Brown Skin, White Masks

Fair & Handsome !! A fairness cream for men with a double peptide bond for "tough male skin" !! What tough skin?? Skin is skin, is skin, is skin, ain't it?

By the by, what happened to tall, dark & handsome ??

New Kid on the Block !!

Yes, there's a new kid on the block. And no, I am not talking of Donnie, Jon, Joe, Danny or Jordan. He's all of five months, and he's my nephew !! With more nieces and nephews than I can count, I'm definitely headed for senescence. :P

Baby's Day In

Click. Flash. Grin. Then back to crying or wailing or tugging your hair off. When a camera stares her in the face, my niece Ananya looks straight at the lens and gives you her best toothless all-gummy grin. A definite child prodigy !! Classical Conditioning anyone?

In Theory

Another application of all the literary theories we canvass in class....

But before that, it is very
important that all of you attempt the following psychological test !!

No cheating. Pick your dessert, then look to see what
Psychiatrists think about you!
After taking this dessert personality test, copy,
paste and send this e-mail on to others, with your OWN application of
the various theories that you are aware of !!

If you were making a dessert and you had your choice
of those below (or some great bakery was baking the
dessert of your choice), which would you choose?


> *Angel food
> *Brownies
> *Lemon Meringue
> *Vanilla with Chocolate Icing
> *Strawberry Short Cake
> *Chocolate on Chocolate
> *Ice Cream
> *Carrot Cake
>
>
> NO ... You can't change your mind once you scroll
> down!
>
>
>
>
>
>
> So think carefully, what your choice will be!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> OK - Now that you've made your choice, this is what
> research says about you!
>
> Angel food...
> Sweet, loving, cuddly. You love all warm and fuzzy
> items. A little nutty at times. Sometimes you need an
> ice cream cone at the end of the day. Others perceive
> you as being childlike and immature at times.
>
> Brownies...
> You are adventurous, love new ideas, are a champion of
> underdogs and a slayer of dragons. When tempers flare
> up, you whip out your saber. You are always the
> oddball with a unique sense of humour and direction.
> You tend to be very loyal.
>
> Lemon Meringue...
> Smooth, sexy, & articulate with your hands, you are an
> excellent after-dinner speaker and a good teacher. But
> don't try to walk and chew gum at the same time. A bit
> of a diva at times, but you have many friends.
>
> Vanilla with Chocolate Icing...
> Fun-loving, sassy, humorous. Not very grounded in
> life; very indecisive and lack motivation. Everyone
> enjoys being around you, but you are a practical
> joker. Others should be cautious in making you mad.
> However, you are a friend for life.
>
> Strawberry Short Cake...
> Romantic, warm, loving. You care about other people
> and can be counted on in a pinch. You tend to melt.
> You can be overly emotional and annoying at times.
>
> Chocolate on Chocolate...
> Sexy, always ready to give and receive. Very creative,
> adventurous, ambitious, and passionate. You have a
> cold exterior but are warm on the inside. Not afraid
> to take chances. Will not settle for anything average
> in life. Love to laugh.
>
> Ice Cream...
> You like sports, whether it be baseball, football,
> basketball, or soccer. If you could, you would like to
> participate, but you enjoy watching sports. You don't
> like to give up the remote control. You tend to be
> self-centered and high maintenance.
>
>
> Carrot Cake...
> You are a very fun loving person, who likes to laugh.
> You are fun to be with. People like to hang out with
> you. You are a very warm hearted person and a little
> quirky at times. You have many loyal friends

From: Pallavi Mogre
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2003 5:10 am
Subject: I chose Brownies, BUT according to POSTCOLONIAL tenets.....


...there's a big problem with this test !!! Edward Said would probably
call it "Eurocentric" !!

I may have heard of angel food, and lemon meringues, but I have no
idea as to how they taste etc. Plus, this test OTHERISES vegetarians,
and those whose sweet tooth never erupted !!

Maybe we should invent (or should I say CONSTRUCT, because I don't
particularly believe in these tests) a psychological test with stuff
like jalebis and rasgollas ... or would that be called NATIVISM ??

Also, I can't be sure that these rasgollas were originally Indian,
right? For all I know, they may have come to India from Timbuktu. So,
HOW NATIVE IS NATIVE?

And would I be justified in making these UNIVERSALIST ASSUMPTIONS?
Some people don't even get one square meal a day.

MARXISTS would declare war on these jalebis and rasgollas, and
FEMINISTS would probably brandish statistics telling me that though
chefs at 5 star hotels may be male, the scene at home hasn't changed
all that much, and that women are still frying the jalebis !!!

Oh well.......

..........let's just enjoy our dessert, eh? ;)

Snippets

"Is that Bal Gangadhar Tilak?"

"No, it isn't. Tilak was hideous, and he most certainly isn't !"

The portrait hung in what used to be the drawing room of a palatial two storeyed colonial style bungalow. The red turban, grey moustache, and the regal customary shawl made it distinctive. What was peculiar about the portrait was that its eyes followed you regardless of which corner of the room you chose to occupy.

Bringing out the family tree, and directing my attention to its apex, my grandfather told me that this was the man who built the place I then called home. My friends told me it looked spooky by night. Maybe it did. But it was home...surrounded by gardens, a well and stables, it must have been magnificent two hundred years ago.

Gradually, the old place in the heart of Girgaum had been hedged in by towering concrete structures. A part of the garden was rented to box-makers; and the stables were converted into a dumping ground for kitchen waste, where a cat and her kittens found home every year.

***

"Don't worry beta ! Aap mujhe bas do sau rupaiye de do, aur main aap ko berth dila doonga. T. C. ko hum sambhaal lenge. Aap ghode bech ke sona."

Squirming inside the linen closet of the first class A.C. compartment of the Guwahati bound express, the strains of a soppy Hindi oldie kept reverberating through my mind. "Karvate badal te rahe aadhi raat hum" was my predicament, the only flipside being that roaches had replaced romance.

I kicked the air as yet another cockroach attempted to scale the Everest that was my shank. A small shower of sweat beads accompanied every bid to do away with affectionate insects. Streams of perspiration branched out into tributaries as they encountered epidermal cilia. Lying chained to my own luggage, the fatuous optimism with which I had boarded the train at Dadar oozed out of every pore in sauna like fashion.

Securing my suitcase to the adjacent basin pipe had proved unsuccessful. The bright red VIP Eleganza had been inadvertently splattered with frothy fluoridated sputum spewed by compulsive brush-before-going-to-bedders, some stray droplets making their way to my makeshift bunk.

The stomach churned bile. The aroma wafting from the loo added to the nausea.

***

She had more holes than a normal person does, and the reason was not genetic. She needed her nose rings, her eyebrow rings, her navel rings and of course her earrings to face the world.

Smart. Pretty. Intelligent. Arrogant. These were the epithets used when Nancy Misquita was mentioned. But she knew better. It was only in the bathroom of her plush Bandra flat that she shed her inhibitions as well as her clothes.

Devoid of props, she shuffled onto the weighing machine. The scale hand traced an almost acute arc and stood still. "Perfect", she murmurmed and then looked up to face her fogged reflection in the mirror. She didn't really need her kilograms to tell her that she was eyecandy. Catcalling roadside Romeos confirmed that almost every other day.

That was not to say that obese and ugly women were spared. But at least they called her "Sophia Lauren" and not "Moti Mausi". Where such riffraff came across Lauren she failed to fathom...

***

As the Virar fast lurched away from the Charni Road platform, a silent scream escaped Nancy. Wailing was futile. There was no one in the empty train compartment to hear her cries. No one except that cold-blooded thing, that glinted at her with unblinking eyes. And what was worse, it was advancing, and even her martial arts training could not keep it at bay.

She eyed the “In Case of Emergency Pull Chain” sign. Did she dare yank it? Wouldn’t it be awful to be stuck with this pintsized saurian between stations? And how could she face the Railway Police in case it escaped? She couldn’t jump off after pulling the chain, could she? What if a train was chugging along the adjacent track? What if…what if…

Her close encounter with it when she was all of ten years had left her traumatized. As dusk approached, she would go around shutting all windows and pulling the curtains across. For fifteen years she had followed this ritual daily. Not a chink of light could escape. It was a complete blackout…more complete than the prescribed blackouts during the Indo-China war. And after all her precautions, she was stuck in a train compartment with it !!

The train slowed down. “Mumbai Central” blurred past her watering eyes. The train stopped. How? Why? What? rushed through her frantic mind even as she alighted.

“Platform No. Do pe aaiye hui train yard jayegi. Yatriyon se vinanti hai ke we is train ko khali kare. Yatriyon ki asuvidha ke liye khed hai. The train halting at Platform No. 2 is going to the yard. Passengers are requested to please vacate the train. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted”, blared the usually unwelcome nasal voice of the railway announcer as Nancy ascended the bridge en route to the taxi stand. No more local trains…ever !!

Nancy was convinced that she would die of a heart attack if she had to share a train compartment with a wall gecko again !!

***

The Famished Five

Apart from applesauce, there's plenty to be had. Where's the menus you ask.

Well, here goes: jugs of creamy farm fresh milk, homemade orangeade and lemonade, cold ginger beer, warm squishy loaves of home baked bread, jammy buns, butter, hard boiled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, bacon, ham, tongue, pork pies, apple pies, mince pies, buttered crumpets, gooey macaroons, smashing salads, a variety of sandwiches, chocolate cakes, cherry cakes, fruit cakes, tureens of peas and potatoes, mouthwatering stews, plum pudding, date pudding, tinned pineapple, tinned peaches, tinned sardines, potted meat, potted shrimp, bars of chocolate, toffee, boiled sweets, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, strawberries, apples, peaches, licky ice-creams, meaty bones, dog biscuits...

...the list is sempiternal and in most cases, the eatables are alien. It is evident that Enid Blyton's gustatory modality is rather acute. Nevertheless, it would be much better if she spared us the details. Read. Chomp chomp. Chew. Crunch. Munch. Read. Munch. Munch and munch !!! It's true. I've never been able to read "The Famous Five" (or for that matter, any other Blyton book) without having something at hand to feast on.

The Five eat between their adventures. I eat between meals. They no doubt burn all the calories they consume while they climb hills, row to Kirrin Island, go fishing, cycling, hiking, skiing, camping, and of course, adventuring. I, lazing on the sofa, merely add another unwanted kilo to my weight !

Avoirdupois anyone? And no, that's not pabulum !!

Folderol

Does that sound like medicine? Well, it is too. The best you can get. Not that I intend to post it. I only know the recipe for applesauce !!!