Some poison in your wine, sir?

008........shaken, not stirred........

The Puja Diaries

day four - ashtami

my grandparents came to visit today, after a hiatus of two years of illness, operations and stress. my grandma watched speilberg's AI in the afternoon with me doing the verbal subtitling for her and cried, bless her. my grandfather snored gently beside me for most of the day.
later i went down to the community pandal, hung out with friends, watched the antakshari, etc. high point of the evening - i debuted in the most expensive ensemble i possess, an ethnic mishmash of gold and sunset colours.will upload pix later.
stayed up quite late, first in the pandal with friends, and then a delicious dinner at home, followed by a quick midnight chat with d before bunking down. not a very spectacular day, unless you count the ensemble, which i don't.
night all.
god, my feet are killing me. why are beautiful shoes always the most painful?

The Puja Diaries

day three - saptami

woke up relatively early for the three-minutes-to-fame hosting gig, which turned out to be exhausting, drainingly heating my skin for what felt like hours as i tried to find new contestants to perform (although titan and i were told later that we did a good job). suki di and pal turned up, letting me know only in the morning, thus catching me off-guard and effectively blindsiding any sophisticated hospitality plans i may ever have harboured. we had fun, though. even my uncle and aunt found time to drop by during lunch........
later, i went to meet d at the crossroads, while suki di and pal tagged along, got introduced, passed lifted-eyebrow-judgements (as usual) as we all took a patuli bus. d got the tickets, thus (hopefully) impressing the heck out of my friends with his generous notions of male chivalry -lol- and he and pal and i roamed around hiland park for a bit - suki di had to go meet her Baby (!!)- until about 4, when we bundled pal on to a bus back home, and then went off to watch drona. although we laughed or gaped unbelievingly through most of the movie, it was still fun, if only for the almost skeletal script and storyline. the special effects were stunning, though, much like the silver bracelet with the enormous red stone that d thought fit to bestow on me today.
and although part of me appreciates the fact that he remembered that we went into a shop the previous week and i wistfully stared at the blue version of the same bracelet and told him about looking for the red in my spare time, thus leading him to scour malls near and far till he found the right one, perhaps this is after all a case of too fast, too furious, too much.............even though i do, too, like him a sizeable lot. wondering now what i should get him in return. perhaps a faux leather belt with a wrestlers' tag, hehe....
anyway, i even won a 300 buck gift voucher for longhorns' for being the first person to get the middle row struck out in housie this morning, despite (nearly) getting into hot water regarding the planned Great Indian Pen Hijack Heist (concerned parties and common friends will know what i mean - and by the way, i replaced that pen with a brand new one of the same color ink), and then photographed well tonight in my new white shirt-jeans-black-waistcoat-silver shoes-pearl drops-ensemble (smirks, bows), so all in all, a very positively memorable day of the pujas. long rule the goddess. ended it by playing silly singing games in the park with a bunch of nice friends close to midnight. irresponsibility is such bliss.

P.S.- am uploading pics of the last few puja days here, tonight. feel free to comment and link up!

patiently yours,

trisha

!!!!!!!!

Costume Dressing For the 21st Century Outcast

A SHORT TREATISE ON DRESSING FOR THE AVERAGE REBELLIOUS TEENAGE GIRL circa 2008


The first word on dressing for teenage girls in Kolkata is of course the Mall. This holy institution houses eclectic styles, several designer brands and absolutely no sense of chic dressing. It is a godawful mishmash of fusion trends at the moment. Apparently garish is in. Go Kolkata.




ANYWAY, the kind of girl (see above illustration to SO prove my point) who buys this stuff is usually one very optimistic chick. No amount of gap jeans or Manolo Blahnik shoes or Satya Paul accessories can make you look less

a) pudgy, wobbly, and pouring out of that tight waisted halter-top

OR

b) like a stick insect lost inside clothes that SHOULD make you look good but end up making you looking like a loser of a , well, stick insect with brittle twigs for limbs and cotton fluff in place of a brain.


But then this particular piece of admittedly self-indulgent writing is not about that brand of air-heads, appealing though it may be to rip their psyches apart. No, today I would rather think about the girls that fall outside this category. Like the sporty ones, the funky trendsetters, the punks, the moushumi-s, the romantic ones, the aspiring heroines, and the ones who honestly couldn't care less.

The thing about (us) girls is that we like dressing good, but we don't think the world is coming to an end when we turn up somewhere and the bi*** across the room is wearing our outfit. We're more laid back about clothes and life in general. We don't freak out on accessories and although we do look at winter/fall showcase lines we only "approve and follow" when we "like". Not fanaticism. Just appreciative consumerism. See illustration below.




YES this is going somewhere.

I usually wear jeans and something on top. Mostly ethnic-chic/smart-casuals/punk-grunge if you will, sometimes with a jacket, earrings at a stretch, minimal camouflage, and HEELS. I CANNOT live without heels. I may be topping 5'7ft by now but i still need to feel literally "on top". At all times.
Throw in a ponytail or a bandanna and a bored expression and I am set to go out and conquer.

But recently I've been forced to make some really weird (for me) fashion choices. On the 11th of February I wore a sari. Yes, that's right, a sari. I could barely walk, I was chilled to the backbone from the wind, and it all fell apart as I raced back upstairs to change for my very first date with (bleep), so that I burst into my room wearing nothing but two fistfuls of unravelled sari and a panic-stricken expression.

And today I woke up and put on a skirt.
In self-defence I must say that I never actually went out and bought this thing. Some girls bought it for me for a (disastrous) dance performance in January. I kept it and broke it in today.
It (the aforementioned skirt) is knee length. It is a light cornflower beige in colour. It has TASSELS, for god's sake.
I wore it with a close-fitting white top with long sleeves, brushed open hair and black heels. When I finally worked up the immortal nerve to look in the mirror I swear to god I thought I saw a teenage amazonian version (T/Ray 0.2008??) of Oprah Winfrey. Holy crap.

No guests are ever worth this. Thank god they're gone, so that now i can curse their souls into oblivion in peace.

I will now undress. I will put away this outfit with meticulous care, following all the crease lines along the pretty tassels to perfection. Afterwards I shall don old shorts and a grungy T-shirt, find an isolated corner, and then I will sit and scream for a while, until I'm convinced of my own return to sanity.

Trisha