not quite the jackpot, but...

saroj isnt a huge fan of what she calls "mall culture".
they can sell you designer cow-dung she says!

i on the other hand have a compulsive "mall" disorder.
i can window shop for hours and hours and hours.
i go to malls. take a round. then start again...just gaze at things that i will never use and hence never buy. well...almost never.
sometimes they are just too pretty to resist.

but there MAY be something to be said about that whole designer cow-dung-phenomenon. for example...at rosebys (i love that store no matter what anyone says!) the other day i came across a very beautiful maroon packet with something in a ... well ... brighter maroon i guess!

i looked closely but for the life of me couldnt figure out what was in that plastic!
imagine my jaw hitting the floor when the salesguy said it was a towel.
at first i thought i hadnt heard correctly.
WHO buys a towel for 2 grand??
but then he repeated more firmly and pointed towards a tag...and lo and behold it said...a towel laced with secret desires!!!

i think there were wayyy too many expressions crossing my face at that moment cos he gently said that it was very popular.
reaffirming my faith...i see.
well i put it back with as much grace i could muster...having realised that i may have to make-do without any secret desires in near future since "the towel was out of reach"...and walked out.

but im thinking there IS something to be said for aggressive, strangely innovative marketing these days. double income households where money may not be an issue but imagination is sadly lacking. so a quick fix towel to the rescue!

why else would you need to rely on a towel or a pillow for some imagination!
yes pillow too! at cafe turtle ... they have these little heart shaped ones...depending on your mood.

purple one is for calm serene thoughts..i think.
there is a bright red one for lustful vibes. (yeah go ahead and laugh...i did too!)
infact gifted it to a friend as a joke.
the couple was having some problems and split up anyway.
not sure how much the pillow contributed to it...or maybe dealyed it...i dont know.

what i DO know is...a towel for 2 grand will only ever give me secret "guilt trips".
are you wondering why i told you this stupid story that u dont probably care about?
wel...here;s the punchline....

as i was walking out of rosebys....still reeling from what i now call the "towel effect"...the salesman gently pressed a paper in my hand and said he'd filled out a coupon for me for some lucky draw.

i stopped and without going into my whole life history...gently told him that id NEVER EVER in my life won anything...so it was kind but lucky draws werent for me.
he still insisted on taking down my details.
and though im always cynical about these things...for once i wrote it down for him.

a call just came...informing me that i have WON that lucky draw to shop for TEN THOUSAND rupees worth of stuff at rosebys...absolutely free of cost.
yieeee yieeee yieeeee.
i went back to thank the salesguy who'd pushed me into the draw.
he apparently lasted only a week in that job and had moved onto something else.
i still have my voucher for TEN GRAND.

any suggestions...what i should be shopping for at rosebys??
pls dont say towels!


m

CTRL-ALT-DEL

imagine suddenly finding an old diary in your cupboard.
it smells musty...with paper thats gone almost brittle...and ink that looks like its starting to leak a bit.

doesnt it make ur heart jump a little with excitement? just wondering what memories you'll find there...

for me....its always been about the romance of all things old....books, ideas, thoughts... all written down...and then reading it over and over again for hours...each time coming up with a new interpretation..

till i recently realised that i may actually be stuck in a time-warp.
swimming in the same old ideas and thoughts that one should have let go of long ago.
and everytime an old diary falls out....its like revisiting and then reliving every failure...with a new interpretation...one failure at a time.

so finally im a convert now.
converted to loving this thing called a "computer".
no more brittle memories on brittle pages...or old failures that have a potential to leak/bleed onto your present.

i still write.
only.....whatever i dont like....is now just a delete button away.
so can i now log onto a new beginning then?



m

the lost "me" in the collective "we"...

he was my last hope.
the one person i knew i could really bitch the world out with, as he blew smoke rings and sang and kept cynicism alive.
even he finally gave in to the pressures.
pressures to adapt to this consumeristic cycle of life...completely.

yes, consumeristic because every relationship and every emotion comes with an expiry date these days. even marriages.
ive celebrated my failures with him.
so im not surprised why i was the last one to know.

but he, who for as long as ive known him, had rejected every cliched conformist idea in the book....to now see him running around getting his "life ready" to get married scares me.

life has no answers he always said.
let yet another question get added to the long list...he now says to assure me.
il continue to fret over the layers and layers of mysteries of this life.

but i wish him all the best and hope that he will be able to find...the lost "me" in the collective "we"...


m