A Bowl of Elusive

Mia's parents have been looking for a groom for her. And they haven't found one in a few years. She is turning 31 shortly and her patience is wearing thin now. Mia didn't really oppose her parents when they brought up the topic of arranged marriage a few years earlier because she didn't have anyone in her life at that point. And thus started her matrimonial adventures. Mia was a plump , jolly and enthusiastic woman who had an undying zeal for life. She was educated and had a decent job, paid her bills on time and didn't owe anyone a cent. And yet, the last rejection (like many others before it) made her feel small. This guy, after having whispered sweet nothings into her ears for five months straight, rejected her after meeting her because "his parents wanted a slimmer wife for him". What added insult to injury was the fact that this time, even her father suggested that she "should work out and try losing some weight". Almost all rejection...

The day before yesterday, the office cafeteria served Balushahi during lunch. I was in between a heated debate with some colleagues when I bit into the Balushahi. As the flaky sweet crumbled between my teeth, I was suddenly transported to another time, another place. I suddenly had tears in my eyes and a strange pain in my heart. This little piece of sweet had managed to remind of him, my father. Back in 1997-98, I lived in Choudwar, a little industrial settlement near the city of Cutack, with my father and a tyrannous caretaker who abused me. While the years spent in Choudwar, which eventually led to my father's death, were traumatic as hell, they're peppered with some of the fondest memories I have of my father. He had been mostly unaware of the hardships I was being subjected to at the hands of the woman he'd hired to take care of me. But he sensed that she was strict in her approach and every other evening, he'd take a break from work and sneaked me out f...

And just like that, Neel found himself all alone. Somehow, the last few years were over and he was just left behind, a shell of the man he once was and out on his own. He knew he had to rebuild his life and he just couldn't begin to fathom where to start from. He had to do something about the house as he couldn't, for the life of him, manage to clean and maintain such a huge place. So he decided to move in with some friends. The move was smooth and by the end of October, Neel was settled in at his room in the new apartment. He had set up all the essentials to keep him content and that was the beginning of his second life. Now for the loneliness, Neel had a few ideas. He signed himself up for online dating, hollered at a few old flames and explored the vast playing ground called the internet. He came up mostly empty, of course. Turns out, you need the green if you want the scene. And Neel wasn't rich. So soon, Neel was off the dating sites, cut off from most of the ol...

Every time I tell people that I have a degree in Hotel Management, they inevitably ask me why I'm working in retail and not in hotels. It's been eight long years since I made that switch and now the narrative has boiled down to simple facts like work-life balance being shitty in Indian hotels and hotels being bad paymasters. But the actual reasons, while including the aforementioned points, go beyond that. In this post, I'm gonna delve deeper into the several reasons I had not to continue in the hotel industry. To do that, I'll need to take you back to my college days and outline what the course is all about and what kind of job prospects the candidates have after passing out from a hotel management college. This might be a dreary subject for some of my readers, but I think a lot of my college peeps will actually relate to this post. So many people have this misconception that hotel management is all about the kitchen and food production. That's a rather laym...

I read this article on Psychology Today that states that humans "carry the biological imprint of polygamy, the opposite of lifelong fidelity to one mate." The article also goes on to state that "80% of early human societies were polygamous." The article goes on to speculate that later societies adopted monogamy just to better raise children, and also because maintaining harems wasn't cost effective for men who weren't sultans. (Here's the link to that article if  you're interested to read it.) Now this article and various other like it got me thinking about monogamy and its relevance in today's time. You talk to single men and they'll tell you how many women treated them like options and women seem to have the same opinion of guys. Makes you feel like monogamy as a concept might be a myth or redundant for that matter. While the idea of finding "the one" is still quite revered, the means can be pretty flexible. What with ...

Guys, have you ever noticed how a lot of our life revolves around our relationship with women. Whether you're a player or a lost-in-love kinda guy, women seem to take up a lot of your time and energy. So its but natural that so many movies are made on the subject. But movies seldom get it right, do they? Women are either portrayed as saintly or vamp-like in Hindi movies, but in real life, women are just as complicated and diverse as men are. So, in this article, I won't generalize women at all. I'll only talk about a certain kind of women. It can be argued that all women have, at some point in their lives, been the kind of woman I am gonna talk about. The "thankless" kind. I know the word sounds harsh and judgmental, but it has to be read in context to be understood better. My colleague Rishabh (name changed) talks about his ex-girlfriend, who went to another city to pursue a degree course, made Rishabh pay a part of the tuition fee and then grew distant an...

Eclairs - The Pavilion, ITC Maurya, New Delhi The mere fact that I'm writing about this should tell you how passionate I am about my food. I order in a lot. Like a lot. And I've been doing that for the last 11 years. So my relationship with food delivery is a long standing one and of course, I have a type when it comes to food delivery places. Now, what I look for in my meals and subsequently in my food delivery experience may differ from occasion to occasion , from day to day, depending on the following things - how hungry I am, what I'm craving for and what time of the month it is. You see, I'm a big guy, like literally, I am around 6' 2" tall and I weigh nearly 100 kilograms. So naturally, I have a really healthy appetite. So quantity is a big factor for me. Most of my disappointments with food delivery joints arises from the fact that they have a pathetic portion size. I don't mind paying more than average if the serving size and the quality of...