Saturday night. Party night at our flat. Every weekend is a party! Friday, saturday and sunday either at home or at someone else’s. Dinners, movie nights, game nights, socials, all the, all the time.

We’re usually like a million ppl staying in our flat. Lots of people staying over for a couple months while they finish thesis or whatever.

Anyway, today, after zero debate and zero thought, I went and did this to my hair:

Prem and me checking out our hairstyles in the mirror

Hoodie Baba (aka Sid) giving me gyaan.

I love love love the new hair cut! yaayyy! Makes things so easy in the morning

Ciao Ciao daaahhlings. I have to fix my nails, don’t you know? (I wish. They’re a dogtail raggedy lot.)

Post recycling. Because lately, I’ve become an iyer fetishist.

A blog I read recently, which you can find here, had me wanting to write about some of the quirky traits and funny ways of my clan – The Tamil Brahmins.

We guys are suckers for achievements and the Master Controller of the TamBrahm clan is something called ‘Prestige’.

‘Prestige’ is a kind of parental ego – its funny because its primary source is conveniently palmed off on the achievements of us kids.

Of all great achievements, there are three things which the quintessential tamizh penn or paiyyan are most appreciated for -

1. A son who can do math – “Yen pullai ‘maks’ le Gold Medalist, therimono?” (My son is a gold medalist in maths, dont you know?). The poor, bespectacled wimp is thumped hard on the back with a proud guffaw, then, “Like father, like son”. God forbid the opposite person bring forth any achievements of their kids. The proud father will shred to pieces even humbly forwarded statements such as “My son is an Air Marshall in the IAF”, “My son represents India at the WEF this year in Geneva.”. And if these statements are presented challengingly, the visitor will NOT get bajji-sojji, will not receive any thenga-parupu at weddings, and there is a good chance that the kaapi will be poisoned.

2. A daughter having pretensions of carnatic music and/or bharatanatyam-this is from first hand experience – The worst times for this are during the Navaratri days. A gang of maamis in Kaanchipuram saris and Cacharel perfumes take off each on their renditions of ‘Kuraiondrum Illai’ in every house in the district. Once they’re done, they want to hear the girl of the house!! We poor things submit to their scrutiny of our ‘raaga gyaanam’, ‘kalpana shakti’, not to mention ‘bhavana moorti’ and our other bhartnatyam ’skills’. The minute a maami comes home, amma calls out – “Aarabi, maami-ku anda puthu paatu paadi kaatu ma”, (Aarabi, sing the new song you learnt for maami.) after i submit to this, with not too good a grace, im ordered to show the maamis a new Thillana (a kind of dance in Bharatanatyam) and then they all want to see the one which won the Kalai Maghal award (Literal translation – Daughter of the Art) too. At the end of the evening, Im cooed over, pseudo praised. Once this has gone on for suspiciously long, a maami will take up about how her wonderful daughter is so beautiful and fair ‘like the moon’ that boys are literally standing in queue for her!! But they only want an America Maapillai (Son in law based in the USA). Which brings us to Prestige Point number 3

3. Getting a son-in-law who is fair/tall/based in usa/germany/educated in IIT/IIM – Warning: this does not apply to daughters in law to as great an extent – unless she is also tall AND slim AND fair AND beautiful AND cooks like a dream AND sings like a nightingale, never lifts up her eyes, always submissive, soft spoken and let’s not forget calling the in-laws appa and amma. THEN, she is a Prestige Point and her new Appa proudly will say – “She is the Crowning Jewel of our family” and her new Amma will smile on the outside and think on the inside – ‘i’ll fix her well tomorrow’.

So you may be a contemporary Maupassant, a re-invented Rembrant or a Flying Ballet – those will simply be dismissed – “At least he/she has something to write in the Hobbies section of the Jaadagam (Horoscope).”

Maybe you’ve won fashion titles all over the world and are brand ambassador to Chanel and Gucci – “Enne indha ponnu kuccchi madri irruku?” (Why is this girl thin like a stick?) is the best you’ll get out of your tambrahm guy’s family – and they’ll make you put on the pounds too – FAST – have you ever tried our Tirunalveli Halwa?

Or maybe you’re the historian of the century, the greatest poet since Omar Khayyam, or you own Ikea – but if you’re having any plans on a tambrahm girl, you better research the IIT admissions fast.

What about women who live abroad? What’s the clan’s take on us? Anyone got an idea?

Been listening to that allll day. Suddenly have a timberlake fixation  Thinking up a dance routine for it.

Today I go to dinner at Fabian and Alina’s with my housemates and my best girlfriend Naveen (Yup! She’s pakistani, lol)

I want to go to Milan this year for a month. I graduate on July 12. Leia, a friend of mine lived in Milan before and she says I can go crash in her flat. I want to work on personal styling and see if I can get a one month stint at Valentino I’m in love with the 2010 Spring Summer outfits! Another friend, Noemi says she and I can go stay at her place in Paris too. Or I can go with her to NYC for the month in August. hmmm. choices choices. no money i love this student life

Oh recently, I had a touché commentor on my blog and I think I touched a total nerve, poor guy. I asked him if he had PMS and he totally flipped! This big, grown man, actually freaked out and said  ’yuckkkkk’!!

Ha LOL!  PMS is just STRESS. Mentally. In the brain. you know? It’s not ‘yuck’ like you said. By the way, you remind me of cute little 12 year old, Barbie loving girls. So Sweet. That is not a compliment.

Men of the world, get a grip okay? If you can’t respect a woman’s mind and psyche and come to terms with the fact that she will go through stresses that you don’t know, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have such an incomplete love life. You’ll never, ever experience a total emotional connect with a lady.

Incidentally, I’m late for a meeting with my supervisor. I’m at university today. Out of my window now, (I’m on the 21st floor at school), I can see a frozen canal, snow dusted all over  the city, smokey chimneys, fog in the distance, a light in my living room (which is across the canal from my university) and kids playing in the snow.

Oh and I totally skidded on the ice today while biking to school. Total showdown on the road! Lol!!

Now I’m totally and utterly late. Gotta run!

my thesis is officially killing me.

I am currently a victim of acute stomach pain. Terrible terrible really.

The culprit is LAUGHTER.

After finding this in my inbox this morning!

Where oh where shall I start ripping you apart?

The top. Right.

Brahmin community spread across the entire globe – consisting of the Bay Area, California and Nungambakkam and Nanganallore districts.

Why is there so much emphasis on the PARENTS meet? So they can match some horoscopes, yada yada, I don’t know what all and predict if they dude will or will not cheat on me? No, but to legitimize the whole fiasco. That’s what.

It’s like a freaking cattle show! What is Wrong with you people? If you insist on an arranged marriage, by all means, introduce your children and invite the families home! But this!!  Parents are required to attend with prospective bride groom?? Are you going to look into their mouths to check for their teeth?

Kanchi kamakoti peetham mutt. I have full respect for the perival. But I know what’s going to happen when the Parents Meet.

Paatis will stick up her zillion diamond studded nose in the air, with the air of a queen. The women will check out who’s in brocade kanchivaram and who’s wearing the most gold bangles. Gorilla hands. That’s what heavy heavy gold bangles give you. Tamil ladies, are you listening? Invest in telecom, why don’t you?

There’ll be rustling of pattu podavais and re-arrangings of Vera Wang handbags (American designers wonly). EVerrrrryone will be weighing the other in terms of freaking money. That saree was Rs.17,000 in Rasi, I saw the other day. She is wearing it with a ruby set! (My mom is hell bent on giving me a ruby set. A macbook air would be nicer mom!)

And the mothers of guys in the US. This you cannot dispute. They have this air of utter achievement. Like their kids went all the way to devalokam and back. En pullai, verrrrry intelligent boy. Theriyumono, he’s in IBM! Thaniya samaichu saaptundrukan, paavam. He makes almost $10,000 a month. First ranker. Eppovume. Avanukku, The Besht thaan. We’re going to be very choosy.

I met some of these people here. Came to visit their sons in the Netherlands. It was soooo funny!! They behave like their darling sons have done something the whole world din’t! And telling it to ME! As if I din’t do the exact same thing, come here alone, handle everything alone, blah de blah. Get real ya.

“Vivaha Sangamam is open to entire brahmin community. “If you’re not brahmin, get the hell out. We’re such a progressive lot.

I know my mom is going to freak out after reading this post. She’ll swear no-one will ever want to marry me. Not my fault. There’s no way I’m moving to california.

The new year was truly and utterly wild. I went to rotterdam to my friend’s lovely 15th floor palace apartment. We 500 of us pigged out on dinner, shrieked and danced enough to make the neighbours think some pagan ritual was going on and I won’t even mention that we were dancing in the cold on the erasmus bridge at the midnight firework concert.

And I successfully managed to look mad in all the photos.

My desi friend seems to think it’s the lack of light.

Lighting, Laertes, has nothing to do with looking mental.

Shiv and me pretending to be tall. Sid providing Background noise.

The one picture that salvaged my "image" pa

Here’s a tag from starsinmyeyes

x means I’ve read it. So we have to count how many of the 100 books we’ve actually read.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien x
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens x
Total: 7

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy x
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare x
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien x
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger x
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
Total: 7

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy x
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy x
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
Total: 7

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen x
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini x
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres x
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden x
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne x
Total: 8

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins x
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy x
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
Total: 6

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth x
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 3

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold x
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie x
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville x
Total: 5

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce x
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome x
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession – AS Byatt
Total: 6

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro x
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton x
Total: 6

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare x
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl x
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo x
Total: 5

So. A total of 60. I think I’m going to go order some of these books on amazon now. It’s been so long since I had time to read a book. Just cuddle up and read and drink tea Been partying and working like crazy all year.

Amazon, here I come.

Cheers y’all. Peace.

Durga Puja today and I was as oblivious as ever. My Dutch supervisor reads his paper and sees these goats being sacrificed in Bangladesh. Then does a quick look up at me, hesitates and says: Aarabi, do you know today is Durga Day?

lol

A: Yes Edgar, it’s called a Puja

I love how he’s fascinated by our epics and religious stories, our traditions and social systems. At work, I talk quite straight about some of the shi*ty things in our system. I also talk straight about things which strike me shi*y in the dutch system too (so don’t send me hate mail already)

I found a very pretty bangle which mom put in my bag when I was in India. I heart it so much! And to make the evening even more special, I’m wearing a new salwar!

Indian clothes make a girl feel so graceful and beautiful. The cuts and flows make you automatically feel more lovely and gentle. What is even more cute is guys start treating you with more gentility. I am amazed at how they transform. Maybe it’s something Indian guys are hard coded to do? Maybe traditional clothes trigger some deep down gene?

I think I’ll wear a saree to work tomorrow. Make Navratri special at KPN

Aarabi is a happy bee today!

Cheers all and peace. Enjoy your Navratri.

I am utterly lost trying to understand what men see in beer.

Even the sweet Kriek beer , which is a cherry beer, makes me feel sick with it’s semi bitter after taste. So I was talking to a friend about what guys see in beer. Apparently after the first few sips, they don’t notice the bitter anymore. Okkaayy. Why go through with the first horrid sips and get to that point anyway?! you know? like what’s the point? Let’s all grow fat and ugly together?

I’ve nothing against alcohol. My housemates drink it by the litre – honour bright I just don’t get beer.

On a completely different note, this weekend, I’ve shit loads of stinking work to do, a slumber party and an India-Pak cricket match and a 20 page report to start and finish. I’m so screwed.

So to keep myself from completely flipping under the work, I’ve been digging up old favorite songs and I’ve gotten re-hooked to Janet.

I’m leaving you guys with this:

peace homies.

So! I’m trying to get my life back on track. Number one on my things to do is keep my mind occupied all the time.

I work during the day on my internship and thesis. It almost always leaks into my evenings and nights. I never have even a half day of no jobs. I work for another group at university which pays me rather good. I also joined the Board of Telecom at university and am organizing events for them. I’ve joined my university sport centre and I’m falling in love with the idea of pushing my body to its limits, get fighting fit  Today I tried a body activity called Spinning and then Pilates.

Tomorrow, I’m doing Kung Fu. Wednesday, yoga, hip hop and spinning! I love it!

More updates soon!