My friend, Pallavika and I were loitering around Kamla Nagar, North Delhi the other day. We'd planned the north trip so we could visit Majnu ka Tilla(MT), the famous Tibetan locality, to hog 'Ghar ko Khana.' After eating more than our stomachs could take, we headed towards K-Nags(That's what the Delhi University students call Kamla Nagar).
Exhausted and irritated at the queue outside the ATM, Pallu and I decided to stop at Cafe Coffee Day for a while. We placed our orders and were gossiping about everything and anything in the world. Obviously, laughing at the waiter who took our order.(He seemed to have some sort of mental disorder....Progeria??? Autism??? ). Pallu complained her eyes looked strained and her liner smudged so she borrowed my make-up bag(Hello Kitty one) and was giving herself some touch-up. Since we were seated at a table near the entrance and CCD(Cafe Coffee Day) has glass doors(duh....obviously!!!!), we could see people walking outside in the street. I could see them actually, as Pallu had her back facing the door and I had the view.
We were talking about something insignificant and laughing and then.....There he was! Suddenly a breeze blew over and in the background, a piano started playing. White tee, jeans, fair skinned, short(not very short) hair and dimpled cheeks. He was walking with some of his friends(I assumed) and then he looked in. I looked straight at him and my heart stopped beating for a while. Seriously, we were looking at each other. His face, His expression...that moment....It was all too good to be true!!! I heard no sound, I felt nothing, except this elevated feeling. It was like the movies. Slow-motion and all that jazz...He continued walking but his eyes were fixed on me; I continued staring, oblivious and callous to Pallu blabbering. In the background, Aqualung's "Brighter than Sunshine" played on.
Then he bumped into his friend who was walking ahead. Suddenly, he realized how silly he looked and an embarrassed smile crossed his face. His dimples displayed at the left cheek. I thought I was about to collapse. He, then shook his head in embarrassment and looked at me again, the smile, still stuck on his face. I stared (gawked??) at him and he passed by...His image faded away and then, reality struck me like lightning.
"OMG! OMG! OMG!" I screamed. Pallu, shocked and surprised. "What happened?"
"I just saw this super cute guy pass by."
Pallu turned around and tried to locate the face I was talking about...Too late...He'd walked away. "Where?"
"He was there....He was there," I said, excitedly.
"Gosh! calm down woman...," Pallu went back to her touching-up process.
Sighhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
That was that...I don't know who he is. All I know is our eyes met that one moment and the world stopped spinning. Out of the 6 billion people in the world, I know, He and I, shared one long moment. I wish Life was like the movies. . . I wish our paths would cross again; But honestly, even If It did, I wouldn't be able to recognize him. Anyway, that one short moment will last forever...
Ahhhhh....White Tee Guy with the cute dimples...Where are you????? Who are you??? Will I see you again???
"Who in the World am I?Ah! That's the great puzzle"
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Wet Stuff
Controversial title...eh??? If you are a Josephite; especially a boarder(lived in the school hostel), you would know what I am talking about, And If you are reading this because the title caught your attention, then we know what your state of mind is!
In St. Joseph's Convent, Kalimpong, a Catholic school for girls, run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, we lived to eat! It's not like we were not fed. We were!!! Four times a day:
07:30am- Breakfast
11:25am- Lunch
03:30pm- Tea & Snacks
07:30pm- Supper
Yet the wave of gluttony was never satiated. The sly geniuses that we were, we had perfected the act of smuggling food through the mesh, which encompassed the border of the school compound. Whatever time of the day, If opportunity found us or be found, we indulged in that particular "sin" with no second thought. The Boxie Bhaiya (the only Male,the girls looked forward to every day ) with his box of heart-burn inducing( and sometimes the Diarrhea causing) goodies with a very questionable hygiene,was too tempting to resist. He must have made a small fortune and is probably retired to his new three-storied mansion by now. I highly doubt he consumes his own creative culinary (mis)offerings.
Coming to the Wet Stuff..., both origin and intent of the words evade me.
For us, those two words combined were the equivalent of the "happily-ever-after" fairy-tale. Although we referred to food as the Wet Stuff , not every edible was called hither.The Wet Stuff menu was short and comprised of :
Momo
Alu-Thukpa
Phambi
Shya-Phale
Alu-Phale
Lay-Phing
Shapta
Ting-mo
Tai-po
Fried Rice
Chowmein
etc....
(If you are a Josephite, you are probably salivating right now)
And this was how it worked: We would coerce enough "pocket money" from our parents after the holidays.We weren't allowed to keep any money... But have you ever heard of Obedient Girls in Catholic School? If you have,It definitely did not include us! Anyway, we always had a good and close day-scholar friend or two(or more...) who lived in or about the town. And so ,after a thoroughly debated menu ,the math (including the carrier's commission) was done and the funds provided (in accordance to quantity of consumption) began the long and trying process of waiting . What happened after that or how the accomplice procured the objects of our affection, didn't really matter as long as they were delivered . The smuggling of the prohibited food into the school premises were performed skillfully, without creating much chaos or suspicion.(except on those few occasions when the strong and delicious aroma of food would make a few authoritarian eyebrows rise ; And like bloodhounds ,they would track down the smell and apprehend the guilty. But that rarely happened)
The bliss and satisfaction that we got by consuming those items, is vocabularily indescribable. You should see the size most of us were, back in school. We ate like there was no tomorrow! We ate like we had been starving for years! We ate like someone had paid us to eat! We were a bunch of greedy, ravening, gormandizing stomachs and all we cared about was, what to eat the following day!
I guess all of us have grown up now and left those barbaric, swinish days behind; But even today, to mention "Wet Stuff" to a Josephite would be like Pavlov ringing his godforsaken bell much to the disappointment of the dogs! Therefore, I think I speak for all my girls when I say; Our first Love will always be The Wet Stuff.
In St. Joseph's Convent, Kalimpong, a Catholic school for girls, run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, we lived to eat! It's not like we were not fed. We were!!! Four times a day:
07:30am- Breakfast
11:25am- Lunch
03:30pm- Tea & Snacks
07:30pm- Supper
Yet the wave of gluttony was never satiated. The sly geniuses that we were, we had perfected the act of smuggling food through the mesh, which encompassed the border of the school compound. Whatever time of the day, If opportunity found us or be found, we indulged in that particular "sin" with no second thought. The Boxie Bhaiya (the only Male,the girls looked forward to every day ) with his box of heart-burn inducing( and sometimes the Diarrhea causing) goodies with a very questionable hygiene,was too tempting to resist. He must have made a small fortune and is probably retired to his new three-storied mansion by now. I highly doubt he consumes his own creative culinary (mis)offerings.
Coming to the Wet Stuff..., both origin and intent of the words evade me.
For us, those two words combined were the equivalent of the "happily-ever-after" fairy-tale. Although we referred to food as the Wet Stuff , not every edible was called hither.The Wet Stuff menu was short and comprised of :
Momo
Alu-Thukpa
Phambi
Shya-Phale
Alu-Phale
Lay-Phing
Shapta
Ting-mo
Tai-po
Fried Rice
Chowmein
etc....
(If you are a Josephite, you are probably salivating right now)
And this was how it worked: We would coerce enough "pocket money" from our parents after the holidays.We weren't allowed to keep any money... But have you ever heard of Obedient Girls in Catholic School? If you have,It definitely did not include us! Anyway, we always had a good and close day-scholar friend or two(or more...) who lived in or about the town. And so ,after a thoroughly debated menu ,the math (including the carrier's commission) was done and the funds provided (in accordance to quantity of consumption) began the long and trying process of waiting . What happened after that or how the accomplice procured the objects of our affection, didn't really matter as long as they were delivered . The smuggling of the prohibited food into the school premises were performed skillfully, without creating much chaos or suspicion.(except on those few occasions when the strong and delicious aroma of food would make a few authoritarian eyebrows rise ; And like bloodhounds ,they would track down the smell and apprehend the guilty. But that rarely happened)
The bliss and satisfaction that we got by consuming those items, is vocabularily indescribable. You should see the size most of us were, back in school. We ate like there was no tomorrow! We ate like we had been starving for years! We ate like someone had paid us to eat! We were a bunch of greedy, ravening, gormandizing stomachs and all we cared about was, what to eat the following day!
I guess all of us have grown up now and left those barbaric, swinish days behind; But even today, to mention "Wet Stuff" to a Josephite would be like Pavlov ringing his godforsaken bell much to the disappointment of the dogs! Therefore, I think I speak for all my girls when I say; Our first Love will always be The Wet Stuff.
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