linen heals, in more ways than one

last weekend, after an uneventful week i settled for what looked like yet another dull and getting-no-where kind of a weekend.looked around, it was messy. not the clutter kind of mess, it was the lack of prettiness that highlighted the mess around. given that i have recently moved, the lack of comfort in a way i want it is understandable. but after 12 hours a week on pinterest, you start looking for prettiness. everywhere.
i wanted it my bedroom. asap.
i bought new linen. in the prettiest colour and prints. and in a very comfortable fabric. healing had begun. 

Q: what! one blog post a year! A: oh! i'm so sorry, you know i've a baby.

i love to write. i love to write when i am not feeling like i could do with a week's sleep and when i am not obsessing about how much little the boy has eaten and how lot he had pooped (sorry the gross alert should have come in earlier). 

thing is i really like to write, but as they say life happens. so, i love to write headlines even more. the day i delivered, the same night when sleep would be impossible, and i was too excited and too tired to get any sleep, i was thinking of possible post headlines, announcing the start of my motherhood journey. of course the post never happened, few of the headlines were really clever and cool. i don't remember any. 

i do remember how i felt though. but not everything is for the cloud. let's just say extraordinary doesn't even... :) 

the boy will be three in 5 months, and i am aware my excuses are fast vanishing, the precious mommy card needs to be handled with utmost care and used infrequently. 

adult supervision for adults

There’s a little corner in our house where the living room ends and the kitchen begins. Behind a wooden mantle of sorts, and a little away from where the refrigerator is. This is one of his favourite peekaboo spots.

He stood there, looking at me, tears rolling down his face. He walked away slowly, and grabbed the first toy he found lying.

We had just gotten back from his 18-month vaccinations, and he was pretend cooking with real pots and pans. And kicking the ball alternately, with the talking tom talking at his loudest. I turned off tom. He screamed. And then made a dash for the kitchen to pick up pots more than half his body weight. I wouldn’t allow that, could I. Then the baby did what babies do. He yelled and sat on the floor, yelled some more. Then a grownup did what grownups shouldn’t be doing. I screamed back and picked him up and got him out of the kitchen.

He quietly walked to his spot, not to peekaboo. He looked at me, sad, tears rolling down his eyes.  

     

Hugs and kisses followed. So did tears and guilt.  

Why doesn't the toughest job in the world pay in currency?

At around 1 o’clock this afternoon I was crying. With my 9-month-old son on my lap, hugging him, I cried as I watched Rachel get off the plane to be with Ross. And then I cried some more hugging him even harder as the door to Monica’s apartment closed one last time. It was Friends’ series finale, which I possibly was watching for the, I’m not sure, 14^th time? I was crying hard now and my son, for a moment looked at me, worried and possibly sad. He did. 

I am getting back to work this monday. A first monday in over 9 months.

He will be fine for those few hours that I will be away. With two extremely eager grandmothers taking turns to be with him, our house help who absolutely adores him and of course the father who is way more than just hands-on. He will be more than fine. I won’t. And I am not.

I worry if he will miss me. What if he doesn't? If he will be angry when I get back home. What if he stops doing those things that he only does with me. I am told 9 months is just about the right time. Old enough to need my constant attention but young enough to not understand my few hours' absence all that much. I am not too sure about that. I feel he gets it.

Monday is 48 hours away.

HE HAS MADE ME THAT HAPPY

knock on the wood. etcetera. etcetera. 

WHAT SALLY SAYS ABOUT SUSIE, SAYS MORE ABOUT SALLY THAN SUSIE

one of my BFFs (gosh. did i just say that?) and i haven't been speaking much over the phone. we live thousands of miles apart. i blamed this on our busy lives, on our separate lives, on the distance, and on something as profound (only to me) as perhaps every relationship comes with an expiry date.

she called me up a couple of days back, excitedly, she had discovered a college mate, we had long forgotten, on a social media site. she had left college without a word,  or goodbyes. she was then the hottest girl in campus, so unsurprisingly the campus grapevine was abuzz with stories. some near foolish to some plausible ones. but oh lord. the stories.

she could barely speak. if facebook pictures were to be believed, the once hot girl (let's call her susie) was no longer so. i didn't lose much time, and looked her up. and indeed. we had aged better.

and thus began a series of calls. my friend suggested we add her on facebook. i was reluctant. neither of us were friends with her; seven hellos, 'this tastes like cardboard' exchanges during mealtimes in her month long stay, don't exactly make you friends. at best she was a distant memory. less than ten minutes later i sent her a friend request.

it's been over a week since the embarrassing add friend episode, we aren't friends yet.

however my friend and i have found our mojo back.

true friendship is sitting together for hours and gossiping about acquaintances and strangers and feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.   

WHEN A GUY DOES NOT WALK INTO A BAR

via pinterest

In an episode of big bang theory, Raj comes to Sheldon asking for a hug, because he says he is feeling blue, not depressed blue but more like a lonely blue. But that can’t be it; blue is already taken, Sheldon reminds him; so the two decide on orange, and Sheldon goes on, ‘you look positively orange with loneliness’.

I have spent much of 2014 living in a state of perpetual medium-low-level-terror. A sort of fear that would refuse to go or shift even. Waiting for things to go wrong. And then when they did, I’d be dreading the worse.

By the way, how absurd is Facebook’s new feature - ‘it’s been a great year thanks for being a part of it’, which I believe is very popular. Unfathomable. 

It would be flippant to say that 2014 was the worst year of my life. I dare not say that. Let’s just say it was terribly hard.  

And I do get those… look at the glass half full, count your blessings, it’s the darkest before dawn, etcetera. I fought to find some good amid so much bad. Which I did. And thus survived. As I save this final draft, there’s news about the Air Asia debris being discovered.

My glass is half full. Being healthy, being loved and knowing people I love and care for are healthy and happy, and getting to watch walter white and jesse after a somewhat fulfilling day at work, make it more than half full I think. Touché.

2015 will have to be about living, about being easy and fun and about making things possible. Just surviving won’t cut it.

Huffington Post says, life is meant to be abundant and limitless, we create scarcity of hope and ambition by believing in it. Life is supposed to be easy and overflowing with good moments. If life is a constant struggle, you're running on empty and you dread Mondays, it's time to take an honest look at your life -- in a loving way.

Trite. But right. Because it’s the new year’s eve, let’s go with it, shall we?

Three of my several plans/resolutions for the new year – mind my own business and have as much fun as I possibly can. Every. Single. Day.
Set weekly goals.
And people pleasing efforts be damned. Thank you. 

Two O One Five, I am ready whenever you are.

I suppose we'd better discuss this. Relationship 101 or not.

goa it is

So, the man and I celebrated ten years together [of having first met each other and deciding on being together]. And a ten-year anniversary calls for an epic something, and that’s what we attempted to do in a not so original way, by flying off to the beachside, reminiscing times good and bad over things Russian, Brazilian and a year’s supply of omega3 fatty acids. Five lovely days. I also, unbeknownst to the man, spent plenty time thinking about us [BUT OF COURSE], about happier and sadder couples [BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU DO ON AN ANNIVERSARY, NON?], about things that could have turned out differently; I was taking stock, with many, many notes-to-self, which I will now blog and record it for posterity. This is my 9^th edit. So here goes my RELATIONSHIP 101 or not. 

Nothing prepares you for this. Not Rachel McAdams. Not Shonda Rhimes.

Leap of faith. Whole lot of it.

Niceness is important and sometimes the lack there of. [Don’t ask]

Not taking the business of couple-dom seriously. [Yes seriously]

Being generous, being giving, etcetera. If not, tweak, tweak and tweak.    

Being 100 per cent honest and expecting 100 per cent honesty. Else, end-of-story right? And if it ain’t the end, make it the greatest beginning. One. Last. Beginning.

Indifference. Know when to be indifferent. [A game changer]

I will mind my own business. Repeat after me. I will mind my own business.

Love was born in a bright and shiny Hallmark store.

And ‘loving, caring and sharing’ was birthed at Miss Universe Inc.

You are the center of your universe. Quite like he is in his.

Yet you and him are a team. This is whole team business is incredibly hard, but totally worth it.

Everything is better with a little bit of air. So spending plenty time outdoors, together and solo.

Finally, a happy woman in love once said… nothing. [i wish it did, but this isn't going to work, not now, not ever].

And, and, and, if you seek drama, you will find drama.^TM  

We don’t want drama, non? 

The Kilimanjaro Girl

 We learnt to cycle around the same time. She, a few weeks earlier. And by the time I managed to comfortably get to the seat and pedal, she could double carry her sister. I remember the evening I met her, at her neighbour’s. The first thing she told me was, “oh I have the same skirt; maybe we should wear it on the same day someday.” It was yellow polka dotted skirt with a matching top that had a little bow.

We went to school together, she was my best friend through grades 3, 4 and 5. We got our barbies married and then graduated to paper dolls. Those three years were pretty packed. Under a shaky mulberry tree, we would discuss menus for the aforementioned weddings and what we wanted to be when we grew up. While I would settle for anything ranging from an airhostess to a forensic expert; she was set on being an army doctor, because she would say, her father was in the army and mother a doctor, and hence, wouldn’t like either of them feeling shortchanged. At age 9, it totally made sense.

Endless hours of house-house later we would be mostly quiet. Pretend accents and impromptu adult dialogues can be very exhausting. The town we lived in hadn’t seen a coke or its variant yet. Newspapers were a weekly feature. Every Sunday, we would get the last 7 days newspapers. [If you are curious about the town, it’s Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, though I doubt its googlability. During the rainy months [9 months a year], it would be cut off from rest of the state and the world.] Yeah so we made do with chilled glasses of kissan orange squash. Deep orange in colour and deeply satisfying. 

She was my first introduction to the cool. Cool in the form of luncheon meat. It was lunchtime. We decided to not go too far into the playground with our lunchboxes. We sat on the edge, where we could discuss grades, the importance of good handwriting and how unimportant boys were; and then she opened her lunch box. I am yet to taste a better sausage. That with some sticky rice, and salad. The perfect lunchbox that I often think about.

We were hardly adventurers but there's this absolutely random thing we did once. On a Diwali night, we overdozed on a certain sweet made with cashews, pistachios and sugar. We just couldn’t stop. Finally, after we could no longer move from our chairs, she looked at me all wide eyed and asked me to stay still, said she was sure the sweets had drugs and our parents would soon find out what we had done and it would all be over for us. The tale of two girls who had ODed on suspicious diwali sweets, disowned by families and friends roamed cities in search of the very sweets that took them down. Noooo, we shook our heads that can’t be our story. I am happy to report, it wasn’t.
   

I remember that moment when we started whispering our borrowed knowledge of periods, breasts and boys. She had an older sister who made us paper dolls and would sometimes would offer sage advice. Wide-eyed, hushed voices, followed by nervous giggle; that was our first real adult conversation. Nine seemed the right age to have that kind of a conversation, especially when done wearing faux-sarees and sitting crossed leg.

And then we moved to different cities. And because it was way before Facebook, we wrote letters. We spent a few birthdays together, eating too much cake, talking too much, listening too little and watching Steffi Graf play Monica Seles. She was a Steffi fan. I was not.

Soon after we got busy with our new lives, newer friends, entrance exams and then jobs. Then I found her on Facebook, spoke a little at first, almost shy, without any idea what to say to each other. And then we spoke about lives, paper dolls, jobs, men and that mulberry tree. She grew up to be a beautiful elegant woman living a very wholesome full life that we often see on pinterest. An experience-rich life. We never got around discussing pinterest. We should have.

She supported Amnesty, baked strawberry sour cream cake, traveled far and wide and climbed the Kilimanjaro, living a very full life. And then she left.

Soon after her climb, which she did as a part of amnesty challenge, I remember telling her how while she was busy doing something as life changing as this, I was busy living a very pedestrian life, chasing the unremarkable and being bothered by things that are trivial. She said we should be more. I told her I want to work towards my very own Mt. Kilimanjaro.

She lived. And she lived it really well.  

I often think of her, picture her in my mind. Not like how she looked on her Facebook albums or atop Mt. Kilimanjaro. I try to think of her in that yellow polka dotted skirt, smiling with her eyes.

bangalore: weather very fine, rains all the time, trees very green, pollen very mean, people very good, traffic very rude, maids very lazy, only English everybody

i bought gumboots, not yellow ones though, just after having spent a week in bangalore. we moved here in august. and it rained every evening. sometimes all day long. but on most days right when you check your outlook for one last time, shutdown, drink some water and reach for your bag to leave office for the day. and it pours particularly bad on the days you have washed your heaviest bedspread. or on the days when you forgot to get the almost-dry pair of jeans inside before you left for work. september was equally wet. i can't make pickles. but those who do, would find it exceedingly difficult to make any here. i dream of sunny mornings and hot afternoons, a little heat wave even.

but surprisingly it's never humid. not at all. which brings me to the weather of bangalore. it's splendid. making it very difficult to get out of the bed. or move from whatever position you are in right now. it's the closest one can get to the hill-station holiday weather while making a living. and the trees have a huge role to play in the whole hill-station feeling. 

oh. the. trees. they are big. they are green. they are dense. and they are everywhere. like everywhere. having spent my first 17 years in the north-east and andamans, i am not new to trees. but trees of bangalore like people of new york[from what i read] are truly something. extraordinary. it's impossible to imagine the streets here bereft of them.

but trees have flowers and flowers have pollen. i haven't had a problem yet [knock on the wood]. but i have heard pollen horror stories. from what i hear, the coming winter months will be bad. but so far nothing to report. perhaps upping the vitamin c in my diet would be a wise thing to do. people have advised several such home precautions.

people here are nice. they are just there. they are not on your face, which is very nice and which also means i have no opinion on them. they are polite when you talk to them, else they will just go about their business. they don't try to be your friend on the first meeting, or on the third or fifth. which isn't saying they are indifferent. they let you be, and you should let them be.

and people come in cars. busses. and autos. and on bikes.

the city stops breathing between 9am and 10.30am and again from 6pm to 9pm 10 pm. the calm, smiling polite people of bangalore turn into some sort of soldiers. angry, bitter soldiers who have lost their everything. but they rarely scream. they keep moving ahead with hope and not much else at 20kmph. it's jammed 7 days a week. the 5 day traffic rule doesn't apply here.

but there's something else that's very unruly - the world of domestic help. they are spoilt. and they don't care. and they are awfully lazy. while having a maid is a luxury, and very often i am left wondering if i would be better off doing it all myself. i laugh at this preposterous idea and continue to have her come 1.5hrs late on most mornings, listen to her tales of absence -  a runaway sister [she is 19 and ran away because her mother wouldn't let her play :-O], an alcoholic husband who beats her up if she turns up for work, and a daughter who insists her plaits be tied in a certain way hence leading to a 1.5hrs delay. go figure.

also, what i took time to comprehend and what i am still getting used to is the fact that everyone here speaks english. everyone. when speaking to shopkeepers, waiters in restaurants, flower vendors, newspaper boys etcetera, i usually break into polite hindi, and i have always had this notion that speaking in english would be considered rude even. not here. while people do understand hindi, english is the language they prefer. i know it's horrible and doesn't say much about us, but we do tend to associate the knowledge of english with they way people dress up or look. and i have been guilty of that. but i have learnt my lesson on many more occasions than one. so stereotypes be gone.

how to stay single when you are not single.

via pinterest

let me quickly run you through my last 72 hours [this is crucial to the story].
yesterday and today: i woke up, got ready for the gym right-away. without having to spend 30 minutes making tea and then drinking it. i don't need caffein before my workout. got a good workout. got home. had a shower. read the newspaper while relishing a long breakfast. spent time deciding on what to wear, wore what i wanted to and not the first thing i found in the closet. oh! i also had the time to consider wearing some eyeliner. so i got ready. left for work. escaped the traffic. on the way i was nicer to fellow commuters. the phone was comfortably inside the bag because i didn't have to frantically check the time every 27 seconds. reached work. on time. a not-so-hurried hello to the receptionist later i began my work.

via pinterest

today: woke up. went to a vegetable market that i have been wanting to. chatted up with the lady at the counter. clicked pictures of the capsicum. clicked a few selfies against the backdrop of capsicums. and laukis. cleaned up the closets that were top on my to do list since we moved in to this house. chose to go to a salon 6.5km away. just because. spent 6 hours on pinterest. bookmarked some DIY projects. made plans to meet a friend's friend. etcetera.

point is i had time. a whole lot of time.

so what did i do differently?

the man and i fought fought a couple of days back. which meant no conversations - and which meant not having to be a good roommate - want some tea? let me make you some tea. wait i will get the jar of biscuits too. what do you want for breakfast? yeah, i could wait for you to finish showering, i could wait for you to finish that last chapter of the book. while i get late for work. where are the keys? no i really don't know where the socks are. oh, sure you can have another cup of tea. 

so, in our happier days, the man and i often discuss how singles have so much time. time to pursue hobbies they like and also the ones they don't. time for friends, colleagues, and yeah strangers-turned-friends. they just have so much time. so. much. time.

nb. so we patched up a couple of hours ago. we are talking. laughing even. and i couldn't make it the organic green patch sale that i had planned to.

on apologies and no apologies

the new year is upon us, and with it comes the big, big project - resolutions. so, to take the pressure off the last week of december and the first week of january, i have a plan. setting the 2014 resolutions well before it's due time.

yes, so apologies. the trigger has been a huffpost article i read a while ago, which said women are much more apologetic than men and it also had a list of the 9 most silly reasons to be sorry about. i read through the dammed list and found i was guilty of being sorry for a whooping 8 out of 9, maybe make that 9 out 9.

chronic apologizers also tend to apologize for mistakes of others - friends, family, colleagues and yes, absolute strangers. i nodded in agreement. and thus began my 'let's change things here' agenda. having spent a substantial part of my life in a complete apologetic mode, i figured this needs to change.

so this is how it goes - go very easy on SORRY,
use THANK YOU sparingly, and YES' only when absolutely necessary and only when i want to say it and mean it. not otherwise. and to never, never use a SORRY with NO.


and if that makes me rude, be my guest. :)

  

of goodbyes, last days, nicest and funniest colleagues, sweetest interns, greasy tuckshop and sugary tea.

facebook doesn't get me. i looked for an appropriate status update in the new facebook feature: feeling followed by a suitable smiley of your choice, i didn't find any.
what emoticon can capture what i am feeling right now - happy, loved, sad, tears of joy, tears of sorrow, this huge sinking feeling, this massive montage of experiences in sepia, color and black and white. feelings of these all at once... 

this is yet another last day at work, this is the hardest last day at work. sachhi. :-)

whatever they(whoever "they" might be) say about life... they have got a point

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and this is what they say - life is too important to take it seriously. this has been bothering me for sometime. like questioning my existence, nah nothing so hardcore but in a way it has. questioning my decisions and choices. my routine. my everyday. so in a way it is pretty hardcore.
 let's take the case of my blog -there's so much i have to say, share, but i trash them condemning them unfit of a post. labeling them being not true to my blog type/category[if there ever is one]. and as a result, 3 months of no blog appearances.
 i want this blog to be a diary of sorts, no not the - this what i ate, this is what i wore kind of a diary - but the kind that chronicles beautiful/interesting/inspiring things i discover/experience, the way i learn and unlearn.  this is a blog about being a work in progress.a constant work in progress. while attempting to live a life, accomplishing goals, and live boldly. 

to be master of your craft, stop pursuing it

our cook is was no cook at all.
she was clueless about the basics. let's just say she didn't know the basics. she would cook on high-flame not let the meat and the vegetables cook through.she would always, char the vegetables, always as a rule over spice or under spice the meats. etcetera. why did i still have her? she is an extremely nice woman. she is honest. her timings worked for me perfectly. and because i like to cook. while i didn't get around salvaging her culinary disasters, but when i really felt like eating something, i knew i could cook that myself. so, she barely managed the everyday routine meals, for the rest i micro-managed her or cooked it all myself.
and then she took a month off. a month became two. and then two and a half. we began to relish the stuff, the substitute cook made. though her timing were pretty hard for me.close to the graveyard shift. and she would come for just 45 mins a day. so often i had to do most of the cooking. and that sucked the joy out my kitchen time. so, when  finally my regular cook got back, i welcomed her. while i was happy to see her, the realization that we were back to eating the part-charred-part-raw stuff hit me.
but luckily weekday mornings don't leave me with much time to dwell over the contents of my lunch box.

but with the lunch time approaching, i dreaded opening my lunch box :-| when opening in front of a very hungry lot of colleagues. my maid-made rotis had laugh-of-the-day potential. they were pretty infamous in these parts. and then like all stories with happy endings - my lunch box revealed the perfect egg curry and the near perfect soft rotis [flat breads]. no less than a miracle.
next morning she arrived. she walked tall with a new confidence i hadn't noticed previously. not wanting to make a big deal about her sudden prowess in the kitchen, i casually asked her if she had been cooking a lot when away. she looked at me, and said "no i didn't even make tea during the whole time. all i did was sit with my sisters and my mother in the kitchen and watch them as they cooked my favorite things."
huh? yeah, i saw things perfectly now. she picked up nuances, the delicate details by relishing the flavors and by watching, a whole lot of watching in the kitchen.
a vacation is in order perhaps,  a vacation with neil french, hegarty and abbott.

resolution #2, go exploring, not necessarily places

explore more, explore the new and the unknown.while last year ensured i discovered newer neighborhoods, markets and some forts, and also a new country [about it later] for work. this year i will make efforts to go in search of the new - places, food [oh yes], neighborhoods, walking trails and more.

here are few pics from my recent explorations.

some installation at a mall

random view

view from my hotel

 and of course i bought nothing from Chanel. :-|

our singapore office

it's that time of the year, resolution #1 [also the most important and the toughest one.]

pardon the choice of word in the picture above, yes i did have an option to use the one that had i just don't give a damn... but it didn't quite pack the same punch. so yeah, the new year resolution also come from my list of things to do not that we have survived the doomsday - not seek an approval. it will be tough, the whole not giving a damn bit. trick is baby steps. starting with i will not give a damn about what my neighbor's guests think about me. or what the grocer in my friend's neighborhood thinks about me. i did say baby steps.

a second chance? yes, please.

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so, the world didn't end on the 21st. phew! while i certainly wasn't one of those who believed it would, i am believer of signs. so what could be a bigger sign than this? a sign that says go live a little. a sign that says, this is your second, third, and final chance to be the person you wanted to be. i will take that sign thank you. so yeah, post 21st of december 2012, i have been onto some un-me kind of things. things that i would have forever kept on  a back burner.

few examples -
1 being brasher. i usually have a comeback, but my politeness, dumbness, lack of courage, call it whatever you may, often stops me from mouthing the smart alec rejoinders.
2 dressing out of my comfort zone. tread into a world where less is less. a world where changing the color of your jeans doesn't count as adventurous. a world with ugg boots and long dresses. and orange lips.
3 getting out of my comfort zone. i tend to hover around what's easy to do/get. enough of that. point is to get what i haven't got i ought to do what i have never done.being fitter, or being better writer - requires serious work. back-breaking work.
4 make today count. because how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. ain't it. willdoittomorrow is not happening, today is what i got.
5 not be shy. i am not 'shy' shy. but i am a little awkward when the group is big. i forget to hold my own.
6 don't look for approval. not doing so will be very uncharacteristic of me. so un-me that it scares me. but then that was the whole point.
#6 will take care of everything else. it is the most liberating thing ever. just the thought makes me dizzy. :D so, yeah i will take the earth surviving the doomsday as a sign. a sign to be better, have more fun and be what i always wanted to be. and i want to be fierce.

December Challenge: An attempt at living the wholesome life - one pin at a time

via pinterest

via pinterest

This December I plan to live the Pinterest life. And this is how it works - no matter how busy I get, or how lazy I am on a given day, I would still find time to do and enjoy the good things that I like. And also click a lot of pictures. Pictures of the morning tea in my yellow coffee mug, of my new favorite furniture in the morning light, of the street on my way to work, of the winter mist, of the books I read, of the nice things I buy and of all the cooking I plan to do this month. Yeah thing about cooking is, I enjoy cooking, but like they say life gets in between.
But this December I plan to do a whole lot of cooking. Once every two days, at the very least. And nothing that I have already cooked – all those exotic blog recipes – all those evenings of master chef Australia seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 and all the Nigella Lawson sumptuousness will now have their moments in my kitchen :D. I will also read a lot. And walk a lot. because i really like to walk. So, essentially Pinterest life to me means - finding time to do what i like, each single day. Trying to be the best I can be – in everything. And taking charge of things – doing things that I want to do – no blame game nothing. And being a little happier perhaps. I will post here every three days – a chronicle of what I am doing to live the Pinterest life. One pin at a time.

Investments for an awkward-proof life

Yesterday at around 12.10pm, I experienced what was perhaps one of the most awkward moments of my adult life. At 6 hours and 40 minutes, it was undoubtedly the longest. I entered the client office with my colleagues [the suits, those who meet clients and make 17 ppts a day]. Since I was given a headsup of a possible visit to the client’s place, I had made efforts to dress well. But turns out I had forgotten about my choice of footwear. I wore flip-flops. Well, flip-flops with some thick heels or something like that. In my defense, they were mostly black with just a tiny bit of red in the straps.
Before I go on, you need to about the client we were visiting. They are our biggest and also the angriest. Important things going wrong make them angry [obviously] so do lame silly harmless things [duh!].
So, the meeting was to begin at 12 pm. We were before time, and used the time to discuss our ideas, set the presentation and fill up the whiteboard with clever and meaningful red, blue and black gabble. Just before 12, someone from the client side informed us of a possible 20 minute delay in the start of the meeting. Since we were more than ready with the preparations, I considered brushing my hair and fix that bothersome strand of hair that stopped me from looking the super-corporate woman that I thought I looked. So, I got up from the chair, picked up my bag and headed to the door, walking tall in my flip-flop heels, and then all of a sudden I was tall no more. The red strap gave away. No it did not tear. Flip-flops unlike leather sandals don’t tear, they give away. I turned a shade of crimson. A shade called disgrace. I looked around, I tried taking a step, and I couldn’t. I mean I couldn’t take a step without looking like a woman whose cheap footwear had failed her. I hurriedly got back to my chair, unkempt hair could wait, none of my colleagues at noticed. Since the strap wasn’t torn, I thought of several quick fixes. I thought of taking the pantry staff’s help, for which I would be required to step out of the meeting room; that obviously wasn’t an option. I dug deep in my bag to look for something, something to hold on to my fast-vanishing honor. And because God loves me, I had my hair in a ponytail. Not down, not in a clip, but held together by a black rubber band. The thick soft-kind. I slid the band through the flip-flop and my feet, holding them together. The jeans, which was little longer than it should have been, helped cover the black band. The client arrived, discussion happened, the rubber band never came off. One of the nosy younger lots did notice my discomfort when I had to get up from my chair and explain a point on the whiteboard but otherwise it ended without anymore disasters.
I left the client office, took a deep breath, got in my colleague’s car, looked down at the miracle band and made a list of my investment plans. Mutual funds didn’t make it to the list.