therunawayjuiceincident

1. Pick a place to travel….. Ummmm Germany

2. Plan your trip months in advance and make sure its during the glorious summer months

3. Make sure you plan your entire trip around a music festival, for example : Hurricane in Schiessel (150 kms from Hamburg)

4. Carry clothes only for the summer. Maybe a light jacket in case it gets nippy. BUT NOTHING MORE. Also, do not ever consider global warming as a real threat.

5. Reach Hamburg and freeze in the 12 degree temperature. But consider yourself above such trivial matters and do not buy any warm clothing.

6. Reach the festival during the day when the sun is out and consider yourself a champion because you haven’t got frostbite and are enjoying the music.

7. Be bold and buy yourself a sun-hat from a man from Senegal.

8 .Take some time out and congratulate each other on being so awesome. Say things like ‘I knew it. This weathers got nothing on me. I knew it would clear up. Everybody kiss my feet.’

9. Watch the sky become overcast and laugh nervously.

10. Feel your toes go numb but don’t speak about it. Instead, rush into the first tent you see and act like you really like the band performing on stage.

11. After the band stops playing and everybody leaves, keep hanging around the tent. When it’s just the two of you and it starts getting creepy, leave.

12. Head out and realise that brain freezes don’t just happen when you drink cold water.

13. Try talking to each other but notice that the conversation gets drowned out by the chattering of teeth.

14. Realise that you’re looking like a bit of a tool with a sun-hat on now that the sun has set. Take it off and hand it to your boyfriend and watch him try to wrap it around his hands as if it were a pair of gloves.

15. Realise that now you must find some shelter or clothes to protect you from dying. Head to the closest stall with clothes for sale. Watch your boyfriend wear the first jacket he lays eyes on and shriek “I’LL TAKE IT” to the shopkeeper who is standing a foot away.

16. Do the same for yourself. But go one step further. Buy a jacket with some chinese design and script all over the right sleeve. Strut out of the store.

17. Realise it’s still a tad bit cold, so wrap a dirty looking scarf all over your head and wear the hoodie on top of it. Along with your shades.

18. Order some chicken noodles just so you can hold the hot box and thaw your hands. Maybe have a few bites. Have your boyfriend hold the bentobox along with you.

19. Feel bad for yourselves and wonder whether you have a low pain threshold .

20. Notice that your poor boyfriend can’t put his hands in his pocket because of the stupid hat, so he’s worn it on his own head and then worn the hoodie on top of it.

21. Try to enjoy the music but don’t be surprised if people don’t want to stand next to you or throw rocks in your direction.

I thought of writing about my favourite books of all time and then it hit me that I hadn’t read a book in one go in a long, long time. I used to be the sorts who would devour a book in 24 hours if I liked it enough. Reading was my superpower. So then what happened? I tried to back-track and figure out what my Kryptonite was. Here’s the story :

I broke my Blackberry yesterday and it wasn’t a conscious effort (I’m lying about this part).

See the thing is that no matter what I did to my phone, it would come to life after a certain point of time. I dropped it in the shower, it took 2 hours to re-surface. Dropped it in the sea – 5 hours. Lathered it in sunblock – 1.5 hours. Dropped it two floors down the elevator shaft – it came back to life instantly. It was like a demon badger that never wanted to let go. Which is a good thing. Goes to show what a tank the handset is. So then why did I want to take a shotgun to my phone? For the simple reason that I was grossly addicted to it. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t heating my phone over a lighter, liquefying it and then injecting it into my bloodstream, but well, it was coming to a point where I might as well have done that. I was glued to it, as many of us are and the reason I’m capable of writing this is because it’s been less than 24 hours and I’ve got the ‘holier than thou’ thing going on right now.

Here’s a list of things I missed out on while I was staring at my phone these past two years –

: Reading books

: Watching a film in one go without telling 30 people about it and updating my status with the name of the film.

: Making eye contact with people I was talking to.

: Replying using words rather than ‘mmm hmmm’ *click click click *

: Acting normal if my phone battery died. Instead of having a massive anxiety attack.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the drift.

So now that I’m a born again purist (of sorts), the first thing I’m going to attempt is reading the book I’ve been lugging along like dead weight for the past month. I’m certain that after twitching and palpitating for a day or two, I should be fine.

And since I said ‘book’ let me get back to why I started to write this article in the first place – book recommendations. Here is my top 5 of all time. (phew!)

1. The Ground Beneath Her Feet : Salman Rushdie.

I wasn’t a Rushdie fan and I wasn’t planning on being one. But this book was given to me as a gift on my birthday. Took me a year to get around to it and when I did, I was glued. This is a tale that you would yearn to call your own. Rockstars, earthquakes, travel, Bombay, love, longing & many, many interwoven stories. Delectable to say the least.

2. Survivor : Chuck Palahniuk

For the uninitiated, Chuck Palahniuk wrote ‘Fight Club’. Bet that got your attention, eh? Fight Club is a little girl in a pink frock compared to Survivor. Palahniuk likes the idea of shock and awe when he writes a book and that’s because he likes the attention. ‘Survivor’ scares you in the nicest possible way. It’s more the psyche of the writer than the story itself that seeps through.

3. Ramayana – Ashok K. Banker

Ashok Banker is George Lucas. Let me re-phrase that. Ashok Banker is another kind of awesome. He re-wrote The Ramayana in a six part series and each book surpasses the other. The age old tale has been written with such flair and is brilliantly visual in its reading. Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Raavan, Jatayu come to life with his words. This book is more 21st century than any other that I have read. Indian story telling bred with sci-fi and you have yourself a feast.

4. 1984 – George Orwell

if u lyk 2 ryt lyk dis den dis buk iz a mst read. I kid you not. George Orwell wrote this book in 1948 about a dystopian future and how life would be under a totalitarian regime. The people who run the government want for their people to have very limited knowledge and keep tweaking history and the news. They also have a language called NuSpeak, where words are shortened and synonyms completely removed from the dictionary. Isnt dat crzy? Y wud sum1 ryt abt sumthng so ridikulus?!!

With that I end my book recommendations for the month. Hope these help in keeping you entertained. If not, I will write down my address next time and you can come and throw a few rocks at my apartment.

Laters

9004. I thought those were pretty cool last four digits to my car’s number plate.
But then again, it was my first car, so everything was cool about it.

And like all new things, it got not so new and after a while it gave me reasons to douse it with kerosene, light a match and walk away.

This is what happens when you don’t listen to your dad. And you know what’s worse than not listening to your dad? Admitting that you should have listened to him.
He wanted me to buy a car which didn’t look as ‘cool’ but was sturdy as a tank. I, on the other hand, wanted a tin can with deflated wheels.

So, here are a list of things that happened to me after 2 years with my batmobile :

: One fine day, it decided not to start. Just like that. I almost had to sell a kidney and buy a new engine because the problem was so severe. What caused it? God.

: It didn’t start. Again. The mechanic had fleeced me, of course. I remember shrieking at him in many languages and then proceeded to give him the car and all my savings. Because I am genius like that.

: The Bombay rains came and attacked my car. The same chor mechanic I had almost skinned earlier, obviously wasn’t afraid of me because he had taken my brand new wipers and replaced them with a pair which did the work of a blanket. No, seriously, I couldn’t see the bonnet. I don’t think they were wiping the water away, I think they were trained to smudge my windshield with black tar.

: Once I remember driving to my parents’ house and my car randomly stopped on the highway (fascinating). I tried and tried, but it just wouldn’t start. Sadashiv (superhero) was sent from home to rescue the car. “baby ki gaadi phir se kharaab ho gayi hai, jaake le ao.” Baby. Baby is 31. Baby had jumped into a cab and gone home because she knew Sadashiv had a set of spares & he was used to this. Lovely.

: Manish & I were shooting for Bollywood Nonsensex last year and after one of those shoots wrapped, I decided not to peel off my makeup in the studio. Figured I’d get home and do it. It was around 5:30 pm, in Marol Naka (for all you non Bombay-ites, that’s the real name of Hell) and AGAIN it stopped. No one could save me. No one. My hair was in curls and I had an inch of pink & glitter on my face. AND everyone was staring at me because I was the only car in the Marol universe not moving. I don’t want to talk about this story anymore.

I’m writing about this because 9004 has got a leak and I have been driving around with a mini splash pool in the passenger side for the past 3 days. So I’ve just dropped her off at the mechanics. And as much as I have wanted to wring this car’s neck many many times, I think I’m going to love it the most. Regardless of which car (or teleportation device) I have in the future…. because it was my first. And I remember looking at it with such glee when I first laid eyes on it. I remember feeling all grown up because I had bought a car, a tin can nonetheless, and that feeling was going to be mine forever.

So here’s to you, 9004.
Feel better soon.
Or I will drive you into the sea.