HELLO, VOGUE INDIA WOMAN

I have often found it difficult to explain to others what I feel towards fashion ( specially when people say "But you don't look like a fashion designer" meaning you don't look like a wannabe) and the correct role of fashion in one's life. So I came across this article by Sally Singer in VOGUE India (which I have been glued to ever since I laid my hands on it) which according to me, gives the correct perspective about what it is to be in trend.

An excerpt from the article: What does Vogue, used as an adjective, mean? The vogue woman – and she has been around for 100 years—is someone for whom personal style expresses a love of life and a matchless sense of discrimination. (Style, in this sense, is not just about what one wears or carries, but about how one entertains, reads, travels, and, in short, exercises and takes seriously the choices that the world offers up.) She doesn’t buy everything that is on offer each season; she buys the right things; clothes and accessories that update and amplify who she already is and is in the process of becoming. This is not the same as being trendy, because trendiness is not the same as being on trend. Looking merely trendy is, at bottom, a manifestation of insecurity, of allowing oneself to be manipulated by fashion; to be on the trend, by contrast, is to have fun with strong, fleeting currents without ever getting dragged out to sea.

Wishful thinking

Clicked this image of nearly 23 people in one auto rickshaw on the way to office. Outskirts of Delhi are spotted with such vehicles dangerously carrying more than the allowed limit. Add onto that, chances are half of the people are drunk. Travelling in and around Delhi in these autos and blueline buses is a commuter's nightmare. I'm just waiting for the time when the aam janta will stand up and force these people to get civilized. Will it happen during my short stint here? I surely doubt my wishful thinking.

Books

Summer vacation is a time for reading, and my friends come to me to borrow books because I have most than many people. In their innocence, they have no idea what I go through in lending a book.
They don't understand that I think of myself as offering them love, truth, beauty, wisdom, and consolation against death. Nor do they suspect that I feel about lending a book that way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock
- Something that I read at the Oxford Bookstore.

As I read it, I find so much truth in it.

The Footlong Kabab

Nizams ! Nizams !! Nizams !!! My tummy was chanting the magic word ever since I read the review in Timeout Delhi. So finally I landed up in CP last Sunday with the excuse to roam about in Delhi just to put my hands on a magically delightful Kathi Roll.

Tucked right at the beginning of the middle circle adjoining Plaza, Nizam's looks much smaller than its counterpart in Calcutta. Not having any idea about the ambience, the space inside looked crammed and noisy. Though small, the space is well divided between tables where you sit and eat and ones where you have to stand. I cant help drawing references to Calcutta but the white laminated cash counter resembles the one in Nizams Calcutta and the token display board also brought back fond memories of Big Max at India Hobby Centre where I would drag my parents to buy Hot Wheels.

The extensive menu with 18 different varieties of kathi rolls put up a difficult task for me. Running out of patience, I ordered the Mutton Sheek Kabab Egg Roll and waited while eavesdropping onto other people's plates. Looking around, I also found a few interested signages like "We will be happy to speak to you in hindi", "Discourage us from using plastic" and "Please flush as a courtesy to the next user" ( I wasn't ofcourse just looking around to discover that one ;-) ) which were sweet and crisp.

Finally after waiting for about 15 mintues and counting from 116 to 125 ( token numbers) my kathi roll was infront of my eyes. The characteristic crisp edges followed by juicy chunks of  mutton sheek enveloped in a layer of egg tasted divine and transported me to the lane between Chaplin and Stuart Hogg Market. But there was this one thing I wanted to ask the guy at the conter and I finally did. "Are you the same NIzam's as that of Calcutta"? Yes came the answer and I told myself no wonder where the taste came from.

All the more contended after establishing the connection, I walked out promsing myself to come back here time and again for another lip smacking footlong, just in order to be transported.