As was commanded

This is a measure of how whipped I am. I tag everyone. Everyone who ever was, is, and ever will be. Now do it, all of you. You too. Nao.

A
- Available: Nope
- Age: 20
- Annoyance: Too much salt.
- Animal: Woof woof.

B
- Beer: Guiness, Hoegaarden, Bomber.
- Birthday/Birthplace: February 4th/ Dehradun
- Body Part on opposite sex: Eyes
- Best feeling in the world: She said: 'sleeping in your lover's arms'. I concur.
- Blind or Deaf: Whadahell.
- Best weather: Sunny but cloudy and breezy.
- Been in Love: Constantly.
- Been on stage?: Often.
- Believe in yourself?: Hell yes.
- Believe in life on other planets: Of course. We came from somewhere.
- Believe in miracles: Most recent one.
- Believe in Magic: The corny, lovey-dovey kind, hell yes.
- Believe in God: If only to kick his ass.

C
- Car: Aurelia
- Candy: Dark chocolate.
- Color: blue, green. blue-green.
- Cried in school: Nope
- Chocolate/Vanilla: Vanilla frosting, on chocolate cake. Lemon icing on vanilla cake.
- Country to visit: Greece, Italy, Egypt.

D
- Day or Night: Day.
- Danced: You don't want to see me even try.
- Dance in the rain?: The time there was hailstones the size of golfballs, I did prance about to not get walloped.
- Do the splits?: Never

E
- Eggs: Fluffy cheesy egg white omelette.
- Eyes: Mine? or what I like? My beloved's are Bottomless.
- Everyone has: Something to whine about.

F
- First crush: Hahaha. A while ago :D
- First thoughts waking up: Usually drowned out by my mother screaming about something or the other.
- Food: Don't you want my recipes. They're coming. This chap demanded I share.
- Greatest Fear: Failure.
- Giver or taker: Narcissistic question.
- Goals: A couple.
- Get along with your parents?: Sometimes

H
- Hair Colour: Black in the summers, browner in the winters.
- Height: 6'3''-ish.
- Happy: Perpetually
- How do you want to die: Whadahell
- Health freak?: Sporradically but religiously while at it.
- Hate: Deplorable, detestable concept.

I
- Ice Cream: Homemade butterscotch.
- Instrument: Clarinet.

J
- Jewelry: My little earring on the upper fleshy part of my ear.
- Job: Looking for one. Please help me find one?

K
- Kids: Hate the bastards.
- Kickboxing or karate: Kickboxing.
- Keep a journal?: This?

L
- Love: Mine.
- Laughed so hard you cried: Nope
- Love at first sight: Living proof.

M
- Mooned anyone?: Nope.
- Marriage: No reason not to.
- Motion sickness?: No, though the buggy sequence in HL2 made me very nauseous for some reason.

N
- Number of Siblings: 1
- Number of Piercings: 1

O
- One wish: For Maruti to manufacture the Zen again.

P
- Place you'd like to live: Bombay
- Perfect Pizza: Homemade marinara, 1:4 Gouda:Mozarella, Onions, chopped black and green olives cooked in olive oil, capers, bell peppers, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes.
- Pepsi/Coke: Coke.

Q
- Questionaires: She made me do it.

R
- Reason to cry: Only once recently.
- Reality T.V.: Hahahahahahahhahahahaha. Most fun behind the teleprompter.
- Roll your tongue in a circle: Like, sexily? Hawjikipawji.

S
- Song: current favorite - Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas
- Shoe size: 13
- Slept outside: Often as a kid.
- Seen a dead body? A few, unfortunately.
- Smoked?: Never. Not even a puff.
- Skinny dipped?: Nope
- Shower daily?: Yep. For the hair if nothing else.
- Sing well?: Nope.
- In the shower?: Occasionally
- Swear?: Wait, do I swear in the shower?
- Stuffed Animals?: I am a stuffed animal. Can't you tell?
- Single/Group dates: Party for two.
- Strawberries/Blueberries: Strawberries. And cream. And chocolate. And, not telling.
- Scientists need to invent: A time freezing thingie. Just because. Okay fine, because I want more time to do stuff and I know if I sleep too late I won't wake up on time and my already excellent sleep routine will get even more excellent.

T
- Time for bed: Bed time's when you say it is. Nyeah.
- Thunderstorms: Lightning rod?
- TV: Scrubs, South Park, 30 Rock, Coupling
- Touch your tongue to your nose: Nope.

U
- Unpredictable: It's what makes the world go round.

V
- Vegetable you hate: Karela, Bhindi, Baingan, Shalgam, Arabi. I wanted to share their Hindi names to make you all relive all your childhood horror stories.
- Vegetable you love: Tomatoes. Not raw, but from a culinary perspective, there's so damn much you can do with them.
- Vacation spot: Between the sheets. (Get your minds collectively out of the gutter)

W
- Weakness: It starts with a W
- When you grow up: Open a restaurant :D
- Worst feeling: Not feeling at all when someone dear dies.
- Wanted to be a model?: Let me tell you, you don't.
- Where do we go when we die: Dominos.
- Worst weather: Floody rain.

X
-X-Rays: I have this awesome one of my mouth open, which I'll try to find in my old phone, and I have this awesome one of my spine. I'll also try and take a decent picture of the one I recently had taken of my ankle, with a chunk of floating bone.

Y
-Year it is now: 2009
- Yellow: Not enough water consumed.

Z
- Zoo animal: White tiger
- Zodiac sign: Aquarius

My Beloved

I realize this blog has had an altogether lack of chagrin (or anything else at all) despite being killed by the ladies. Suffice to say Celine Dion could be singing that horrid song involving the mouse and bird and her scary nose, as, contrary to what this chap (and others) would have to say, I am still very much alive. I am also very upset that so many of you have password-protected your damn blogs. I want the damn password damnit. Or invite. Whatever. Damnit.

Speaking of mice, I have a new toy, a very sexy little item by the name of M570RU-U which reeks of awesome. For those so inclined, T9300 Core2Duo 2.5ghz, 4GB ram, 512MB nVidia 9800m gts, 17" wuxga (1920x1200) screen, and Blu-Ray. Wheeee!

I won't promise to update again very soon, as there's always a chance I just won't get around to it. Now I'm not busy, and I'm not gleefully unemployed, I'm just unemployed, and quite tired of it.(Consider this a subliminal message. PLEASE FIND ME A JOB!) I'm also quite tired of being away from a certain lady, and no, that lady isn't my favorite-est city in the whole wide India (Bombay for those of you that missed the post that sat up here for eight months), but she is in said favorite-est city. Now let's all say it together and get it out of our systems, Awwwwwwww, Reno's in lowe.

This lovely lady I'm very much in love with happens to be a good foot shorter than me, (so all those lambu-ji jokes this chick made may be brought around again) and a rather promising two years older than me (compared to my track record of five-ish) and may it be mentioned, she's rather dashing. Very much so. She's been a hit with the family, including the sister who up until now has been inclined to possess nothing but pure liquid hate for any and all of the last dozen(s), and with all the friends who've encountered her (I won't say much about hearing her voice, as she didn't use it too much around the aforementioned sister) who've consistently had something to say about the sheer unadulterated happy that's been dancing its way across my features and overlong gait. I also got on rather well with her folks and received an invite over my upcoming trip down to cook in their kitchen. I got around to meeting them last Feb when I went down to spend our birthdays together (hers is two days after mine).

Now this lovely lady is very lovable. I love her, and so should you. I mean not as much as I do, and not in the ways I express it to her either, but she's very very lovable. So love her for loving me. Also, the presence of this lovely lady has introduced an immense sense of urgency to find myself a job in my favorite-est city as she lives there and while visiting or being visited by her for a week every couple weeks while unemployed is fun, I suppose it would be even better while I had a way to earn my keep as I'd definitely be in the same city for a longer period of time.

Right then, I'm here, and I will write again, just not immediately. Or maybe I will write immediately. Only one way to find out. I'll also be in Bombay for a little over a week at the end of this month, so Bombay crowd, help me find a job, Pwease. The lovely lady and I will be very grateful, and we'll be happy to share some of the buffets we love so much with you. Including one where they have all these awesome dips and stuff.

Oh and those of you with invite-only blogs. I want in. Sniff.

Bombay it is.

I realize I haven't updated this place in a considerable while. For that I'm unabashedly unashamed and utterly and absolutely unapologetic. So nyeah. But you have to admit. I was able to keep you occupied with images of humping cows.

This day finds me in Bombay, the city of dreams, the city of love. Well fuck, I have no idea if it actually is all of those, I'm just there. A not-so-early morning flight which I left the house way too early for, despite living rather close to the airport, later, I found myself in the cramped confines of a largely empty Go Air plane, which refused to leave the ground. The pilot would allow it to traverse a few feet, and then just when the engine (not to mention the passengers) figured it was time to leave the ground, he'd slam down on the brakes and the sound of a bell would chime through the plane, as if to reassure us that the pilot wasn't in fact fucking with us, and we were only progressing a stage of lift off.

To reiterate, lift off we did. I figure the pilot was a former drag racer (possibly a member of Street Devils), the last time he seemed on the verge of teasing us with another possible take-off and the engine took an even deeper breath; he chose that moment to floor it. A cramped, excessively turbulent, drowsy two hours later, all the while being stared at by a tiny spectacled girl, I looked out the window (my only respite from said girl) to see the plane lowering itself from the clouds, to what I dubbed the 'nether clouds', a phenomenon that has seemed to hang over Bombay for the month I've been here. At some point, the neat, blocks of farmland gave way to a mass of land that for some reason that defies logic reminded me of a wet dog.

Soon after viewing the little peninsula-like bit I couldn't (and still can't) name that I'd spotted on some map, and keeping an eye open for what I had been informed was the world's largest slum which I was unfortunately unable to catch, flight E717 (or something) landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, where upon reviving Ralph and catching my network in the curiously fish-ily tinged Bombay air, an obscene number of very obscenely worded messages arrived, the gist of which seemed to promise death by paper cut for not meeting before leaving or calling and saying farewell, in this day and age where everyone and their great aunt has a cell phone attached at the hip. As the tiny spectacled girl seemed to be struggling with her suitcase, I offered to help get it down, at which point she squeaked and immediately sat down, with her hands over her head as if hoping to catch the suitcase if it fell. I decided to get my own hand bag and make my way to the little bus offering to take the lot of us off the runway and into the bowels of the airport.

I chose this bus ride to make my first phone call from Bombay, to the voice I can never get out of my head. The voice I dream about at night, and have done so for over two years now, the voice I was lost to from the instant it first fell upon my ears, when I got knocked on my ass in a way so fulfilling, so satisfying, that to this day I still remember with vivid detail that fateful Saturday evening at Le Meridian, two years ago November, when the owner of that voice's first glance in my direction sent a lightning bolt down my spine. But unfortunately, this post isn't about her, I don't feel I can do her justice here. We will get back to her though.

Received by an uncle's assistant, followed by a maiden voyage down a highway I was unfamiliar with, I felt as if I was exploring some part of North Delhi, excepting the fact that there were a lot of billboards advertising films and TV shows, and the cabs had regions of Bombay written on the backs of them . Of note would be Thane. Now for some reason I've been convinced that Thane is pronounced in a way similar to the title brought into popular culture by the play about MacBeth, The Thane of Cawdor. That (crazed) notion was shattered by someone beloved, with an unforgettable voice, which made the conviction-shattering permissible, if not acceptable and encourageable.

I'm yet to actually visit Thane, or really have an idea as to where in Bombay it is, or Worli for that matter (I know it's at the other end of this incomplete bridge next to some fort in Bandra) but I have begun to understand the layout of this city, and I can claim to have taken a ferry from Andheri to Mud Island, something a lot of the folks I worked with at that particular studio in Mud Island couldn't, as they drove (suckers). I've also mastered the train system, walked up and down Marine Drive four times (in one day) and fallen in love with the chocolate chip cookies from Candies, not to mention just about everything Mad Over Doughnuts has to offer. Yes, my cast and crew are into a lot of junk food.

I should specify as to what exactly I'm doing in Bombay. I'm working on one of the multitudes of dance reality shows on air at the moment. The only difference being that this one's somewhat newer, it's got better known faces, and it was aggressively advertised on the channel it airs on, the sister channels, the internet, the radio, every second freaking billboard on the aforementioned highway, and (apparently) all the ‘artists’ went to the PVR (I’m not sure if PVR is something different in Bombay) or something and promoted the show from there. As I'm with the production house, I have the usual production duties that include floor managing, writing out time codes during the actual shooting, supervising construction of props, and later, the editing, as well as interacting with the various 'artists' (some of which have gotten to hear the voice I love so much over the course of the numerous phone calls I make to hear that voice myself), and finally, visiting the rehearsal halls and overseeing the choreographers' progress.

What I didn't count on happening within the first two weeks, but did intend for eventually was to work with the director. He initially gave me the slightly creative task of assisting the chap who handles all those funky colored moving lights all over the set and picking out appropriate color schemes for the various performances. Fortunately, the same chap found me amiable enough to teach me how to use the majority of his own, as well as the DOP’s lighting console. Following this, I got to handle camera cues during the actual shoot, and finally, wound up with director during the technical rehearsal, making sure the performance rehearsals were being shot and any and all openings and color changes were duly noted, and conveyed to the camera crew during the actual shoot. I don’t think I need to mention just how elated I really am throughout our three shoot day each week. I am still convinced I’m screwing up on a regular basis, something I keep asking a colleague of mine to point out for me.

I’m yet to truly explore Bombay, and I really think I ought to get started on that, considering I’ve been here a month and spent most of my time at work, or else in the loving arms of the woman with the unshakeable voice (over the phone though, unfortunately, she’s in Delhi). I’d appreciate any and all recommendations; I may have this Thursday off.

For the record, I didn’t think this post would do adequate justice to my beloved, so there’s a whole post about her coming up. Just keep pushing me to post it.

The Grass is Always Greener

Right, so work's been insane. I haven't updated recently, my bad. This isn't really a proper post, but someone sent me this by email and I thought it was worth sharing.


It's important in life to reach out, to strive for greater achievements, to go for that greener grass that is on the other side of the fence.....


But one must also be careful……


Sometimes you can reach too far!


But when you find yourself overextended and you’re stuck in a situation that you can’t get out of, there is one thing that you should always remember.....








Not everyone who shows up is there to help you.



Take care folks.

Not all addictions are bad...

First of all, I don't have half a fucking clue as to why my title's in Hindi. For the uninformed, it spells out a variation (such as my own lackluster Hindi writing ability would bear) of "Not all addictions are bad." On to the post.

Now wait, second of all, I apologize for not writing for so long. The aforementioned not-so-bad addiction is to blame. Now before the lot of you bring out your torches and pitchforks, and I turn around to see this chick who blogs less than I do now running away after having glued giant screws to the neck of my addiction, understand that the addiction is a good addiction. Also, someone tell me why the fuck the first chap who got the torch and pitchfork treatment had giant screws on his neck anyway. I never got it, or the green skin pigmentation. On to franken-addiction.

Hello everyone, my name is Renovatio, and I'm a workaholic. Not just that, I love my job. Every bit of it. From the lack of sleep to the obscene hours, the creative freedom to the trust and respect that flows through my ever-changing cast and crew and myself, to the opportunity to meet a myriad of smart, talented, hard-working and equally addicted folks. I, the ever-present production chap, the future film maker, am currently working as a freelance Assistant Director. Not just that, as I work with smaller production houses and directors, I get to be sole AD, and I couldn't be more elated.

For those not so well-versed with film and television production, the work of the AD is all-encompassing. While some may assume the AD is everyone's shared mundoo, experience would say that the AD actually turns everyone else into his mundoo. Now perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I've only been fortunate enough to work with good directors, especially the one whose organisation I find myself fast becoming a partner of.

How that happened, I'm yet to understand, but the man and I work together well, he respects my opinion, gives me creative license, and immense authority. Someone once told me that they hated authority due to the flak that accompanies it when shit hits the fan. I have to say, in the last week, a lot of shit hit the fan. It hit it, spread around for miles, got carried by the wind, fertilized a few fields, and provided heat for a couple of kettles of chai.

I digress. An Assistant Director , well a good one, which I hope I am, knows all the ropes of a production. He or she should know how what looks good on camera, what angles work, how to achieve what looks good on said camera, how to deal with the asswipe senior producer from the larger client organization *cough*miditech*cough* the grand high client deemed unworthy to produce the particular segment we were working on, the same senior producer chap who looks down on the AD, despite said AD being a good eight inches taller. This same AD also needs to anticipate production disasters, such as same larger asswipe *cough*miditech*cough* organization's generator door tearing a hired twelve-by-twelve foot skimmer, the big white sheet thingie used to cut off sunlight, among others. The sole AD, part of a smaller production, say a 35-person crew, also doubles up as an AD in another sphere of production, the Art Director. Now I will admit quite openly and candidly that I'm pathetic at art. I can make a stick figure look sickly. But when the time came, or rather, when the chap who owned the mud hut and staircase we wanted to shoot against came out armed with a stick and a few large rocks, the cameraman, who I had somehow managed to strike a decent rapport with, and my own artistically-challenged self had to make a very bland set of stairs presentable. My aforementioned authority came of immense use here. I got the first three steps painted with dung, followed by mud, and then painted with a large flower, so large that it was nigh-impossible to screw up, all without lifting a finger myself. That isn't to say I wasn't doing anything, but I'm working on not digressing from the point here.

There's a new show coming up on Doordarshan, one which has left me with immense respect for the creative heads at Unicef. It's written as a K-serial, a saas-bahu piece-of-shit, but with a progressively greater message of women's empowerment. It's being produced by the larger *cough* oh alright, I see this joke's getting old now, it's being produced by Miditech, and we were called in to do the opening credits. A day was spent in a studio in Noida, which the brief informed us as being forty-four by twenty-seven feet, a production dream come true. On reaching the studio, bright and early, at six in the morning, having left the house at a quarter to three to fetch lights while my colleagues fetched the cameraman and camera, the studio was indeed its promised dimensions. Unfortunately, however, it contained an enormous and tenacious pillar bang in the middle. This pillar effectively split the most promising and dreamy studio into four separate mini-studios. Through some clever thinking on the part of our camerman, one of the more experience light boys, a South Indian chap who was after my life to see his PCR room and FCPs, and a slight adjustment of the chroma sheet of my own, not to mention a little kid who tripped over a power cord and dropped a stray Sony Cybershot, we managed to salvage one entire half of the studio for use. There was a camerman from Wilderness Films on site, who had accompanied the Digi-Beta 790i we had rented for the day, who was unfortunately relegated to camera assistant, and even more unfortunately, turned into a spot boy on my behest as there was already a senior camera assistant from Wilderness present, and the fact that I had no one else to force to run around to get stuff. This chap took his role in those circumstances rather well, and was rather good-natured about it. He even went so far as to tell me that I'd make a great director because of my honesty and passion. What was the source of my honesty? Threatening to hit our cabbie with a brick if he hit the puppy napping under the cab with a rock. Ah well, live and let live. That sure made my day, if nothing else, assuring me that there's hope yet. I also had a moment, an epiphany, if you will. Production is the work for me. I really connected with a subject. We needed to shoot a girl jumping in silhouette, but she had a problem with her knees, so I took a call and put another actor in a similar skirt and dupatta, had the make-up guy tie her hair in a braid similar to the little girl's, and made her do the jump. She was a bit apprehensive of the limited space, especially considering the fact that there were three rather large lights at the end of her jump site, which had been on for a few hours and were quite hot. Trust came into the picture here. I had spent some time with the whole cast over the day, and convinced her that I'd stand at the lights and catch her, provided she ran as fast as she could and jumped as hard as she could. We got a great jump out of it, despite the Unicef chap telling me that he needed his actor for a few days of shooting, so I had better catch her. At this stage, the entire crew also revealed to me that they had assumed I was twenty-eight. A look at my license, and the realization that I was a full nine years younger brought a look to their faces I rather enjoyed. Still, they accorded me more respect from that point on.

The following morning, my colleagues had (thankfully) deigned to fetch the lights and camera themselves, and met me on the outskirts of NH8, rather close to my own house, so I didn't have to leave too early. We were headed to bum-fucking-nowhere Sohna Village. Our crew arrived on site by 6:10 in its entirety, and the slightly shaken producer, his AD (no prizes for guessing who) and the camerman surveyed the site and blocked our locations for the nine shots we had to take. As we had a nice big skimmer and three hours of soft sunlight, we were all pegged to be heading home by eleven. Unfortunately, the cast waltzed in at a quarter to ten. The camerman had to run to his full-time job at this point, so we were desperate for a camerperson to replace him. A small note to be made; 95% of freelance folks in production have a full time job, and their organization is either unaware that they're freelancing, or else they don't feel like firing them as they're that good. A tiny bit of those freelancers with a production organization, such as our replacement camerman, joined their organizations on the condition that they get to freelance as well. Something for me to keep in mind for the future. Someone remind me about this in a year or something.

Regardless. We were about to start shooting with what available sunlight we had, when the costume chap piped up with an admission of having neglected to iron all the costumes, and as there was no power in bum-fucking-nowhere Sohna Village, he had to travel the thirty-odd kilometers to Sohna proper, and get the costumes ironed. At this point a senior asswipe production chap from Miditech popped over to breathe down our necks, and inform us in full detail as to just how useless we were. We wasted two hours with him, and another hour planning amongst ourselves, when we discovered that Miditech didn't intend to feed us, and so we were going to have to hope the producer's wife would be quick about acquiring extras, not to mention food, and get back to us soon. The rest of the day involved sporadic shooting (read nearly none, we shot a grand total of 300 frames that day), and much waiting around for the lights to arrive. The lights finally did arrive at 10:30 at night, which the cameraman and I had gone to fetch from the main road, and having once reached location, the generator refused to start. The gen-set chaps, the (new) light boys, the producer, and the cameraman and I spent the next two hours taking turns climbing up the truck to give starting the generator a shot. Right before the generator finally got fired up, we had just finished parking all four of our cars in front of the gate we intended to shoot at with headlights on full, in an attempt to secure enough light to shoot with. Around this point I met and befriended the ADs of sets and production from Miditech for this show, my own direct counterparts from the much larger (330 vs our measly 35) production crew that had arrived to shoot the next day. The sets chap was a decent guy, helped me out a ton the following day, including letting me crap in their loo, and the production one, a rather dashing young lady with rather manly hands (I needed some hands for a door-opening shot the following day) was a bit on the shy side, but she ran around as much as she could to help me out.

Having spent a full thirty-eight hours at the location, our crew limped away and headed home-ish. I came home to shower, the cameraman visited his boss who had suffered a heart attack, and the producer and his wife went off to get their kid from his grandparents' place. We reconvened at my house to do a final shot at around 10, and packed up the whole production around midnight. Time well spent, and immense learning.

I hope this sort of makes up for my absence, my last month has involved work in similar settings, situations and circumstances. I know I mentioned a Street Devils post, but if you'd notice my profile now contains a Street Devils blog. I'll write about it there.

Right-o

I've been busy in a way that defies all norms and customs. My bloggiepoo also turned one yesterday. To make up for my absence recently, and the absence that is to follow, allow me to leave you with an image of the most adorable thing in the world.

There's this gorgeous female dog who's just had a pup. I'll assume the rest died of the cold(not so aww-worthy), but she's got this one handsome little pup following her around, I get the feeling a slobbery lab had his way with her at some point in the recent past. Now this female's quite the drama queen. Whenever she sees me, she'll come running over and start whining, more so when I'm walking my dog. Last night, she came over to me with a paw in the air, but knowing her, I couldn't be certain as to whether she had actually gotten hurt or was just trying to get some attention. She was sitting a little distance away with her right paw up, and her handsome little critter was curled up in a ball, fast asleep under a bush. My idiot of a dog went running over to examine the pup, who haughtily stood up, jumped back a few steps, looked at mommy, and then sat down and put his right paw up (Cue the awwws).

I'll take a few days to get around to my next post, but I'll leave you with a little teaser of what to expect .

On post-marriage bliss

First up, I know it's been a while. I won't make any excuses, I just didn't feel like writing, commenting, or replying to comments. My bad. Now, the last time I wrote here, I was desperately searching for a wedding gift, and I thank you all for the excellent suggestions you made. I met my dear friend's then-fiancé for a cuppa, to see what kind of a guy he was. I don't often find myself liking people the first time I meet them, even though I like to give them a couple of chances to see if I may have missed out on something, but I really liked this guy. He was polite, he loved his job, and promised to teach me all about stocks, was a mere two inches shorter than me, and he had an openness and honesty to him that I value above all. The only faults I could find with the man were his apathetic attitude towards food, and his preference for tea over coffee. As the wedding was in a matter of days, I really needed to come up with a gift. On a visit to a ludicrous yet tastefully designed mall in Noida, of which an entire floor was dedicated to homemakers, I was contemplating a myriad of vases, when my eye fell upon what I had to get them. I found something conventional, very, very Renovatio, and to be appreciated by both the bride and my own sentiments regarding the groom's preferences. I got the happy couple a coffee maker, with a pair of glass-and-stainless-steel coffee mugs.

The fateful day arrived, and I recall bolting out of bed at nine minutes to ten, picturing the entire baraat dancing its way into the gurudwara at that very moment, as the wedding invitation claimed they would be. Luckily someone had remembered to get my green kurta and gold-beige churidar ironed, so a four-minute shower and three-minute change later, I was on the road. Of course once I crossed the two kilometer mark, I realized I had left my shawl behind, and knowing that the ensemble would be incomplete without the dark brown shawl, I returned to grab it.
Let it be recorded that running up a flight of stairs in peshawari juttis, and driving in them for that matter, is a tedious and difficult process.
Aurelia and I took to the road again with the sound of Apocalyptica blaring from Adelina's speakers, and in record pace, arrived at the gurudwara Rakabgunj, a gurudwara I had previously never heard of. Pulling into a parking spot a mere three hours late for the wedding, I was just in time for the pheras, IST-be-blessed. I ran into the banquet-hall thingie to stares from a horde of people, asked for someone related to the bride, and came face to face with a skinny fellow who knew all about me and was certain I knew the most intimate details of his life. What? you don't know Tarunjeet-pal? Right right, she must have told you about me as Vicky. I didn't want to hurt poor Vicky's feelings, so I shook his hand as warmly as I could, claimed I knew him, handed him the coffee maker, grabbed a glass of something vile off a waiter's tray for my parched throat, and purloining a handkerchief off a large Sardar in a white suit, ducked into the place where the pheras were taking off.

There's a certain charm to not knowing anyone at a wedding, excepting the bride and her parents, especially if you've got a rather distinct look to you, and you aren't aware of the customs, excluding the cover-head-with-hanky one. You're at leisure to watch the proceedings, you get to notice things that you would normally miss, and considering the bride's mother handed you a little digicam, you get to capture the moment as well, and no one looks at you funny when you mutter to yourself about the shot you're taking. The grin on my face when some random aunt put their heads together in some cheesy symbolic gesture earned me my first scowl from a family member. I got my second and third simultaneously from two older gentlemen who I'm fairly certain disapproved of my earring and the lack of a pagadi on my head, respectively. Of course here the assumption from the older gentleman was that I was another Sardar amidst this large congregation of Sardars. There was also the very cute cousin of somebody's who flashed me a charming little sparkley-eyed smile, who insisted on straightening out all the, well, for lack of a better word, stuff, dangling off the bride. She most likely assumed I was grinning at her, while her anal stuff-straightening never ceased to amuse me. For the record, when she came up to me later and introduced herself as Nancy in her singsong voice, I was picturing a Pomeranian in my head, talking up at me.

As the event wore on, I met with my friend's sister, who I forbid from leaving my side, even for a second. I eventually managed to steal a decent camera from one of the photographers, and took a few completely manual shots, until all the photographers ganged up on me and demanded it back. I then had a very intimate moment with the groom, where I re-buckled the uppermost buckle of his Shervani. Unfortunately, he still wouldn't let me mess around with the kirpan, the ritual sword he had to carry during the pheras. I also managed to insult a few other friends of the bride's, who I told not to tell me their names, as I was bound to forget. The chubby one gave me a very hurt My name has never felt as unimportant in my life before she stormed off in search of jalebis. Oddly enough, she was back at my side the next day during the reception, and somehow she knew my name, even though I didn't tell her.

The reception was an amusing event. I arrived there, dateless, after searching for about forty minutes in the slight fog, in a suit that is now a little too tight around my chest. The very suit prevented me from learning how to bhangra when the bride's sister attempted to teach me, but it enabled me to get the bride's dad up on the dance floor, despite his protestations of weak knees. The cake-cutting took place with a symbolic collapse of the cake, as evidenced by the rather well-timed picture I had taken, and I managed to steal a decent twenty minutes alone with the happy couple on their little red-and-gold (I know who'll just love that motif) dais. Of course to get hose twenty minutes, the photographer had to drop his excellent quality lens, and break it. Much na na na na na na, heh heh heh heh heh heh heh from me later, I made the most of the opportunity to sit with the happy couple, and in a rare display that absolutely made my day, the new couple ganged up on me and managed to get a hold of my license, to check my birthday. Of course the bride also stole my brownie.