Firing Up 2005

Yesterday morning at 08:30 the bell rang. I rolled over and decided to ignore it since I’d slept at 4 in the morning but the bell rang insistently so I had to finally get up. I groggily opened the door and the chowkidar said ‘Aap so rahe ho, aap ko pata nahin chal raha yahan aag jal rahi hai’.

Oops!

On the 31st we had a small party on our roof with barbeque and bonfire. After midnight we left to party elsewhere. On the First evening my friend whose barbeque it was came to collect it. They emptied the ashes (which were still hot) on to newspaper (don’t ask), put it in a bag and placed it on top of the wooden shoe cupboard (don’t ask again). I was busy watching ‘Beautiful People’ with my niece, sister and Mom so wasn’t part of the cleaning up. God knows I would have had better sense!

We went out to catch the late night show of ‘Swades’ (go see it! Also DO NOT MISS THE INCREDIBLES!!). Got home at around 3 am and everything was quiet, though in retrospect I remember smelling a burning smell but was too sleepy to focus on it at the time. The ashes must have burnt into the shoe cupboard and the easily burnable rubber and foam of the shoes ensured that nothing was left. Thankfully due to our laziness the shoes that we wear regularly were saved since they were just lying around the house. But all the nice, going out type of shoes are gone – including my silver strappy sandals.

The walls and roof of the staircase are totally black. The doorbell switch plate was melted. I grow cold every time I think of how bad it could have been. The heat would have entered the wire system next and the main door was just half a foot away. Me, my cat and B would have been roasted while we slept. Thankfully someone saw smoke coming out of the staircase window and they came and threw buckets of water and put it out.

The landlord came over to inspect but thankfully wasn’t hard on us.

I spent the first half of the day getting the mess cleaned up, getting a thelawallah to take away the debris and an electrician to put a new switch plate; and the second half fast asleep due to the mental strain.
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Went to see A’s baby yesterday – really tiny and perfectly formed. A used to be one of my closer friends till I felt let down by her. And the typical Capricorn that I am, I never let go of a grudge. Thought I’d make an exception for the newborn though. So I was all grown up and behaved myself and said the right things.
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T called this morning asking if I’ve ever been to a clairvoyant.

She’s been having problems with her in-laws. I don’t much like being the agony aunt in these situations. Was ex-colleague K’s for almost a year till I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s funny cos T’s husband is actually the one who is my friend, I only met T when they started seeing each other and am not that close to her so I wonder why she should choose to confide in me.

I told her not to go to the clairvoyant as what she/he may say will stick in her head and not necessarily make things better. I told her to use the money (a whopping Rs. 2100 for a one hour session) to go to a spa and have a body massage or take pottery classes instead.
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My vacation has been cut short. Got a call from someone I worked with two years ago while I was in Pushkar to do some video work. I really didn’t want to cos I just wanted to do absolutely nothing for a while and then come back with a vengeance. But the money is good so I’m tied down till Jan 15th. Except that I have only worked one day on the project so far cos she has been delaying the script. I hope I get paid immediately so I can go on another mini vacation – wouldn’t mind going alone this time with my books, paints, and notebook.
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…and then nothing but a lone star remained in the sky, like an asterisk leading to an undiscoverable footnote.
- Time and Ebb, Vladimir Nabokov

How beautiful is that!