The Perils of Multi-Tasking

Possibly, A's most annoying quality is his attention span. Easily distracted by TV screens and the like he can lose track, at the drop of a hat, of what is being said or done by you or himself without discrimination.

Many a time, the words I say fall on deaf ears. This occurs especially when I speak to A on the phone at work. The genius thinks that just because I cannot see him, he can go ahead and surf on the web or type emails while I'm talking just by responding 'Achha' or 'Hmmm' or 'And then?' at intervals. Sometimes he throws in an 'I love you' or some sounds of endearment to fill long pauses but this is usually so out of context to the conversation that it results in him getting caught for not paying attention. I can always tell, anyway. But the out-of -context 'I love you' is undeniable evidence.

It so happened one fine Thursday afternoon as I was chattering away happily to him during lunch hour that A saw fit to choose that minute to quickly shoot off a reply email to a potential sponsor for his event. As always, I immediately discerned his waning interest accompanied by the faint tap-tapping noise of the keyboard. As he was typing away, he failed to notice my prolonged silence and growing rage.

'What are you doing?' I snapped at him. 'Why can't you pay attention for 5 minutes in the day when I'm talking to you?'

Guiltily he confessed 'Babe, I'm just quickly shooting off an email to someone who may be interested in sponsoring my conference, it just took a minute."

Angrily I responded "Why can't you wait for a few minutes till I'm done talking? It's not like we are going to talk for an hour! The one time in the day that I call you, you can't just listen properly? Then why do we talk at all during work. Let's just forget it..."

I continued in this vein for a few minutes and A hurriedly saved his email to his drafts folder and turned his full focus on smoothing my ruffled feathers and promised (falsely for the thousandth time) that this would never happen again.

After hanging up the phone, A decided to complete and send that email. So he opened it and gave it a quick once over. To his horror, he discovered that he had ended the email in the following manner:

"... and so, I look forward to having a detailed discussion with you on how we may proceed with this proposal in order to ensure that your sponsorship is of mutual benefit to both our organizations. Thank you. Mwah mwah mwah.

Warm regards,
A. R."

The man fervently thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't able to send the e-mail when he wrote it and temporarily retained the lesson that any one with an attention span of a 4 year old should really refrain from multitasking.

And once again, the woman's snapping saved the day.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Birthday Surprise

I suppose it's no secret that I love planning surprise parties. The plotting, the scheming, the agonizing over details, the frustration when the surprisee doesn't cooperate etc.

A's birthday rolled around in May. He was rather down and out this year due to some health issues and confessed that he was rather 'unexcited' about his upcoming birthday. 'Well, we'll see about that, buster," I thought secretly as I patted him on the arm and assured him that we will do something fun on his birthday.

It all started, as most good ideas do, with a pretty boy who lives in Mumbai. This friend of A's recently happened to fly down to Delhi and consequently surprise another friend for the latter's birthday. This was a rather pleasant idea, however, no longer as novel as it once had been. Having pretty boy come down now would have a kind of 'oh it's YOU again' impact on the target audience.

A's other friends were scattered in various continents and none of them would be happening to fly down to Delhi during this period. The surprise guest idea was turning out to be a bit of a flop show. It was then that the stroke of brilliance was errr... struck. I can't bring his friends to him, but what if I get videos of them wishing him and put it together as one birthday video.

Ten days of secretive text messages, facebook posts, clandestine phone calls followed. I do not deny that some amounts of harrassment, bribery, threats, pleading etc. were involved. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right? Anyway, the videos arrived in sufficient quantity and myriad formats from various corners of the world sent in by close friends and family just in the nick of time - the day before A's birthday.

We played the video at midnight just before the phone calls started pouring in. This would explain my secretive behavior over the previous weeks and throw A off track as to the fact that a surprise party at my flat was also in store for him. Most of the party arrangements had been made and the necessary troops previously enlisted. All that I had to do was tidy up the flat and make space for 20 people while A was at work, receive and refrigerate the cake, and hand over my spare key to trustworthy Pips who would assemble the guests at the flat and wait in darkness for me to bring A to my place at 8.00 pm sharp. It was all planned out. I had even told the guests to park their cars far away so that A wouldn't see and instructed everyone to not call me on A's birthday lest he get suspicious. I was taking the day off to ensure that everything went smoothly while A would be at the office. Everything was accounted for. Except for A that is.

Anyway, the birthday video was a great success. Highly appreciated by A although he spent considerable time asking 'Who didn't send a video?'. Pretty boy and his equally pretty girlfriend had sent in a really cute video 'celebrating' A's birthday in Mumbai complete with a cupcake, 4 candles and a dog wearing a party hat. A's young cousins in Lucknow, for reasons best known to themselves, decided to say Happy Birthday in French subsequently explaining that this meant Happy Birthday in French. A's hulk of a friend in Canada had sent in a variety of videos each progressively more insane than the last. We used a sane (relatively) one in the main video and an insane one in the 'Out-takes' section.

A was sufficiently satisfied that THIS had been his big birthday surprise. A couple of his friends (having been given their scripts far in advance) made plans to take him out for a birthday dinner. All was going according to the PLAN.

Then A proceeded to throw spanner after spanner into the works. He decided he won't go to office on his birthday and spend the whole day with me. 'But don't you have that big conference call, honey?' I said desperately. 'I can take it from home,' said the spoiler. I tried to disguise my reaction of dismay with one of pleasure. One by one some friends of A tried to dissuade him from taking a day off on his birthday much to his puzzlement. In the end, I had to resort to the tearful 'but I was planning to buy you something special as a surprise on your birthday and now it's all (choking sob) ruined!!' A horrified birthday boy promised he will go to work for a few hours so that I could buy his surprise gift and assured me that the surprise was not ruined because he didn't know what the surprise gift was. I am sure he spent those hours in office thinking that I was going to get him that Samsung Galaxy Tab he's been eyeing.

Anyway, A had a rather bewildering day since, when he returned, I had appeared to not have gone out shopping at all. He kept asking me where his 'surprise gift' was and I kept telling him it hasn't 'arrived' yet. We had a nice lunch and then I took A to the mall where I bought him a new shirt to wear for the birthday 'dinner' that evening.

Meanwhile, the troops were busy screwing things up. One friend who was delegated the task of buying the whiskey for the party, realized that it was a dry day in Delhi. Panicked smses streamed in. I in turn smsed various invitees in the NCR area. Finally we ended up with more whiskeys than necessary since all who were asked brought 2 bottles each. Then one of A's friends coming in from Noida got stuck in traffic and requested that A be delayed.

15-16 people waited at my flat, smsing constantly as to the coordinates of me and A. We got ready at A's place. My excuse for taking him to my flat was that I needed to change my shoes. Luckily A is one of those wise men who doesn't argue with women about shoes. A is also only too easy to delay. And so it went on until finally we got the green light to leave his place and proceed towards mine. 'Leave now' was the eloquent text message sent by A's younger brother.

'I'll wait in the car while you go upstairs and change your shoes, then we can go and meet the others in GK,' said A to me in the car. I sweetly assured him that this was fine while inwardly hurling choice abuses at him. I furiously smsed his friend to call and tell A that they will be late in reaching GK themselves so that A would decide to wait at my flat rather than reach the restaurant early. This problem being taken care of, we arrived at my flat. I rushed upstairs while A was parking the car.

Giggling in the dark, we waited for A to come upstairs. And waited. And waited some more.

'What's taking him so long?' someone hissed complainingly from the back.
'What if he gets a call and stays downstairs talking for the next 45 minutes?' came a wondering voice from my left.
'Shut up, everyone!' an authoritative voice boomed.
'Who finished all the shawarmas?' said a shadowy figure next to the dining table.
'Well these guys took so long to come,' came the explanation.
'Sshhhhhhh!!!' I said as footsteps were heard coming up the stairs.

First A rang the bell, which caused much supressed giggling. Then realizing that I must have left the door unlocked, he opened it and stepped inside. The lights went on and 20 people screamed in unison 'SURPRISE!!!!'

I can never forget the look of sheer terror that flitted across A's face for one split second. He looked like a deer caught in headlights for some time before he swallowed and recovered the power of speech. He was delighted and beamed at everyone. Then he looked at me lovingly and pulled me close in a tight hug.

'Aur? Kaun nahi aaya?' he said.

The vital alphabet

I woke up and stumbled out of bed today, like any other normal day. Rubbing my eyes, I wandered in the general direction of the kitchen for a glass of water where I was greeted fondly by my grandma aka Didu.

Didu is the darlingest person you've ever met. She's short and thin and has lost most of the hearing in one ear. She's had a tough life but always has a smile on her face, a hug for her grandchildren and a chocolate for her great grandchildren. Most importantly, Didu is a gentle soul who would never think ill of anyone. Which made the following pronouncement all the more bizarre.

'Good news,' she said, placing a hand on my arm 'Obama dead.'

'What?' I exclaimed. 'Obama dead? How? When?'

'Americans killed him,' Didu explained and started shuffling away, smiling beatifically.

This was shocking news, but from a slightly dubious source. What had she mis-heard? Or could it be true? Americans killed Obama? It was only yesterday that he was making funny speeches, making fun of Donald Trump. Could Donald Trump have had him killed for this?

But even if he was dead. Why was Didu saying it was good news? I didn't peg her for having any political views, much less such extreme political views. Something was wrong here.

I rushed back into the bedroom and switched on the TV. The headlines read 'OSAMA killed'

Yeah. That makes a lot more sense.

Recipe for Disaster

A made a re-entry into my life months ago armed with apologies and flowers in prodigious quanitities. We won’t go into the details. That’s not the disaster I’m referring to here.

Tired of the inevitable pizza-burger night because the cook had been MIA for a couple of days, we decided to try our hand at cooking something for ourselves. Pasta (not Sunfeast) and mashed potatoes were penciled into the menu. Some grocery shopping ensued where we were unable to find most of the ideal ingredients and seasonings. We decided to make do with the basics such as butter, cheese, flour, salt with some peas, corn and chicken salami as extras.

I must tell you that my accomplishments in the kitchen are limited to tea, french toast and maggi. A’s may be even less than that but to hear him talk, you’d think he’d apprenticed with Julia Child in his youth.

And so the underconfident and the overconfident set about to make the meal.

I wanted to read the instructions carefully first and make all the ingredients ready to throw into the pot before we actually started cooking. A gleefully started boiling everything in sight before I downloaded the recipe.

When it was time to make the sauce, the instructions specifically said to add the milk right after adding the flour to prevent the flour from turning brown. I told A to hold off on adding flour till I opened the carton of milk and poured the first cup. After I retrieved the carton of milk from the fridge, I turned to see A diligently pouring two spoonfuls of flour to the butter/garlic mix in the pan. A blur of yelling, panic and milk spilling followed. A rather meek and subdued A followed instructions to the letter thereafter.

We finished the rest of food processing relatively smoothly. A burnt his hand and the breads in quick succession.

Some minor disagreements and several dirty dishes later, we surveyed our resultant white sauce chicken ‘n’ corn pasta and mashed potatoes with satisfaction. The disaster struck kitchen with piles of discarded packaging and sink full of dirty pots and pans were surveyed with a somewhat lower degree of satisfaction. A’s younger brother bounded into the kitchen, did a double take at what must have appeared to be the aftermath of a particularly bad fight between A and myself. He recovered quickly enough to focus on what was important – the food, wisely pronounced it awesome, devoured it and made a hasty exit resolutely averting his eyes from the mess in the kitchen.

The maid was not happy the next day. But that’ll teach her for taking an unannounced leave of absence.

We’re doing thai curry next. Pray for us.

The Candidness of Cousins

The other night my Aditya mama came over. He's 65 plus in age, with a bad leg, a booming voice, and a unique sense of humor. Descendant from the Marathas and boasting of copious amounts of royal blood, he carries with him a regal air and a bluntness akin to a butter knife.

He's very fond of his cousin sisters - my mother and my two aunts. He was especially delighted to see my Raju maasi since she comes over from Mozambique only once a year and is thus, a rare commodity. This delight gradually turned to concern as she tried to encourage him to venture further and further into the social networking world via Facebook.

"But I don't remember half the people adding me," he protested. "Some sardar from school added me. I don't even remember him. Bloody 40 years ago it was. How many people from your friend list do you remember?"

"Well, I don't actually know all the people in my friend list personally," confessed Raju maasi. "I play all these games you know, like Castle Age, where you add people so that they can join your army and help you win battles."

She went on in this vein for some time as Aditya mama listened with narrowed eyes and keen interest. When she was done he leaned back in his chair for a moment of reflection.

"My god, you're off your rocker," he declared. "Participating in wars and all that. Doing battle shattle at your age."

Having thus pronounced his cousin fit for commitment to an asylum, he proceeded to deftly change the subject to some story of the Dalai lama he had heard at an Embassy dinner. "Buddhists do not believe in killing," he said. "So in Tibet, they used to stuff criminals into the skin of a yak and leave it in the sun to dry and shrink until.." He made a grotesque squelching sound and settled comfortably in his chair with smug satisfaction as we digested this rather morbid tale.

"So life is like that you see," he sighed turning to Raju maasi. "But you're completely nuts anyway so how does it matter to you."

Ah, brotherly love. Such a wonderful thing.

Two is Company

It was a Friday evening that I walked into the doctor's waiting room to find an anxious brother in law, a glowering pregnant sister and an unruffled mother waiting for an appointment. We were expecting twins. But not anytime soon it seemed.

'29th July' announced the doc as the expected due date. Y sat with me on the bench woebegone and looking like the babies would burst out at any minute. "How will I survive for another month?" she moaned.

However, time and twins wait for no man. The very next day, the family is at the hospital and my mother informs me she's sent the car to fetch me because ''something is happening''. The twins arrived ten minutes before I did. Impatient little tykes.

The boys are Cancerians. Just like me. Brought into the world by the very same doctor who delivered me 27 years ago. How cool is that? Yessir, me and the boys'll get along just fine.

My sister wants to call them Arnav and Avinash. We're really not in a position to be arguing with her right now. But the conspiracies are under way. My brother is smsing filmy suggestions like Karan-Arjun from the UK as we speak. Till then 'Pickle' and 'Paapad' remain.

Meanwhile, their older sister Peanut, was rather overwhelmed by it all. I visited her after she'd been in to see the babies. She seemed to be taking things in her stride by then. She even confided in me that Pickle was her favorite. When I asked her why, she declared 'He's mine!!'. There might be some proprietory issues once the family is back together under one roof.

In just a few days I'll be upto my ears in nieces and nephews. Must've done something right. :-)

Strike 3 and Other Events

Being single is a strange, strange feeling. I know I was single for 18 years but once I started this relationship thing, I've had no space at all to be on my own. 3 'serious' relationships and 8 years later, here I am having been plunged unkindly into the world where 'I' and 'me' replaces the 'us' and the 'we'.

It's weird. I find this entire experience exhausting. Meeting new people. I'm not a fan of people anyway. They suck!! And getting hit on is just plain annoying. Nothing puts me off more than a man who writes 'dat' instead of 'that'. It's a jungle out there. Bah!!

Oh well, at least I have my health!! Haha. Focusing on the positives, people!!!

Speaking of positives, there are good things to focus on. My family is eagerly awaiting the arrival of twins!!! That's right. The ever over-achiever sister Y is expecting a '2 for the price of 1' deal in mid July. If this country thinks that 'one is fun', that motto is completely lost on this family.

So 'Pickle' and 'Paapad' (don't ask) are going to be two welcome additions to this blog in the coming months as will the reactions of their big sister Peanut.

Other things to look forward to are a trip to the US (on work) in September. There's nothing like travelling on company funds, even if it is to the state of Ohio. But I do plan to squeeze in a quick weekend in NYC followed by a few days in LA with my dear friend Aku. She is already planning our trip to Vegas. Travel tips from seasoned fliers to the US are very welcome. If you stay in NYC and want to take me to the city's major attractions, then you can offer. :-) It's a bonus if you're a hot guy. For me, not you.

This has turned out to be one of those rambly posts that I hate. But I'm sleepy and writing in the aftermath of a very traumatic experience, so gimme a break will ya and show me some love.

Goodnight!! Remember that things can only get better!!! Also, brush your teeth!!