Find of the Year

It has been a good year. A really really good year. As evidenced by my library, especially.

What, you really thought I could get by without talking about those godawesome, superfabulous prized gems I have?!

Anyway, I think it would be fitting to end this year with a post on the best find this year, without any doubt whatsoever. Hang on, I'm not actually promising this is my last post this year, just saying this might be.

So, I have firm faith that when it comes to books, they find you. When the time is right.

Say what now? Oh did I say that already? About Life? Well, err ... it's a good philosophy and who said I could only use it once, anyway?

Nyhoo, like I was saying ... I find it unbelievable that I spent so much time without knowing this peice of fabulousness which is my recent find.

But now I first insist on elaborating on my philosophy. So, it was Christmas Eve and I was off work early (not really, everyone else had left hours before I and another colleague did). I wanted a present for Christmas. Seeing as how none were forthcoming owing to my home-alone status for the week, I decided the thing to do was go find one. And I trotted off to that humongous bookstore in the neighbourhood. I LOVE the place. How can you not love any place that is five floors filled wall to wall with books?! Okay, I admit, occasionally, when I'm tired, the place tires me. It tires me to look at so many books and not be able to simply pick something up like that and be done with it.

Anyway, Christmas Eve seemed to be one of my luckier days. I walked in and sauntered over to the fiction section. Let my eyes rove over what was on offer, for a bit ... and then, something started to nag at me. "Let's go to the science fiction section" kept playing in my mind on loop and in ten strides, I was there, before I even had a chance to have a mental argument.

I was actually in the wrong bit because I was vaguely looking for anything by Neil Gaiman. But I hadn't yet registered the fact and was browsing. And something caught my eye amid all the dark brooding covers and spines on display. Something rather bright and sunshiny. I looked closer to find something extremely appealing looking back at me.



Just look at that! Isn't that the cutest thing ever?! Tell me it doesn't call out to you! Tell me you're going to find that in the science-fiction section and not be intrigued.

So I picked it up. The front cover says "Moers' creative mind is like J. K. Rowling's on ecstasy", which made me sceptical but the sight of a darned cute bluebear spurred me on to glance at the back cover. Where I found a short description and more reviews. Shall I just say, no second thoughts, I picked it up and handling it like it was a baby, walked around a bit more before heading to the till? I did.

And I started reading it on the way home. I'm sort of half-way through it and I can't remember any other book that I have savoured as much. Any other book that I haven't hurriedly read through just so I could finish and know how it ends. This is ... incredible!

Sometimes, I wonder how I lived before I discovered Neil Gaiman and Stardust, and the Hitchiker's Guide. Now I wonder how I could have existed without knowing of Walter Moers.

To put it very very succinctly, this is the perfect cross between the Hitchiker's Guide and Neil Gaiman's work. I can't agree with the J. K. Rowling reference simply because that's like comparing the Mahabharata and Percy Jackson because they're both mythology based.

"The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear: A Novel", as titles go, is very intriguing. You don't really know what to expect. Is this going to be about re-incarnation? It's about a blue bear. The possibilities are endless! A blue bear. So simple and yet so intricate a creation of imagination. Anything can happen! And does!

He's found floating in a walnut by 6-inch high minipirates and raised by them to sail the seas until he grows too big for their vessel and is abandoned. Whereupon he's found by Hobgoblins who look after him while he repays them by crying for their pleasure. And hen he sets sail on his own and encounters Babbling Billows who teach him to speak. 'Speak' is too less a term to describe Bluebear's education here. He learns "to spell and pronounce, decline and conjugate, substantivize and genitivize, accusativize and dativize ..." and "... murmer and maunder, gabble and prattle, whisper and bellow, converse and confabulate [...] deliver a speech or a soliloquy [...] talk someone else to a standstill, [...] talk [my] way out of a life or death situation [...] propose a toast, swear an oath (and break it), declaim a monologue, compose a verse ..." and much more.

He nearly gets eaten by a monstrous undersea plant that lures its victims by pretending to be a gourmet island, rescued by a Roving Reptilian Rescuer (Pterodactylus Salvator) and becomes his navigator, is enrolled in the school of a Nocturnomath (a seven brained ... errr, creature) where he is taught ever possible thing imaginable, makes friends with a gelatinous prince from the 2364th dimension, an Alpine Imp, meets Troglotrolls, falls into a dimensional hiatus ... and has several more entertaining, well narrated adventures which I'm yet to read.

You want funny sounding complicated names and terms? You've got it. You want a bit of hi-fi sci-fi? Bluebear's story is your bible. You want superior illustrations and presentation? Don't look further.

Seriously, how exactly did I exist without even knowing about this book?! Or Walter Moers for that matter.

My only tiny gripe is that the paras aren't indented so occasionally it's hard to tell where one ends and another begins but it's a very minor issue, one you hardly notice when you're so engrossed in the story.

Read it, you're missing out and it's not worth missing out on. And when you've finished it, find all the other books you can by Walter Moers and keep them safe.

I'm going to be building a temple for Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams and Walter Moers.

On Joining the Mid-Twenties Brigade.

So, Happy Birthday to me! Make that Happy 25th Birthday to me. 27th December 2009. And indeed it was a happy one :)

Birthdays have usually meant major sulks for me seeing as how they come bang in the middle of Christmas holidays. It didn't help that I studied in a school run by Christian missionaries so we were given more holidays than other schools. Nor did it help that after a point, friends always lived too far away to really be there at any birthday parties. Or maybe, the problem was more that I expected more than I could have and ended up disappointed. There have been a few birthdays which were, if not fantastic, very nice indeed! Like in 5th standard when my then girl chums descended on the house (they had to be invited, of course) and we proceeded to have a typical mid-primary party with too much oil in our hair, ghastly outfits and bright smiles as I cut a home-baked cake and fed on mum's cooking. The photos are around somewhere. Girl chums of yore on the other hand ... we've drifted far apart. As was bound to happen.

Or take the one in tenth standard. Held a few days early (for some now-forgotten reason) ... when my then bunch of friends stopped by. It was a fun day! My parents were away and it was Ajji who took such pains to make pav-bhaji and the requisite sweet-dish (I'm ashamed to say I can't remember if it was narali-holgi or sakhar-bhath), ensuring my day was special. And of all the people who were there that day, Gem is the only one I'm still in touch with. Gem who was with me on my birthday last year, in Singapore. Who never fails to wish me on my birthday, proving on that one day that he isn't all the forgetful-absentminded prof everyone accuses him of being :) Okay so he was trying a number that I haven't used in two years today, but he did IM AND email, I ain't complaining ONE bit!

Today's though ... something else again.

I had friends ring my doorbell at 12 prompt (while I was yakking on IM with another friend and on the phone with celestialrays) ... and while they didn't bring a cake, just the sight of all those friendly faces, having given up plans of a 'boys only night out' just to be there at 12, that nailed it for me. They stayed for tea and left. All the time narrating tales of who had farted the most in the car and how they had maintained a defensive attitude and how everyone else reacted, endless repetitions of dialogues from 3-idiots in random contexts (to me, to them they were in-jokes) ... and they produced a bottle of wine. Which turned out to be a recycled birthday present of another friend who leaves the country tomorrow. They're honest. I'll give them that. And it was bloody good wine!

And after much faffing about, I dozed off and woke up early-ish. Folks've long ago learned not to call me at early hours, even on my birthday, simply because I won't answer. I value sleep above all else, sorry. So, for a change, I was up and calling the folks. No, I wasn't demanding to be wished. I just wanted mum's naan recipe. But of course, everyone had to wish me first after which I got afore-requested recipe. After which I went out to get needed groceries. And had to do a quick re-arrangement and re-planning of chosen menu. That done, I got down to cooking and with the help of two absolutely lovely people, lunch was made. Mint and peas 'pulao'*, seviayya kheer, raita, a chhole-aloo hashed sabzi and kneaded atta (we forgot about making 'naan' which were actually going to be chapatis, owing to leaving it till everyone else arrived so they'd be hot. And the sabzi was too less :P).

And then there was a 90 minute wait while the rest of the party was aroused from deep slumber and told to get their asses here fast. Which they did. And the rest of the evening whizzed by as we ate hungrily and then people played Bluff and Poker while I played 'DJ' and generally faffed around. After which a round of chai happened amidst watching clips of Omid Djallili, Russell Peters and The Mitchell and Webb Look.

They left a while ago, after helping me clean the place up AND do dishes. The house suddenly feels empty and it's beginning to hit me now that tomorrow Life will be back to its routine hum and I will be a year older than I was, a day ago.

So what's it like to be 25? It's only a number, what are you talking about?

I'm kidding. It doesn't work like that though you know. You don't suddenly feel different at the stroke of twelve (or, if you want to be really pedantic, then whatever hour that you were born at). There's no nirvana-spray that hits you, nor are there moments of epiphany just because the clock has struck. Not for me anyway, if it's happened to you, well then, good for you! (And do tell! ;) )

But do I feel different? Hell yes! :) It's been a fantastic year. Fantastic. Even if not everything has gone per plan. But I guess that's the beauty of it. Or maybe, that is the point of it. I don't really know. Maybe it's not your plan that you focus on but that of the cosmos because it cancels your plans and makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise, which go exactly as per its design. I don't really know, I'm only 25!

I feel different though. Not in a "Gawd I hated beans last year but this year I'm willing to eat them, but only if they are prepared in a certain way" different, heck, I doubt I can actually begin to describe what this 'different' is. But, it is. Different. (Insert quick ad for Maggi Hot and Sweet Tomato Chilli Sauce.)

Take today's party for example. Birthdays so far have meant a day of major sulks because friends couldn't/wouldn't be around and I had rathe large expectations of a birthday party. But this year, I am incredibly happy at having organised things myself and even spent my 'special day' cooking for other people. Well I didn't do it all by myself but I bothered. As opposed to being whiny kid wanting things on a platter. God, I've been awful. Prolly still am, a whole lot.

I'm a teeny bit more responsible than before, maybe. But I have a long way to go. A very very long way. And I only hope that those around me will have the patience to deal with me while I grow up still. That even more, they will tell me off when I need it.

I've done loads of stuff I've wanted to but didn't really get around to. Sometimes, I've even managed to step out of my comfort zone. Not necessarily big hulking steps that took me far out, maybe just teeny-tiny baby steps which still do make a difference. Some difference.

I might've learned a lasting lesson or two about relationships. And I hope I can act upon them. Consistently.

I have a good life. And I'm very very thankful for it.

Presents? With an entire year that was one huge present, they seem rather ... insignificant. It seems a bit silly to want material things I mean (and believe me, I was hard pressed to come up with a wish list at all because I invarably thought "But I already have everything I want and need!") But I did get presents. The girls gave me soaps etc from Lush (with the boxes stuffed with popcorn which tasted of soap [duh!] ... it's put me and our male chef off popcorn for a while), and the guys got me curling tongs! Of all the inexplicable things. No, apparently there is some convoluted explanation, some in-joke of sorts. Boys! I was rather delighted with it though because I might've wanted one of those vaguely.

Oddly enough, the lack of books hasn't really bothered me. 25 working it's magic, hah!

And, I'm being taken to the theatre one evening :D

I also bought some stuff, which is to be considered as given by the folks:




The funny thing is, this isn't stuff I'd have picked up earlier. I don't wear sunglasses. Ever. But I have a pair now! And boots! Well, I've wanted them for a while but I've put off getting them and a watch for so long that ... it's a bit of a surprise, having now bought them just like that. Seen, loved and bought. You can keep looking for something for ages and then you'll find it when you're least expecting it. Enjoy window shopping in the meantime, and don't fret about finding what you're looking for. It'll find you.

I guess that really is the lesson in all this turning-25 business.

And now for the best bits. Always save them for the last ;)

Words from two very precious people, girls as dear as none other, souls without whom this year wouldn't have meant as much as it does and without whom, Life would be dull, dull, dull (and who make me wonder how I ever got by without them, before).

Says the Lady of Lorien, our Kind Galadriel:

"Of books and cats. Of photographs and memories. Of intellect and unnatural humility.

Dewey is all of the above and so much more. Over the last year or so that I have known her (has it really been a year?!) we have become very close – I feel a connection with her that I feel with so few other people.

I’m not referencing any of her posts because it is simply impossible to find one that is better than any other. That being said, her blog is just one of the places where you can see the tremendous potential she has as a storyteller, as a thinker. If you know her as I have, you will realize that this is just a very minuscule tip of the enormous iceberg of talent lurking underneath the surface.

That doesn’t mean that she isn’t fun. What it does mean is that she has the ability to separate the serious from the silly, to know exactly the difference between cerebral and crazy.

As she steps into a new year, a new age, I can only expect that she will achieve everything she sets out to do and more. And I hope she does plan the much promised trip to the USA!

Happy birthday, girl."

And how could anything be complete without the wisdom and insanity of the High Priestess of the Temple of Crazy and Her Royal Madness, Catty? So she wrote:

"jab we met: the story... as most stories... is different...
loca had done a piece abt this new blogger from london who was looking for other blog-pals. and i, who NEVER ever click on links *dewey will vouch for that*, clicked on it and reached DDD.
i read her for a while, commented *NOT the random comments i leave these days... relevant-to-post-comments*, then got busy with that thing called life. then, all of a sudden, i was to go to london for a work stint... and i wasn't sure abt the whole deal. bijli kadki... realization dawned... and i went back to dewey's *again, from loca's*... and left her a rather vague comment asking if she'd mind helping me out.
i got an instant reply... like she were waiting for my mail... the rest, as they say, is history. she was there at the airport *altho, an hour and half late* to greet a nearing-panic me. she found me a place to stay and made sure that i never... not for a day... felt lonely in the strange new country. for that itself, i can adopt her.

she sings songs for me on FB. sends me nagging offlines, mails and scraps. ALL if i'm not online for ONE day. no, it doesn't annoy me. it makes me feel rather special... coz i know she means it! reason # 2 why i could adopt her... i doubt anybody else misses me as much. and yes, she DOES get points for being so darned vocal abt it! :)

it's rare that i get along with anyone this well... and it's even more rare that she doesn't annoy me. never ever. in fact, no matter how blue i'm feeling, if she's online, i'll login for 10 mins... JUST to say hi to her. and that, in itself brightens my day considerably.

right now... in the midst of a lovely xmas holiday, here i am.. ignoring my mom, unreturned phone calls and the man i married... to write this piece for her. bcoz i hope it'll bring a smile to her already lovely face. and that, is worth ALL the effort.
and of course, i have to sing a song for you... so i shall repeat what you'd set as ur FB status, dewey:
door kahiin jab din dhal jaaye,
lovely dewey... b'day manaaye... khaana khilaaye...

here's wishing you a wonderful bday! and hoping that you get LOADS of lovely gifts!
love you loads child... come over soon. we'll have a blast, i promise. and yes, i will still label ur wedding album as "ek vivaah aisa bhi". no matter when you get married!
MUAH"

Did I not say, fantastic day and year? Oh, hang on.

Hey, Cosmos! You're fabulous!

I certainly would not have done such a post another time.

*the voice of culinary authority [between us three], who is a pretty good cook [alert, is MALE], informed me that it was NOT pulao unless everything was cooked at once, not rice added to masala as was my chosen recipe.

The Newly Marrieds

It had been a few weeks since they'd gotten married. All their time together before and anticipation of what was to come had not prepared them for the reality of it. Much like any other newly married couple, they were navigating what looked like an area littered with landmines. Occasionally they'd step on one. Or just about miss. Mostly though, they seemed to float on air and live in a state of bliss.

It was a weekend morning. She'd let him snooze while she woke up before him and pottered about. There was something about these mornings, they made her restless. She couldn't fathom sleeping in ... maybe it was because they afforded her those few rare and precious opportunities for absolute 'me time' with the added bonus of the house being inhabited but quiet and dewy fresh out.

Having sorted her beauty regimen (goodness, she really hadn't had much time lately had she?!), she decided it was time to wake her husband up and made her way to their room. And paused. Their room? Wow ... that sure sounded ... strange. And there he was. Her husband. Geez ... that sounded stranger, she still couldn't get used to it. But the sight of him fast asleep there, very much within reach, this she could get used to. She couldn't have enough of that.

Smiling fondly she reached over and caressing his hair called to him to wake up.

He opened his eyes drowsily, smiled sleepily, opened his eyes fully ... and SCREAMED.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" he demanded.

"What ... what ... I ... huh ... uh ... what?!" was all she could sputter putting a hand to her forehead. Where her fingers found the set face mask she'd applied earlier.

Oh the joys of being married!

And of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, they had guests and someone ventured to ask if everything was okay.

"Oh yes, yes" said the new wife of a few weeks "He .. uh ... saw a cockroach."

Sound Advice

I happened to be given a dinky cd-player/radio as a Christmas present, sort of. So I took it home finally and as is my habit, I had my earphones on since I was travelling and all. I attracted a fair few curious looks and half expected someone to come up to me and say

"Hey love, there's no need to carry that thing around you know? They've got these music players these days that are about the size of a postage stamp. Maybe put that on your Christmas wish list."

I'd have laughed. I would! And maybe then replied with "Blimey! You don't say!"

Comfort

has a shelf life

To be heard and not seen

I miss the days of ICQ and random chat rooms.

All that anonymity was very comforting, a lot of times. Being able to say something at random, ramble on and then vanish without a trace, move on, with hardly a chance of bumping into the person you spilled the beans to, ever again ... reassuring. In my little bubble anyway.

And I don't intend 'beans' to mean salacious secrets that I do not want to voice before the world, attaching my identity to them. I mean random inconsequential things which I just want to say without having the burden of recognition tagged to them. I want to be able to simply throw my thoughts to the wind and let them go where they do, do their own thing but not come back to me. I want to be able to throw caution to the wind and simply voice.

I know, I have a blog. A (fairly) anonymous blog. Which serves the purpose quite well most days. But even then, it still has an identity. Here, I am DewdropDream. Who, in reality, could be anyone. But is still someone, tangible in some obscure way. Some days, I don't want that either.

A number of people who read this know me outside the virtual world. And just occasionally it annoys me. I tell myself it was a momentary lapse of judgement to have let them come here. I'm sorry, but I do feel that way. Heck, I'm sometimes very glad that not everybody who reads, comments. Those are the days I do not want to know who it is that I'm addressing. I do not want a name, face, link to tag you with. I don't want to know. I want to be able to just let go and finish it at that. I don't want to have it known that I was behind whatever random point it is. I like pretending there is no one around listening, reading, assimilating ... wanting to take it further.

Some days, I really and truly want to be nobody.