahead firmly in place now. And they are as below in random order. a) Lose Weight: I've never been hung up on the way I look. I don't hate myself but neither do I love myself and at the best of times, I think I'm thoroughly average-looking. But la...

The other day as I made my way home from work, a friend called and asked what I would be doing that evening, at which point I explained that I would be showering and heading out again to meet some other friends. At which point, she jumped in with a "I don't know how you do it. I couldn't go out again after a full day at work, I'd be too exhausted." Now to be perfectly honest here, I was exhausted and I could have easily chosen not to go out once again but when I quit my last job, I promised myself in the new place that offers me better timings, I would maintain a better work-life balance. And often, this is something I stick to it, even if it kills me to do it. Now, at this point, I know some of my friends are going to point out how I'm lucky enough to live bang in the centre of Bombay and that I have a mere 30 minute commute to work everyday. Sure, I have a job that has a 10 to 6 timing, but there's much more to it then that, I often have meetings, c...

A while ago, I published on this blog my bucket list. The 30 things I would like to do before I die . Now, contrary to perception, this is not a definitive list and I keep adding items on it to with a regularity that stuns those who know me well. My love for football been a well-documented fact on this blog so I shall not go into it in detail and drive away the very few readers I have left. And this very love for the game is why I'm oftenest to be found on Twitter discussing, debating or even arguing on all things football related. And recently, my favourite football writer Sid Lowe made several impassioned pleas on Twitter to help save his club Real Oviedo. A team in the third tier of Spanish football. How could we help? By buying shares at approximately €10.75 each and help raise €1.9 million and let the fans take over the club which has seen financial mismanagement bring it to the brink.  Why help Real Oviedo? Because despite their recent troubles, Real Oviedo have ...

  Day 02 - Favourite Movie In a confession that often astounds friends and family, I'm not much of a movie-watcher. I rarely watch movies. It took me over a year to watch 3 Idiots, I haven't seen Sholay, the definitive movie for millions of movie-going Indians and I haven't watched Avatar and I haven't watched Casablanca, Gone With The Wind or The Godfather either. Cinemas aren't really my thing and I go for the movie to be with my friends and have fun as opposed to intently watching a film for its own sake. But what I do watch more than occasionally on the other hand is Zee Cinema. A certain friend of mine thinks that is proof that I'm actually 90, but that's neither here or there. So if any of you out there actually watch Zee Cinema, you'll know what I do. That one of the most repeated movies on Zee Cinema is Andaz Apna Apna. Now you may disagree with me here, but I do think that that film is a cult classic with good ol' slapstick co...

Last time, despite my best efforts. Okay fine, no efforts at all. I did not succeed in carrying out the 30 Day Project and this time around I have solemnly sworn to myself that I will carry this out even if it kills me. So then, Day 01 - Favourite song I've never had a particular favourite song, there are just too many out there to pick just one, so instead I'll tell you one that is constantly on repeat on my iPod. Neil Diamond's Song Sung Blue. Simply because the song played on the radio late one night as we made our way home and ever since then I can't help but think of us crowded into a car singing at the top of our voices and the happy-sad feelings it evoked. Another perennial favourite of mine is this one. Mainly because it's Liverpool FC's anthem and even over television, it's awe-inspiring and spine tingling to watch 45,000 people packed inside Anfield singing and urging their team on and mostly because I hope to be there one day doing e...

Today, I'm wanting. I'm wanting so bad, I can feel it with an intensity that makes my hands tremble as I type this, that keeps my stomach churning at super-sonic pace and keeps me unable to focus on anything else. The kind of wanting that has you reaching out to take, barely able to control yourself. It's rare to be presented with an opportunity like the one I've just received and if everything goes the way it ideally should, it will be a once in a lifetime experience and that's why I'm so worried and anxious. If I don't receive it though, I know that a tiny part of me will splinter and die. Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, maybe I'm not. I don't know. I have wonderful family and friends and I know that they will always be there to support me. But I also know what a solitary creature I am and how my deepest wounds are only aired in private. That I rarely ask for help, I ask for prayers, for good thoughts, but rarely to be helped. Anywa...

At my previous job, something very important was sucked out of me: My will to write. I stopped regularly updating this blog a long time ago, but I still wrote. For myself. In little leather-bound notebooks that nobody has seen. But in the two years I worked at the old place, I slowly gave it up. Days passed in a blur of odd hours and all the daily nonsense that bogged me down. Even on the odd day I was off, I chose to do other things. I saw things that made me want to write but I didn't. Instead I kept it locked tightly inside me. But now that I'm here. A place that I feel happier and much freer in. Where I can be me. And I can be creative and dizzy and forgetful. Where I can earnestly talk to people about where they're from. And listen to them talk about their cities and their countries. And I tell them, eyes shining, about India and my Bombay. And how much I love it. At my new job. I feel the urge to write again. I write in the new book bound with gilt-edg...

It's been a while since I've written here. Over a year if you want to nitpick. And while I often contemplated several posts, somehow I lacked the drive to do it until today. I wondered if anyone was still reading me, until I woke up to the realization that primarily I write for myself and as long as I continue that, I'll be fine. 2011 was an intriguing year. One of 'mostly' ups and very few downs. I did plenty during that year - I laughed, I danced, I sang, I travelled. More importantly, I rediscovered myself. After my old job that sucked all the old soul out of me and made me cranky and crabby (yes, I can hear some of you say 'what's new'). But 2011 in some ways restored me. It made me whole again. Made me realise what's important to me and what's not. My new job, you ask? So far so good. I'm tremendously enjoying it. It has its hard moments, but more often than not I love it and I go in to work happily every day. It's already given me s...

It wouldn't be a New Year, if my post looking back didn't come too late about two weeks too late. 2010. What do I say about it? It was a strange sort of year. One that just whizzed by and I rather floated through it. It had it's good moments and bad though. I travelled. Especially one extremely memorable trip to Sattal in Himachal Pradesh. I now have a great SLR camera and three lenses to go with it. I have a Blackberry and a PS3 and lots of new books. A lot of friendships fell into place this year and I realised whom the people I can really call friends are. 2010 was a fun year and I hope 2011 betters it. How was your year?

This is just to say that my thirty day project begins from tomorrow. Right now I'm sitting at Marine Drive with all the best things life has to offer namely good friends, good music and good conversation.