An evening of many love stories...

A drink each at TGIF and then a dinner at Phoenix Mills sounds like a lavish evening. It turned out to be something that can launch a script writer into an interesting movie with a rich plotline. After the evening yesterday, I have no clue why people insist on writing just their own life stories for books/film scripts!


I rushed through a CST routine at gym in 30min flat before Asit dragged me from the locker room to Phoenix. An investment banker (Asit), an LA based ex Wall Streeter wanna be/struggling film maker with a thespian politician as a grandfather (Mana), and a corprorate law firm partner (Yash), swapping love stories, bitching about batch mates, narrating the occasional sexcapade really made me feel inside a semi art house movie. We even had a movie start couple to (Genelia and Ritesh) to make for an aside.


The narrator (moi) contributed little to the tumultuous love stories swapped across the table. Each of my class mates from school had their own love stories, pot boilers, the satisfaction of their own been-theres, and of course stories about other batchmates. 


A couple of school mates in asylums, a suicide, a death, a priest, goons turned to boardroom tycoons, private equity analysts and... I just wish I could write one of this novels.


I loved Deven's one. Rich industrialist's son and Yale graduate wooing a middle class girl. This after a series of dating scenes in a South Mumbai Crossword. Full drama. The girl has unwilling Bunt/Shetty parents who don't like a maru guy. Deven's mother is the mother (and in-law) from everyone's dream. Of rejected shagun, whisking away from the airport, a girl hidden away with relatives to a small wedding, the girl being considered 'dead' by her family, it has all the elements of a very entertaining love story. I had moist eyes at the end. And of course I wanted to stand up and snap a salute to Deven's mom. A few drinks later I would have. Instead I just popped in an olive from the martini and tended to the lamb shank and pomegranate polenta.


The number of people I am coming across with kamikaze love stories these days is not funny. Swati, Abhilasha, Akhilesh, Preeti, Puja, Arpan, Radhika, Deepali (and well Dipali), Benu, Guru, Tamojoy, Chiro, Piu, Arjun, Rajeshwari .... Good grief.... I could go on for a few more lines at least...


I am becoming a magnet for this sort of a thing. As if I don't have enough of it in my own little dream theatre... 

Affection stirs up old memories and joys...

My rented flat in Mahim (probably) firmly cemented my reputation as a crack pot in the eyes of all my acquaintances and friends. Nobody will probably understand why I instantly liked (and rented) a flat that divests me, monthly, of most of what I earn. I saw the two cats looking inquiringly at me, a wooden staircase, and the spectre of something from a warm and fuzzy from the past and made up mind.

I am resigned to the possibility of perhaps never having a pet. For various reasons. Mahim is one place where I could walk onto the street and immediately interact with happy and 'pet-like' animals. Both dogs and cats. I am sure if the hygiene permitted, I would be petting the rats and bandicoots as well.

I have never lived in a locality where the 'stray' animals on the road and so unabashedly affectionate as in Mahim. When J had questioned how I possibly could like the little coop she lives in, one of the many factors that had grown on me was the animal factor. Of course these are things I could never articulate at those crucial moments of inquiry.

Saddled with a cranky maid who severely detests cats (and open doors and windows) along with a landlord who advised "not to send up the cats if they come to your kitchen", I was in for a treat when a feline duo adopted me.

Now, the cats come to sleep every night at my place. The white cat had a litter of five kittens. Four white and a grey and orange one. When my dad came to visit me in December he woke up one night and was startled to  see a 'house full of cats' one night... The white one had come visiting with her entire brood!

To go home back to a cat (or any other animal) is very comforting and brings back floods of memories of Pune and catty.

On a lazy Sunday

The alternating blue and green eyes gene...

The offspring