Things I love: Part two.

So apparently, this little segment is going to appear on Musings on a monthly basis. Not too bad, I think. The first Monday of every month sounds like a decent enough target.



Smelling good

This may sound to some of you as a bit strange. Everyone likes smelling good, nobody likes being told that they stink. I’ve always had a penchant for nice smelling people, men and women alike. I personally have never been one to smell badly, but I’ve never had anyone associate me with any particular fragrance either. I’ve always used whatever was available, if it was available, and I’ve never really cared what I’m using as long as it smells good.

But recently, ever since my 21st birthday, I’ve embarked on the journey to find my signature fragrance. At the moment, I am alternating between three fragrances, all of which I love. Now an absolute necessity, it seems really weird that I used to be able to leave the house without splashing on anything. It just feels wrong and incomplete now, because it’s one of the biggest feel-good factors of my day. Smelling good equals a happy me. Because I couldn’t pick which one is my favourite, I’m writing about all three.



Cacharel’s Amor Amor is a floral and woody perfume which is positively divine. It was a gift, after I complimented somebody on how divine her perfume is, and she promptly bought it for me on my birthday. Putting it on makes me feel pretty, even though I’m not much of a floral person. I prefer my fruity fragrances any day. Roses and lilies aren’t necessarily my first choice. But this one doesn’t give me a headache, because it’s extremely subtle, the kind that you can only get a whiff of when I walk by.



Bath and Bodyworks’ Midnight Pomegranate follows second in my short list of preferred perfumes. Admittedly, pomegranate really isn’t a fruit I would have expected to be made into a perfume, but hey! I just got into the whole perfume craze, who am I to know any thing? It smells almost edible and lingers on for a really long while, so it’s slowly creeping up to the number one spot. Plus, it’s a much bigger bottle than Amor Amor, which means I can use it more often and extravagantly than I do that, and not feel too guilty.



Carolina Herrera’s 212 Sexy was, again, a 21st birthday gift from a dear friend. It was part of a care package that I carry with me everywhere so that I can be “meeting-ready” at any given time. It’s a little pouch that holds kajal, face wipes, lip balm, etc. and a little perfume capsule. I still haven’t managed to really figure out what it smells of, it always smells differently to my inexperienced nose. Some days it’s tangy, and some days it’s floral. This is the tiniest of the lot, not to mention I have to use my finger to dab it on. So it functions as my emergency perfume, the one that I use only if I really, really have to. It doesn’t leave my pouch, which is why it’s no wonder that I’m still using it four months on.

*All the photographs (barring the last one, which is taken by me) have been taken off the internet.

A New Year resolution, out there.

2011 is supposed to be my healthy year. In addition to "Reading 24 new books" and some other resolutions, I intend on improving my lifestyle and living healthily. The people who know me know that I eat fattening junk without thinking twice, and know that I cannot be bothered with exercise.

I blame my mother’s genes – she gave me her metabolism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really not complaining! This inherited attribute is actually one of the very few that I am thankful for. Otherwise, I’ve got all the wrong genes from my parents – I have my father’s nose, my mother’s height, my mother’s skin colour, and so on. Not that all these things are dreadful in any way, it’s just that my mother has a better nose and my father is taller and fair with rosy cheeks, and so on. But at least my mother gave me her metabolism, preventing me from becoming the way I would have eventually if I didn’t have this one advantage. I love it! I never have to worry about what I’m eating and how many calories I’m taking in, and I don’t exercise or hit the gym or anything of that sort. But if I didn’t have that metabolism, I wouldn’t burn as fast as I eat, and I’d be forced to watch what I eat and think about exercise, and not have to write this piece. Which is why I blame my mother’s genes. For all other intents and purposes, yay my mother’s metabolism!

Then one day, in conversation over dinner at Boat Club, a friend who shares this quality of mine pointed out that we may never put on weight, but we could very possibly die of early heart attacks. It may surprise a lot of you that this possibility had never occurred to me. And if it hadn’t been for that friend, I’d have continued living in my bubble and eating utter junk all the time. But then that got me thinking, and I have genuinely started believing that one day, when I’m not much older, my heart is going to start pumping saturated fat instead of blood and I’m going to have my first heart attack at the age of 30 or something.

If you’re laughing, then don’t!

This is where my New Year resolution came to play. To live healthy, and eat sensibly. Again, people who know me know that I cannot resist eating chocolates or any other food that tastes as good as it is unhealthy, and that small quantities do not in any way satisfy my enormous appetite. So it all boils down to making the right choices, I realized that’s the only way I can do it. I choose to wake up early and exercise rather than hitting snooze on that wretched alarm clock, to have a good breakfast so I don’t feel hungry at odd hours even though I’m not really a breakfast person, to eat fruit instead of chips if I feel hungry around teatime, to sleep on time so I can wake up feeling well-rested, and so on.

I feel so much better now, never even realizing that I wasn’t feeling up to the mark. This shift in lifestyle has worked well for me this past one month, and I intend on continuing it. There’s no doubt about that. But this joke always comes to mind when I think about New Year resolutions:

Q. What is a New Year resolution?
A. It’s a to-do list for the first week of January.

Mine has lasted more than just the first week of January; it’s lasted me the whole month. I hope that it lasts me the entire year, so that I can renew it again next year. And that’s the only reason I’m blogging about it – now it’s all outside of me, out on paper. Well, metaphorically anyway. It isn’t just a thing on my mental to-do list, a thing that I can ignore if I want. I now have witnesses, and more than that I have something to come back to if ever I intend on letting go of routine. 2011 is supposed to be my healthy year.

And it will be. You bet your ass it will! Although, I still eat quite a bit of junk.

Things I love: Part one.

“Things I love” is a concept that is inspired from a green inked blog I stumbled upon recently. Originally called “Things I love Thursday”, the basic concept is to write about the things that made you happy over the week. It helps you appreciate the good in your life, the things that make it better than most; and to make you forget, however momentarily, the things that have been pulling you down. As soon as I read hers, I knew it was going to be my first post in 2011.

My version of it however, is not going to be weekly, considering how erratic I am as a blogger. Instead, I’m going to write about the things that make me happy over ALL the weeks. I think I’m going to write monthly or fortnightly, that seems like an achievable target. So yes, say hello to “Things I love” on Musings.



Erich Segal’s Love Story



The first time I read this book I was 15 years old, which I think is the ideal age for anyone to read this book. The age when interest in the opposite sex is only beginning to awaken, when the fascinating hope of a forever has been freshly set in motion, when the search for “the One” has been embarked upon, when loves are new, and when the seed of belief in true selfless love can be planted.

I first read it in a hotel room in Amritsar, while my parents enjoyed an afternoon nap, and finished it in just an hour. I picked it up from a quaint little bookstore in the market named “The Booklover’s Retreat”, when Dad promised he’d buy me a book, whichever one I wanted. I can’t remember why I picked this one up, I wish I could. I think it had to do with the aforementioned fascination with a forever. But I’m glad I did. It went on to becoming my favourite book, the one I read whenever I felt a little down and a little out of it all, the one I read after every failed relationship, the one I recommended to all my friends – male, female alike.

Love Story (spoiler alert!) is a book I fell in love with instantly. I fell in love with Jenny, I fell in love with Ollie, and I fell in love with Jenny&Ollie. I fell in love with the simplicity of its story, I fell in love with the fact that Jenny and Ollie called each other bitch and bastard rather than honey and dear, and that they started a life together against the will of his parents. I guess I related to that at some level. I even fell in love with the philosophy of “Love means never having to say sorry…” and believed in it for a long while. Now of course, as I grow older (not necessarily wiser) I realize that Segal may have used a little creative and artistic liberty that a younger me did not recognize.

The novel may not be considered the best piece in English literature, but it is home. It is what I think of when the going gets tough, it is what I read on days when things just aren’t sitting straight. It is the one thing that is constant; I feel when I read it now what I did on that November afternoon – a strange whoosh in my tummy, along with a sense of calm in the depths of my heart, mingled with just a few teardrops.

They’ve revamped the cover of the novel recently, and made it prettier with hearts. I personally like it much better than the photograph accompanying the post. But this is the cover of the book I read as a 15 year old. It is not the same book however; that one made a torn, dog-eared way to the box of books for donation my mother keeps. So did two copies after that. I blame it on the unusually high number of really bad days that create a need to reread the book. But I keep going back and buying myself a fresh copy to keep. There is no way I’m letting it out of my life that easily.

For Jakey

I think about chocolate chip pancakes and French toast, about Borat imitations, about guitars, about the Sweetheart Tree, about song recordings at Everard’s studio, about my 19th birthday. I think about band practice and vada paos, about struggling to hit that note, about sneakily smoking en route, about skits at camp, about sign language, about songs I was introduced to, about the many breakfasts. I think about all the movies that were downloaded on demand, about Coffee Jar, about the bike ride to the mandir one morning, about all the teasing, about all the love. I think about core group fights, about silly good morning messages, about driving to Nea's house to collect a red Scooty Pep, about all the little moments and memories that I can't recall now but will over time.

And I smile. Just like I always will. I love you, Jakey. And I will remember you.

Because we're human.

Life is complicated. A mere “I love you” is never enough, there is no sheer simplicity. There’s people and rules, there’s dos and don’ts. And when it is simple, we try and make it as complicated as we possibly can. Because at some level, we find it difficult to cope with the simple life. We need some sort of adversity to focus on, some sort of problem that we can work towards solving. And if there is no adversity and no problem to work towards, we create them for ourselves. Because we’re trained and conditioned to believe that a life without complications is an illusion. And that if it is devoid of complications, it is not the life we’re meant to have. Because nothing comes that easy. At least that’s what they say.

So we focus on the why. And the how. And the what next.

Because we can’t just accept the lack of problems, and we can’t just focus on the now. We say we don’t care, but we do. And we say they don’t exist, but they do. And even when they don’t, we make sure they do. We thrive and exist on the misery and mindfuckingness that accompanies repeated thinking. I know, I know. Thinking and analyzing are natural human tendencies. And if we don’t think and analyze over and over, we’re not human.

I know that. I get that. But sometimes, I just wish I was a dog.

Everyone's gone to the movies, maybe I should too?

Last year, almost to the day, a project was begun. It was proposed after a fun day of two back-to-back movies at Inox, one set of air hockey at SGS and long conversations about books and films amongst Landmark shelves – EDUCATE MEHVASH IN MOVIES. It's not like I was uneducated at the start of the project, but I wasn't the most well-versed person either. So the project was looked at as a necessity, an essential act that if not seen through would prove to be shameful. Like most good projects, this one also started with a bang. Lists were prepared in the noisy foodcourt – must watch/have watched/have not watched and I lived the project for a long while after it began – weekend movie marathons till my eyes hurt, making time no matter how busy I was, saving up to buy DVDs, watching a movie every night of my Christmas getaway.

And then the resolve fizzled away. After watching many movies – some of which I liked (Little Miss Sunshine, Johnny English), some of which I didn’t (Beowulf, American Gigolo), some which I understood and liked (Mulan, Ghost Town), and some which I didn’t understand OR like (Atonement). I even watched movies I didn’t really want to, but featured on the must watch list. I don’t know why or how the resolve fizzled away, but I wish it hadn’t. Or maybe I DO know why and how, but I still wish it hadn’t. I’ve lost out on way too much free “should-and-can-watch-a-movie” time, and for me to revive the project now would be a death sentence. I should have (like most things in life) utilized the spare time I had, to facilitate the mission and become a better-versed-in-movies person. Now I’m screwed, like I’ve never been before.

However, I’ve decided that I’m not going to give it up completely. The project HAS to be revived, it’s too damn awesome to let go off completely. I’ve lost the lists (well, metaphorically, cuz there were never actual hard copied lists to LOSE) that were so well thought of and prepared. But I’m creating my own lists now and, slowly but steadily, the project is going to continue. I have many projects to do, which the cause of all the screwedness, but then I figure movies are a fun project to have and do. So why not have ONE fun project in the midst of all this screwedness, right?

What it's all about.

This post is about many things. But it is about nothing in particular.

It is about music and songs that I want to hate, but cannot because their brilliance cannot be denied. It is about a musical genius, about how that music or any music speaks directly to me. It is about a fantastically performed show, and about awkward handshakes at the end of the fantastically performed show. It is about all that is different this year than it was last year. It is about the disbelief that comes along with the difference. It is about wanting to dance effortlessly; it is about a boy who buys Alice in Wonderland. It is about running into one family, while standing with the other. It is about a strong dislike of nicknames from lost people, about the loss of something and someone precious. It is about acting like a child – not in a child-like way, but in a childish way. It is about feeling strangely good about it too. It is about travel, and the prospect of further travel. It is about Sunday evening and Pictionary, when laughter comes faster than correct guesswork. It is about competitiveness that comes second only to Monica’s. It is about cursing stupid conjunctivitis, which keeps away the giggling idiot. It is about the question that lingers in my head and a pink boy’s – to go or not to go? A question that is not made easy by familiarity. It is about submissions and deadlines, about research and projects. It is about reading Mappings, and feeling yay and jealous at the same time. It is about happy couples – new and old, and wondering when. It’s about the hokey-pokey, and wondering what it’s all about.

I’d like to rephrase my first line.

This post is about many things. But it is about something in particular. It is about life the last few days, and the next few days.