What do I Do?

"So, what do you do??"  From a Big Guy with drink in one hand , and just about anyone/thing in the other.

"What do I do how what where who?", I shoot back at him, with my best brattish look, well aware of what he is asking, but hinting that I am about to give him a tough time. A hint, that has so far been wasted on such Big Guys.

" I mean,",as if explaining to a 7-year old why Daddy- must-have-to-work-on-Saturday, "what do you do for a living? you know, like.... you know?"

Of course, this is EXACTLY what I was inviting. " Oh, I work. For a living, you know?"

"Where do you work?"

" In office, obviously".

" And your office is...... ?"

" At Phase 2." and I wait , to see what question he would choose as a reaction to this.

"Aha. Are you married? DO you have a family? Would you like a drink? Meet my girlfriend/ bromancer/ colleaguer...."

At whichever of the above I raise an eyebrow, and finish the rest of my whiskey.



Help.
What do i Do?

I do a lot of things that I really enjoy. I read. I walk. I swim. I read. Subway rides. I touch the nearest animal I spot. I talk. I text a lot. So I Am a reader, a walker, an Animal-molester, a water animal, a texter, a talker.


I also do these things that I dont like to talk about, but is gives me a lot of peace in doing. Like Cleaning.Breaking up.Washing dishes. Putting my clothes in the washing machine and out in the sun. Paying the rent and the credit card bill. Chopping tomatoes.(as it is about the only thing I CAN chop). Grocery shopping.( I can walk up and down aisles for HOURS and never cease to be amazed, and not buy a thing). All these things would make me.....Cleaner, breaker-up...( ?? is that how it could be said??), dishwasher, washing machine-er, sun drier, credit card payer, rent payer (holy smoke !!) , tomato assassin, and grocery lecher.

And there are those things that I just end up doing. breathing. napping. reading. cuddling the cat. thinking. dreaming.whining. fuming, Skyping.... did I mention reading...?...sitting in the bus, sitting with the dog, scheming a 101 ways of getting  to Pakistan and Afghanistan with/without a visa.....which makes me a breather, napper, reader, cuddler, thinker, dreamer, whiner, fumer, Skyper, ..... yes I DID mention reader, ...? sitter.....and a daft terrorist?

O yes, those thing that I do but am neither very good, nor very regular at, but love to do irrepective..... like playing the piano, taking photographs, swim....but I wouldnt dare to call myself a pianist, or a photographer, nor a swimmer.

I know what you mean.... you want to know what I Do at work. Dear Sir, exactly you do. Meetinger, emailer, telecaller, videoconferencer, presentationer, excel sheeter, sales targeter, briefer, feedbackgiver, reviewer, reverter, researcher, reachout-er, connecter, coffeemachinetalker, tiewearer.... etc etc etc.

I get it. Im just bothering you. So,you want to know, apart from work.... what DO i DO......what do I Do for "enjoyment", you know.... like what are your passions??!!... what  defines you... what makes you a person....what do you beLIEVE  in....?

*sigh*. I am a diva. I believe in World Peace. And saving our Tigers.

The whiskey at home is better. No, i know you have a "Bijness", or a five-worded-designation, or you work at JWT, or you really love "cooking/ travelling/ reading/ gymming/ rock music/ babies/ your new sweater"..... but I did tell you that I love reading. What DOES one DO these days...?

Do ask me, Where  do I Do?  I really want to answer that question.

Happiness….
It isn’t a state of the mind….
It isn’t having it all…..
Its not a celebration
Its not an achievement.


Its just knowing that you aren’t alone.
It’s a hug.

I wonder….

1. What do the people working for places like Lakme, L’Oreal, and ……. etc do….???
I mean, marketing , R & D, manufacturing, the chemicals involved, the technology incorporated, designers that work in making a lip gloss( I’ve been told that lip stick is so passé) that is new and improved because of the shape of the felt tip applying end…. That is made in to mould and “Kiss” the female lip… (????)
What is the manufacturing process? What “technical” skill or expertise is needed in this field? What educational qualifications do you need for this? What’s all the science behind this? Is a lab worker also expected to have the latest long last matte finish rouge on her cheeks when at work….???May I picturize her with frizzy hair and large teeth who canters and scurries rather than sashay “gracefully”?
How much do you “really have to know your product” if you have a nail paint? What if you are a man?!?!
Can I work for one of the polished smoothened places … even as a receptionist…. If I have un waxed arms and a 30 inch-and-still-fluctuating waistline?
Does looking sexy, sounding smooth and thinking blank qualify as being suitable for the job description ???
I’m not prejudiced…. Just wondering.

2. A professional killer…like they show in the Bollywood movies. How come the aam aadmi don’t have access to them.im not daft…. I do understand the intricacies of being in the profession, the limited publicity and availability of the person who could do the job.
The reputation of this individual, the niche population who will have access to them. I mean, you can’t just Google, or “Ask Laila” or “Just Dial” to get the services you are looking for.
Fantastic branding work isn’t it? Exclusive… only for those who can afford it…and can get away with it….yet…. so commonly known.
Does any B school consider this as a topic or activity for an exercise in brand building, promotions and PR….market research, competitor analysis or whatever....?







2. An excerpt from Advaita Kala,s “Almost Single”…..
“by the way, have you noticed the manner in which the Page 3 culture has fostered the birth of so many new careers? Suddenly being a lifestyle or art consultant, or even a pashmina shawl collector have become worthy ways of earning a livelihood. The only qualification required is big money ….” ( to survive on….from the sugar daddy????)
While I totally agree and support this….please doesn’t question the choice. The book was a present for a dear friend… not for the story…. But for the SULA Wines that it endorses.Thanx!!
Btw….. I DO recommend a Sula Chenin Blanc and the Blush if you aren’t a wine drinker….. And the Sula Cab Shiraz 2007 if you are.

4. For those who are wanting to start something new….. Be it making grape cider or setting up a waste recycle plant ….do you do the jazzy market feasibility, and an elaborate financial proposal etc…..
How much does it take to actually just translate the bit of imagination, to be able understand the technical knowhow because its needed to know…. and not because you have to present it?
A question borne of sheer in eOxperience…. Is there any marketing tool more powerful than one’s own conviction?

5. The question : “what do you do???”
The literal and most widely applied meaning….what do you do for a living.
The answers:

a)“ I’m working for XAYBZC company….” This means that the post, designation, or nature of work is not worth mentioning or not something that you’d understand.

b)” I’m a furniture maker/ bungee jumper/poultry specialist/ escape artist…..”
This means that I may not have a regular income, but I am indeed a professional.

c) “I’m taking some time off to do my own thing.”
Translated: I can afford not to keep a job…..and thus I am above you, you commoner!

A standard refrain from ppl who are just into something new….” This is something that I’ve really been wanting to do…..”
Optional appendage… “for a long time/ ever since I was a child.”

It’s amazing to note the various meanings, implications and stories that lie beneath it. Truly mind boggling…. And I’m not being sarcastic.

My point here……what is it that I really do……
Damn…. Why can’t I say I’m a dreamer……
I do it all the time, day and night. All the work I’ve done so far is based on just that.
What I speak and what I am…. Is all about the various dreams I dream…..from banana chips manufacturing to writing this while at work.
Heck…. This dreaming is not helping….. Nor paying….lol!!!

I AM......

I’m a warrior. I’m a worrier.
I’m a sleep snatcher. I’m a cradle basher.
I’m an animal lover. I’m a man hater.
I’m a backpacker. I’m a scribbler.
I’m well read. I’m ill groomed.
I’m watered down. I’m burned up.
I’m flexible elastic. I’m invisible steel.
I’m flying low. I’m feeling high. Sometimes I feel low and fly high.
I’m a kitchen breaker.im home made.
I’m blue wine. I’m red Curacao.
I’m a seafood salad. I’m a grilled vegetable.

I'm a night watchman.I'm a dawn catcher.
I’m whole in my head. And a hole in your heart.
I have to change my jeans. I can’t change my genes.
I’m capable of walking out. I’m faster at running in.
I’m wild in thought. I’m tame in talk.
I’m all of this. And a lot of that.

“THE CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA.”

Interning as wine maker and wine taster in Nasik has revealed a new shade; or rather defect, to my varied skills.
Cooking is definitely a no-can-do with me. The fact itself is not new, nor startling…. But the process of testing this hypothesis was disastrous!!!!

The first night in Nasik, boiled eggs and buttered toast was all I could think of making with the given kitchen resources and energy levels I had at that point if time.

I never knew eggs could be so tricky!!!! I could boil an egg only after the first 4 trials. I swear to god that I had nothing to do with it. The first one broke in the saucepan itself, as it was so violently throwing itself around in the boiling water, and the shell cracked against one such turbulent contact with the steel walls of the saucepan. The second was probably cracked right from the beginning.
The third had an epileptic fit… it frothed and foamed and died a premature death in shallow waters. The fourth was well…… I can’t describe it… it was just another disaster…..
The fifth one…. Left me feeling only slightly smarter than Edison. I beat him be 996 trials.

My next culinary project was a little too ambitious. I boldly overlooked the teething problems….. And whipped up pasta!!!!
No, the intention was to make an omelet. With tomatoes and onions and coriander, cheese etc. I realized, only after all the chopping and dicing was done… that there weren’t any eggs. (aha…. I now recalled where they went…).I couldn’t let all the dicing ( and the effort) go waste. Thus, an unearthed packet of pasta was successfully boiled, in salt water and all (courtesy long distance instructions from the beloved mater). Diluted ketchup made from tomato sauce, with defrosted and micro waved frozen French fries made a good, thick base. (I knew that a base was needed).
After little oiling and much stirring, the pasta was prepared with a slight hint of butter and a garnishing of chopped coriander an tomato ketchup…..and the continental khichdi was piled on a plate……and soon into the dustbin…..because though it looked GREAT…it was far too salty…( or something.)

Good attempt ids say though…. It looked alright and had all the right ingredients.

Though Maggi has been an integral part of my diet for the past 5 years that I’ve been in a hostel, I have never tried to cook it myself.
However, over prolonged series of ( observation based) tests, I can infer that the various techniques employed by various ppl to make the basic fare, it doesn’t really make much of a diff. whether you boil the noodles first and then add the masala… or cook the masala and then add the .
UNTIL I ACTUALLY TRIED IT MYSELF !!!!…. The noodles boiled brilliantly, but when I added the masala, it evaporated, or vanished, or sublimed….leaving no trace for taste.
Not to be defeated, it didn’t take long to open another pack for the masala, and the uncooked noodles are still in my fridge.

Apart from these very revealing experiences, I have refrained from cooking.

Instead, what I have come up with is these rather artful ensembles of lime flavored toast, cereal in cold coffee( leftover coffee retrieved from the Hollow Hole( My name for the fridge which is always empty).I can no longer remember what chaat masala is actually used for , for I use it in everything from soup to dahi. That smith and Jones bhelpuri chutney is a damn good substitute for ketchup( cheaper too) but does NOT go with butter/ jam on toast.

Dahi with chaat masala and this bhelpuri chutney is so AWESUUUUM, that I am now sick of it.

And thus ladies and gentleman, allow me to make for you a bottle of the country’s finest champagne, or a red wine, or a white or a rose…. But I CANNOT boil an egg.

"GOD MADE ONLY WATER, BUT MAN MADE WINE."

There are no good wines; there are no bad wines either.
If you befriend a wine, and are able to be its better half, you are a blessed soul indeed.
Or so I have discovered.
Making wine is and art. Because wine is such an individualistic person.
You may have a happy cheerful wine, a dark grave wine, an elegant smooth one, a naughty spicy wine, a fruity playful wine. A Wine that may be earthy, or wine that could be summer greens, a wine that has been bred in the country side, a wine that has been fashionably sculpted.
You have a wine that is criminally off, or one that is distastefully ill bred, or one that over a lifetime of harshness, has become alarmingly acrid.
You may find a oaky forester, or wet wood. You may find a runny, bitter wine.

I have never parented anything but animals and books, but parenting wine beats anything. And loving parenting is exactly what a wine needs.
Consider the grape as the gene. “ Blood is thicker that water”….well the wine too. The variety, the origin, if it has been a cross or a pure bred…. The gene determines the entire make up and the fundamental character.
The treatment henceforth, is tricky. Just as much schooling, society and back ground and social factors influence a dog, or child…. a wine similarly given shape. It is like raising a child. You have to be sensitive to its delicate mood, give it freedom and time to find and develop its character, to age, monitor it so that it doesn’t get into “bad “company. It deserves the most elite schooling with the correct inoculate. The most select treatments and co curricular.
One can only monitor, and watch. Patiently.
Like a book, a wine can be a product of the imagination, or technically engineered. It could be a perfect text book example….. Correct, but boringly lacking the liveliness. It could be a deep mystery, or a biographical saga spanning a few generations… from the Italian slopes and the sunny Californian.
The book can be a bestseller, or not. It could be shallow.
Wine, like poetry…. May have rhythm and romance, or the lucidity of Walt Whitman.
It may be exotic like Saki, colorful like O’Henry.
Or like me… may blissfully ignore all rules of prose or poetry. Impulsive, passionate and in cheerful denial. (My writing not me).

Later, when the wine is grown, it will develop wings. Blend with company, but select its own type. It will sweeten, mature, earn a reputation for the wine that it has come to be… and like every individual person, there can never be two same wines…. Even if they are from the same family, genes, or even background.
You can’t fight the gene. You can’t modify its social backdrop. You can’t change its compatibility with another wine in the blend.
The wine will grow wings…. But will always stay with the wine maker.

A wind, an endless expanse of sky, unhurried time. ….appreciated by every wine and every dog
The above five elements are all that is need to keep a man satisfied; and at peace.

of Veggie-tating shelves and "Fast moving" racks.....

i remember... wistfully... that back home in calcutta... i used to be awed ....and slightly envious too.... of the guy who was selling veggies, fruits and the other things.
He would be perched high up somewhere .... on a stool or a brick i would never know, bcoz his feet just could not be seen. And right down his sides and fronts were slopes and slopes of tomatoes, red capsicums, a jhoori of higgeldy piggeldy bhindi, dull red beetroots promising a gush of red at the slightest scratch, squat yellow-orange pumpkins reclining at various angles,piles of potol( parwal) , supple spring onions ,separated by red carrots and a different, very distinct orange carrot variety in a separate basket....lengths of gourd and jhinge arranged neatly.... and smaller packets of pale mushroom, baby corn scattered among the small hillocks. At the lower fringes, in a purely greopraphic way, were arranged the green leafies.... spinach, and lettuce... in alternate shades of green, the more delicate coriander , bay and methi is smaller baskets...... all sprinkled for freshness... and had a most dewey look about it.
It was a massive feeling to be able to sell all those veggies......and i always wished ma had given me ten rupees more than money clutched in my sweaty palms... so that i could sample a few more of the choiciest colors or shapes.... or have a reason for rummaging through his pile of pale cucumbers ( only bcoz i always wanted to know if the bottom went oll the way till the floor that i was standing on.. or how deep was that pile anyway....)
the phol wallah would be equally prosperous, with a myriad of colours. Suspended from the ceiling were grapes in black and green, bananas in yellow and green, and papays... i longed to know the secret of choosing them depending on if iwas to eat them that day or the day after.
I would notice that though the oranges and apples, of every nationality, obeyed the theorems of geometry, but the gigantic watermelons knew none. The honey dew melons were not to be kept with the junta of oranges and apples, chickoos... but on an elevated rack.The plums and peaches came in pairs.... so did the odd combination of shiny black kala jamuns and the fair transcluscent Jamuns. The mangoes, when they arrived, clearly ruled.. and left little space for anything else. And i was entitled to one cherry with the stalk ,gratis, every time thay came.

i only wince , and shudder when i have to buy vegetables in bangalore today.bhindi packed like sardines in a plastic tray..... and an assortment of sick and healthy tomatoes in a plothyene packet. zip packets of grapes....all in deeeeeeep plastic crates that could very well pass for wholesale milk crates . i shall not even mention the leafy veggies......but oh please..... some save the greenery on the racks!!!!!!!

they call it ReTAIL here......and im not saying that all the shops or chains stock un healthy veggies and fruits...... but why why why.... this massacre of choice and quality.... why put them in packets and bags.... why an aircondition for babycorn which is dying.....and a neon light for the potato...????!!!!

i am definitely against the retail phenomena ( i dont care whose sentiments are hurt...)..... be it a mall or a hyper market or supermarket.....sunsilk and dove, pampers and maggi,mdh masala and cornflakes.... there is not mcuh of a diff.....its mostly the same things everywhere.....with a difference ; bcoz there NEEDS to be a differentiating factor.
The FMCGs( fast moving consumer goods...) are another piece of trouble.......as long as the local shop in my para had the latest flavour of packaged juice, and knew what toothapste i wanted, and also the emergency pencil-eraser, and biscuit.... and my mothers holy buys....milk and bread.....there was never a problem.....
not for us, not for him....not in terms of profits, or distributors, and "total shopping experience" or "customer satisfaction."

but the veggies and the fruits......not to mention the fish and dairy section.....why do a character assanition on them..... why strive so hard NOT to sell veggies in the market and friut from the cart....

i dont think this concept of buying veggies from the retail shop exists anywehre else......ppl go to the mandi, or bajaar, or market,or haat..... but def not to a flashy well lit store ......this is just an observation.....

god save bangalore..... and god save the greens....from RETAIL......