Gypsynan

I love the urban life and travelling to a new and interesting city is tremendously exciting to me. And so New Orleans was this fantasy city to me. The music, the food, the French influence, the art scene, the carnival seems to have this special voodoo on me. I have never been there but dreamed of visiting... and the devastation wrought by Katrina seems unbelievable. The words divine retribution comes to mind, though I know how terrible it sounds. Remember those Mullahs who said the tsunami was retribution? I don't say this in terms of petty morality or that anyone has this coming, its just that being a pagan(more on that in later post) by faith nature's fury always seems a message, more respect please. We don't just need to cherish and protect this earth of ours but pay homage to it.

My interest in mainstream media is incresingly diluted, by the on the spot and spontaneous blog reports, whose honesty and emotional intensity packs a far greater punch! I regularly read metroblogs, a very interesting site that has a list of city bloggers in most major cities. The NewOrleans Metro Blog is particularly interesting now. Dive in, you will get a new perspective!

Off to Cape Cod for the weekend. Leaving office an hour early. Its bright and sunny and I feel fine!Pix will follow.

Little snack for you to read. Lovely travel write up on Amsterdam in Slate. If you haven't read it and like travel stories, you should enjoy these.

The husbandman had recently gone on a trip to Amstdm, and got back for me:

• box of fresh and raw and deboned herrings, nicely rolled up and dunked in Olive oil, which I promptly ate, realised it was raw, pretended it was Sashimi and made shorshey bata out of rest. When asked why he would get something so weird, he reminded me that I did eat it raw and no spitting either. Not mollified, evn if herring tastes distinctly like illish
• One bag of tulip bulbs, even though we live in a downtown apartment, lovely and gracious place in old Montreal, BUT it has no place for planting stuff - looked very sheepish when asked why.
• one oversize Amsterdam T shirt
• and a pair of ugly ass ceramic clogs

Husband men have a special secret school where they get specialist training on how to buy weird presents for the wifethings.

Too tired to blog. Office politics run my life. But here are a few treats for you, gentle reader...

My magnificent ass
Hides behind me like
A shy child clinging to its mother
It is a barnacle on a ship
Unwilling to be pried off with will or force
It is my own version of a Kentucky waterfall
Business in front, party in the rear
Unfortunately, the party is getting rowdy
And I think there may be a wrestling match going on back there.
But no chair is too hard
No bench too uncomfortable
For this super-convenient, ultra-soft, über-padded rear
Perhaps God is trying to tell me something?
Pass the remote.

T. Fenniak, Edmonton, Canada

I have always been
Tall and thin
Thanks to good ol' Dad
I once had a body of
Enviable perfection
To the gym 6 days a week I went
With a soul full of sad
But now I've found the pleasures of a beer
And food
Sleeping in rather than 8 a.m. cardioS
hared with a great guy
And two dogs
So cheers to less muscular perfection
A body which is no longer so tightly cut
It has finally grown enough room
For a soul full of glee
Just do it.
-- Karen, Atlanta, Ga.

My hair is gray upon my head
(for that is where it grows)and yet,
the TV surgeon said,

I still could fix my nose,
Botox the wrinkles from my brow
and plump my thinning lips
(both on my face and down below)
and lipo tum and hips.

'Twould send my self-esteem sky high,
he said,
to have this look.
I cut myself a piece of pie
and went back to my book.
-- Katha Pollitt, New York, N.Y.

And finally this lovely little haiku

Chicken of the spring
I am not,
sadly,
these days
Ab reduced to flab
-- David Norland, Los Angeles

These are all poems based on the body and more may be found at We sing the body electric in Salon, inspired by the new series of Nike ads(read the article here), which made my eyes pop, And the photo above is just a photo of my favourite body part, taken off the net. Have a good week people!

One of the most interesting bars I have ever been to was in Antwerp. Its a small town, with an almost perfectly preserved historic core. Indians would know it for its diamond connection, the only place in the world where the customs guy looked at my passport, smiled and said "India, welcome m'selle" WITHOUT checking the visa!!! Of course I was flying in from Italy but still!!!In one of the town squares a little chapel has been turned into a bar. The weird thing is that the decor has not been changed at all, and all around their shelves crammed with icons, flying angels on the ceiling and a general sense of heightened decadence with the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane. You have to see it to believe it, so pictures here ...

Reading the latest compulsive confessor post I was suddenly reminded of my first New York bar experience. Now, I have been pretty much everywhere and there is not much that fazes me, but there was this bar in Soho that left me gaping like a tourist. After an afternoon of window shopping and general walking around we decided to do the "Sex and the City" thing and hit a New York bar.

The mojitos are great and food is pretty good, the ceilings are high, the music is funky, open airy stylish space, a good mix of hip New Yorkers and good looking tourists and the bar man is pretty hunky and its not breaking the bank, and I am feeling pri-tty good. Very with it, y'know. But then we notice the Japanese tourists going upstairs to the loo and returning with pretty stunned expressions. So after a few martinis and mojitos I gotta go pee too. And I am quite buzzed by then. So I go up and there are tables of party goers and right behind them are a set of loos - all in glass TRANSPARENT. They look very cool but, right, transparent! So I am totally shocked and drunk standing there reeling and wondering if I really should have had that "brazillian" done. (And of course, forget about separate girls & boys)After about 5 minutes I notice that once people go in there seems like a cloud of smoke filling the cubes and you can't see much, but presumably you choke to death peeing in high style! I gingerly go in and stand inside like , forever, making sure I can see nothing outside and finish up fast. (basically the glass frosts over, but it stil looks cloudy)I return with the stunned tourist expression! Too traumatised to pee for the rest of my stay in New York(well, almost!).

Ok that's my freaky bar experience, what's yours!
This is a first in a series, I think...

I took this picture in a place called Brugges in Belgium. Its one of those ancient European towns, (3 minute audio video intro here) but the photo is actually of a toy shop window which also reflects the buildings opposite, giving it this magical, faerie folk caught on camera quality. Should I have shared my trade secret? Double click on picture for a better view. Its really quite eerie!

Another birthday. The husband man is in Amsterdam on business! Again! How come I never get it to go!!!He also gets to meet up with this lovely girl, who is a friend and also passing through. I wanna go too....Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! But I feel a little better after getting a pome from da man!

Happy hippy birthday
Excerpts...
(music)
(everybody)
o amaar pet petni
o amaar hutum pechi
o amaar mecho petni
o amaar pet petni
(repeat)
(slow)
aaj tomaar jommodin
aami tomaar aladdin
tumi amaar life'er genie
aare shudhu du-din
o amaar pet petni!

I am so proud. This from a guy who forgot my birthday 2 years in a row!!! And a physics grad who thinks fiction is for wimps!
I am a little drunk all by myself. This post will have to be deleted soon I think! Or I will soon find out if he really does not read my blog!

For teleute...looks quite tame though!

How hot is this woman?!

She is also Canada's new Governor General!
She is a 48 year old university professor and a broadcaster,
of Haitian origin.

This post reflects my sincere interest in the culture of my new country and an earnest desire to assimilate!!! Now somebody, just give that Paul Martin a makeover...

I have not much to say! But I owe you who visit me from such exotic places as Norway (2!) Qatar (1) Taiwan (1) and Congo(1). Not to mention those from good old Canuckistan, Hindustan, and Amrikistan and Londonistan.

Much obliged...urp!

I found this very interesting photo essay on Shabnam, who is an aspiring boxer in Kolkata. More power to her!

Lazy Sunday morning! Husband man off on business and its just me and the net! Bliss!!! I found this little slide show on the snake charmers in India on the BBC website and particularly loved the "design elements" of this photo, the colours and the juxtaposition. Bold colour graphics that are so uniquely Indian. And also thought a little about how in middle class India there is an overwhelming demand to forget "exotic India". The BBC team trailing snake charmers, typical foreigners stereotyping India. Ignoring our boring middle class lives, the boxy apartment buildings, the stultifying suburban landscape, the relentlessly duplicating office cubes, the complete lack of consciousness of aesthetics in our urban design. There are many times when I too get annoyed at stereotypes in the media, but I also believe that rural India leads the world in innovative textile design, in treatment and appreciation of colours. By the way we also have rural "schools" of textile design that are a marvel of subtlety and sophistication.

Its time perhaps for us urbanites to take a fresh look at our exotic heritage and be proud of the creativity and diversity of our folk heritage! It would be sad if snake charmers disappeared along with the travelling acrobats and monkey shows! And entered the software industry, no?

Some of you may have read the NY Times article by the mom who fired her nanny for blogging. Since you will n ow have to pay for the article - it started like this -

Our former nanny, a 26-year-old former teacher with
excellent references, liked to touch her breasts while reading The New Yorker
and often woke her lovers in the night by biting them. She took sleeping pills,
joked about offbeat erotic fantasies involving Tucker Carlson and determined
she'd had more female sexual partners than her boyfriend.

Making the non blogging public go Ooh, how shocking, what a slut!

Anyway the said nanny has posted a stunning reposte - which I think should be read, for its amazing display of controlled and intelligent outrage. See here

Its also a fascinating example of the mini explosions that can take place when the blogging and non blogging worlds collide. Bloggers beware!

This gypsy found and loved this series of articles in Slate magazine. Beautifullly describing that oh so fleeting "New York state of mind". Enjoy!

We stayed last year for a while in Toronto, right next to Church street, the heart of the G&L community and had great fun over the Pride weekend. I was pretty job less then and hung out with these 2 very big and white South African (Nazi looking, sorry Bruce) couple, who were my neighbours. But they were amazingly sweet and they actually got fed up of Toronto and moved back to Jo' burg last year. One of them with an Aid group and the other in the same field as me. They wanted the REAL life in SA, gaybashing and all! Its funny how many South Africans I have met who are convinced that SA is multicultural and exciting and miss it like hell, and all I think of is apartheid and Mandela. Thats a whole other post. They also bequeathed us their plants which the husbandman insists on referring to as the gay plants as in"have the gay plants been watered?" as opposed to "are the weeping plants alright" referring to the ultra emotional ficus trees that shed copious amounts of perfectly glossy, healthy leaves any time we go away for the weekend, or if they are moved from their favourite spot even for an hour! Long sentence, eh?

Please notice the serious jhola walla Southasians and the pink lady for contrast! That's a whole other post too! And yes, double clicking on the pictures will let you have a better look!

Some time ago I was lucky enough to stay in a riad (villa) in Marrakesh. It was a couple of hundred years old, right in the famous Djeme el fna, an ancient market square that is still abuzz with story tellers and fold dancers and snake charmers and tourists not to mention. The riad was a couple of hundred years old and currently owned and restored by a Hollywood scriptwriter (?) I saw cosy group photos featuring Liz Taylor, not at the riad of course(!). Strangely enough there were no other guests, the place is not really a hotel, but the owners visit once a year and let out rooms to those who have heard of it from other guests. It was a magical and enchanting stay, I loved it so much I did not explore Marrakesh much. It was just lovely to lie by the pool and pretend I was back in time and was a nawaabzaadi (-(it won't be much fun being anything else in the past) or a jet setting socialite doing a Garbo. I am a working class woman, but I do get lucky some times! Ewww... that sounds way more la di dah than itI am! My Scottish boss knew I was this crazy woman who goes off alone to out of the way places, and I had work at Casablanca and suggested this place. It was a wonderful long weekend.

Angel me!

I want this to be the picture on my profile but I can't seem to get it there... so annoying! I am a bumble bee in the blog world apart from being a corporate drone. Forsooth! ayi ayi ayi!