Namestorming
June 16, 2009 
For someone who likes to write, and talk, and generally waste a lot of time with words, I am kind of at a loss to come up with a decent name for a (potential) brand.. retail local, think global feel… USP is smart and sophisticated, with a sense of humor.. sense of humor is very important. Compassion too, but if we can get sense of humor, I’ll be all set. If you have something for me, write in. I’ll make you a smashing strawberry cheesecake in gratitude. (Willing to negotiate flavors etc).
Till the morning comes
March 19, 2009 
After more than a week of a constant headache, a bug that refuses to be gone, medicine that just doesn’t work, a situation that kills me just a little bit each day and overall relentlessly working, shouting, almost crying, I made it.We made it. M, you rock my world.
The farthest I will go
December 26, 2008 
The next couple of posts are for those of my lovable batchmates who have demonstrated that despite busy choc-a-bloc consultant/banker/other top perches in the corporate jungle schedules, they are still vella enough to visit my blog.
The good-hearted Kato who made consistent, dignified enquiries about my blogger’s block to which I made promise after airy promise that things would soon be up and running.
Big Bearded Figure who crossed his arms and mock sneered, as I was making yet another breezy proclamation in the Atrium this past weekend.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The lovely Ruch, who has been so prolific with her blogging, as to goad me into picking up my own rusty pen.
And more.
Oh, and I am also trying to put up all the blog posts which I took down in a fit of god knows what earlier this year. The elitist Egyptian bonanza will have a counterpart soon as I head to the rainforest. Stay put, dear readers. All six and a half of you.
Much love,
Aditi
Lazy weekends
I have been to Kodaikanal many times, so as far as places go, it holds only the fascination of the familiar. I am here in tourist season this time though, and dreading it. Sure enough, there are a whole bunch of Tata Qualises and leering bicyclists with their Hi Baby How Are Yous? around the lake area, where I am staying.
Our host however has one of the most well kept secrets in Kodaikanal – her cook, who is a native of the area.
She welcomes us in with flaky, soft puran polis. Rajma made from fresh hill plucked beans. For breakfast we have Rajasthani kachoris and adraki chai, supplementarily spiced with fresh lemongrass from the garden. Lunch is pasta baked with fresh vegetables and garlic bread, with snow white, spicy mountain garlic. Between meals, we walk around the hill station and end up at the local bakery, buying coconut bread and chocolate cake to take back home.
I try to assuage my guilt at all the gluttony by suggesting a trekking trip to the girls.
I am quite notorious for doing this. I have the kind of memory which refuses to remember Fermat’s theorem but gleefully throws up some really obscure and utterly useless travel tidbit which I read three years ago.
My host is a local but she has never heard of this place and immediately insists we go. If the more vigilant members of my family were around, they would caution her, but no such luck. We set out.
It starts out well enough – the driver takes us through a beautiful mountain path lined with laburnum into a small village clearing off the main. This is the beginning of the trek, he announces. The villagers come out curiously. The trek is centred around a remote waterfall hidden in the mountain, far from the tourist throngs. They offer to take us into the forest and to the fall. There is a charming farm, bursting with vegetables and herbs to our right,and a rustic horse stable. I chat with the very unfriendly caretaker. He treats me with suspicion but softens when I offer the horse my little finger to nibble on. The beautiful animal, absurdly named Chikitsak, stamps its hoof impatiently as he continues to reluctantly answer my queries.
Apart from us, and another French group, there is no one else here. Unfriendly Caretaker is not very keen though, that we go in – we put down his disapproving mumbles to the fact that we are an all-female group.
We make our way inside. On his farm-forest-land, part of the waterfall rumbles into a pleasant stream. It is picture perfect, the rocks, and the merry ripples of water that gush forth, the utter lack of people and little stalls selling four types of masala tea and authentic home made chocolates. We don’t use the cement bags that have been carefully strewn across the stream to help us cross over, and wade into the shallow summer water. A dog is already there, taking a playful shower below the gushing rocks.
We have lunch nearby, in the middle of a small coffee plantation. Our driver is friends with the owner, and helps us trespass.
The workers on the plantation stare at us in wonder. Are we not scared of the terrorists?
No one in the group speaks Tamil, and we look at him, goggle eyed.
Madam, there are terrorists here.
And monkeys, adds the other guy, watching us shriek with considerable amusement.
He starts talking rapidly, and I am now completely unable to decipher his speech. Our collective group wisdom finally decides that some local bandits have been terrorising the villagers.
Between us, we have one Swiss knife and a full picnic lunch.
Hopefully, one of the two will help us target both incumbents. We eat quickly, and run, scampering back to the bustling lake area (10 Sight Seeing Spots – in 3 hours only!. Madam, please buy spices – hill station specialty).
And yet, it has been fun.
Sometimes, the illogical makes sense 
Senti-mentality
Packing up is hard to do.
My room in college was sparse, almost minimalist. There was one print on the wall, bought from the V&A. The bed was made up in a hospital green.
It went up marginally in Cambridge. K and I lugged in a comfortable sleet gray couch from a yard sale and deposited it in our ground floor apartment. Two more prints in the common room, and I bought some silly yellow flowers from a street vendor outside the main building.
Over the years, I have become either less austere or more indulgent.
My room at ISB literally explodes with color. I landed with two sets of blue sheets, one rug, a lamp and a soft grizzly. The only thing I did not bring was floating candles and a pappasan chair.
It was worth it. I ended up supremely attached to my cozy dwellings. I watched the sun set everyday from my west facing room, and gazed out at the flowery Champa tree in the monsoons instead of doing my DMOP assignments. I lent a sympathetic ear to friends who sat on my bed and shared confidences over chocolate biscuits. We did Kota Fibres here!
Now, at pack up time, I look at all the stuff I bought with me. Silky red blousons and swirling skirts that I never once wore in my capri clad existence on campus. Books (Pamuk, semi touched). I toss them in with alacrity. The red rug (well worn by now) and my little lamp – those things don’t fall in to the suitcase easy. The minute they go, my room will begin to look as anonymous as it did when I first walked in, eleven months ago. And it will be time to move on.
Allow me one more day of nostalgia. Please
And so it ends.
My last submission at the ISB ended up being an all nighter. A fitting ending to a year of last minute group assignments, malfunctioning staplers and vending machine caffeine. As I walked out of the SV at 6 am, clutching my still warm exam paper and savoring the fresh morning air, it finally struck me that this was the last time I would watch the sun rise over the student village and carefully step away from a sleepy frog on the lawns.
There are still things I want to do, and yet others that I crave to undo. Damn. I admit – I’m quite in denial.
