i yam what i yam

and thats not popeye the sailor man

How I became mem: I received an invitation from M to post on this blog and this was my first post. I needed a name to post. I wanted to be M but couldn't because M had already beaten me to it. I then thought of being em but then there is a pretty well known eM blogger around. I then toyed with being 'me' again someone else I knew had bagged it. Some suggested yum- I refused.
(I had a math teacher in 7th std who would say (yum plus yun) into yum is equwaalto yumyum plus yunyum. Her classes made me very hungry).

So wanting to be M and em and me and not yum I became mem. I dint like the name. It sounded stupid. (why could I not have picked crazycoolme or superhotbabypapa?) But I told myself a name dint matter and stuck to 'mem' and have posted 61 posts (ha! you dint think it would be that many did you! - actually most of them are cheating one line posts) under that name and a million comments besides. Now I am almost fond of the name.

Now that I am slowly coming to terms with 'mem' I learn this- "Mem, as the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is most often associated with Death, Atu XIII. Aliester Crowley however, in his Thoth tarot deck assigns Nun to to the thirteenth card, and Mem to The Hanged Man" (from wikipedia).

:)

Rakhi will choose from among 15 grooms on NDTV Imagine's new show 'Rakhi Ka Swayamvar' to pick the man she will marry. She has already said many fun things like how she wants her mother in law to be "spicy" and how the husband should be like "shah rukh, salman khan, and aamir khan" .

I am sure its all very ridiculous and all that but it really really bugs me to see one Times Now piece about this show. The reporter signs off with "Thank you for the entertainment, but no thanks Rakhi, I don't think men of taste will bite at this bait. This is Nupur somethingortheother from times now"
Oh go suck an egg Nupur. Rakhis TRPs will beat your silly shows anytime

Shopping-II

I have already told you how much I hate shopping. Now I will give you Bangalore Shopping Guide for Clothes- from viewpoint of one who wants to be done with shopping quickly.

No I lie. I am a terrible quick shopper.  When shopping, I will spend forever, conflicted between two exact same tops one costing Rs. 50 and the other Rs 5000..... easy decision you say? No. I would have to spent one hour trying to get the catch, will fail and eventually buy the Rs 50 one to discover that it was actually kids shorts or something. I actually do own one kids nehru jacket that I wore as sleeveless buttoned shirt for longest time. Of course I dint realize it was kids nehru jacket, so I wasn't being ironic cool or anything. I only realised my buttoned sleeveless shirt was actually a kid;s nehru jacket when I went back and saw it displayed on a boy sized mannequin.  Ok long ramble later- I will give you Bangalore Shopping Guide from perspective of person who wants very badly to be a quick shopper- but will fail.

So what does Bangalore offer to the shopper?

Malls malls and more malls - The Garuda/ Forum variety: There is usually not much to differentiate one mall from the other so your decision should be based on the distance from you. These malls will have everything including one westside, one shopperstop, one or two high end stores, one roller coster plus bowling arcade plus house of horrors plus African tiger safari.
(quick quiz: which of the above does forum/garuda actually have? quick quiz 2: Do african tigers exist?)
So this seems like the best bet for the quick shopper. The added attractions of food courts and beauty salons and nail parlours offer comforting distractions from tasks at hand. Also- yaay restrooms!

Lido mall and Fun cinemas mall: These are the malls that are not really malls but cinema theaters with malls attached to them. They claim that they cater to a niche crowd. That is not you (the harried shopper) so give these a miss.

Bombay stores, Pantaloon, Lifestyle: Now if you are serious about your shopping mission, it might make sense to skip the Garuda/Forum type mall and attack this kind. There are no food courts, no person doing cartwheels, no cinema theater to distract you. It is also less crowded since everyone else is in another mall to watch cartwheels or african tigers. However - changing rooms are fewer and less comfy and if you don't like anything there you are going to have to walk all the way to one of the other places in the list. And yes yaay! restrooms

Commercial Street: Commercial Street is fun. It is unlikely that any productive shopping will get done, but you can walk about in the open, no ac, no tinkly music. You can eat popcorn, blow bubbles, pop into Bhagatram, eat gulab jamoon, peer into stores and cluck cluck about rubbish people will wear, then you will reach Fab India where you will pick up two items that will fade and be demoted to dish rags in exactly 2.3 months and then you will reach westside where you will pick up one more item that you will give your maid in 4.3 months and you are done.

Brigade Road: This is silly. I don't know why you would shop here. It will be crazy crowded and you will have to walk from branded store to branded store and be stared at and clucked at by all manner of sales peoples. On the other hand like commercial street you can walk in the open minus ac and tinkly music and you could get lost in the bookstores and realise that you were a very shallow person for having thought you needed clothes in the first place.

Malleswaram 8th cross and/or Sampige road: Again no tinkly music, but you will wish you had AC. There are tons of stores to chose from.You have the shops where you can haggle and ac branded stores- where you don't. You have to be prepared to walk about laden with bags and deal with honking traffic and crowded pavements. While food options are many, they will require jostling and pushing and yelling orders. (Ok I lie. Again. These days you have lines and coupons. It is only more depressing). Also sales peoples in Malleswaram brand outlets are a little more bored and a little more determined to make you wait longer than their counterparts in "town" and the yelling screaming haggling shop peoples are little more vicious and persuasive than their counterparts anywhere.

If you are a sensible person you will stay at home and stitch your own clothes.

Shopping

I don't like shopping. This dislike has grown gradually. Shopping for books and movies are ok but shopping for appliances, jewelry, clothes not so great. Id love things to be magically delivered once I have imagined what I want. Shopping for clothes is most annoying. It is also something I need to do. Now. Everything I own is worn out, stained, torn or something. Also I like new things, I like clothes, I like shoes, I like jewelry- I just hate shopping for them.

I dint always hate it. When I was younger, it was an event/activity -some two three of us girls would get together wheedle our parents out of some money and go "shopping". We would call and plan ahead -"lets go shopping on next next Saturday" It was not so bad then - limited money meant limited items which meant there was a finite end. Once you bought something game over. No wondering if you should buy something else to go with this and so on. Back then I I also knew what I wanted -(whatever the other girl was going to buy). I could buy anything - as long as it was "fun". When I shop now- I have to wonder where and how I would use the item. Could I wear it to office? Would it also suit a family function? an office get- together, a non office get together? Is it better to buy one item that is a not perfect but probable for 2 different purposes or buy one really good item that is perfect for only one purpose/location?
See? Nightmarish. Back then parents would have stocked up on enough appropriate clothes for occasions. Now shopping is no fun, it is a chore. The other big problem- nothing fits. Everything is too lose or too tight and does the shirt wrinkle funnily when I bend so and is the gap between the buttons too large and will it last.

These days I have a systematic approach for shopping like I do for chores, I venture out alone.  I make list of items I need. I will first go to a regular mid range clothing store and then hate everything there. I will then defiantly walk out and go to one or two more expensive stores, cluck cluck at the prices and then rush back to the  mid range store and buy something that was not on my list to begin with but is cheaper and multi purpose. Ill stare at it resentfully till its time to go shopping again.

In next post- Bangalore shopping guide.

ON TV

Well not TV really, but DVD. I have been watching the eccentric and refined Belgian detective and it is really bloody good fun. It is not the mystery or the whodunit suspense , since I usually know who the murderer/thief is after the first few scenes (having read most of the books). It is fun nonetheless because it is crisp, because of the quaint language, and because of David Suchets portrayal of Poirot. David Suchet as Poirot is charming and shrewd while retaining Poirots dandy-ness and fussiness.

There have been other on screen appearances of Poirot by actors Austin Trevor (played Poirot in Alibi and Black Coffee), and Albert Finney ( played Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express) . I read that Agatha Christie gave her stamp of approval to Albert Finney's Poirot. He was even nominated for an Oscar and was considered by many as the definitive Poirot. I don't agree- too well built. What do you think? (and he looks just a little bit like Kamal Hassan no?)

Albert Finney as Poirot

Peter Ustinov also played Poirot a total of six times, (He played Poirot in Evil under the Sun -this one has been on TV often). In my opinion he was least like Poirot, being tall and grey haired. Just look at him-

Peter Ustinov as Poirot

David Suchet is the closest to the Poirot I had imagined from the books. He has all Poirot's key characteristics that find their way into all the books - his egg shaped head, his luxurious black moustaches and always being neat and impeccably dressed. Agatha Christie in The Murder on the Orient Express describes Poirot as a "small lean man" David Suchet is anything but lean, but somehow I have never thought of Poirot as lean, considering his elaborate meals and hot chocolate - lean does not fit with Poirot.

David Suchet as Poirot

The actor who plays Hastings is - right amount of bumbling but not in a slapstick obvious kind of way. Similarly Inspector Japp is also the right amount of clueless.

All the performances hit just the right key. Tonight I will find out what happened to Prince Farouq' ruby when he foolishly lets his date wear it and she simply walks away with it.

Weekly wanderings

What have I been doing? Nothing much , watching movies (mostly forgettable- confessions of a shopaholic -terrible) and the random check to see if Bangalore nightlife has returned (which dint disappoint so much this time) and watching loads of sitcoms.

Watchmen

Whatay movie. Both Awesome and Aiyoo Rama. Contradictory you say? What else do you say about a movie that has superheroes who do bad things but are yet superheros, superheroes who have relationship troubles, the weight of too many superpowers and high maintenances girlfriends on their nuked blue shoulder.
While the movie is brilliant at times it seems like it is a little pretentious and thinks it is above its own genre. All right superheroes can be complicated and have their troubles on the side, but there is also much to be said for the superheroes who go around bashing criminals for most o the movie as opposed to having sex and long philosophical discussions on mars.

The movie is definitely worth a watch. Information, stories, back stories, twists are simply thrown at you the first 40 minutes or so, daring you to catch up, and creating a dense storytelling, which is thoroughly enjoyable. Then, when it has reeled you in the movie settles down into a somewhat more traditional narration. Each scene is spectacular. It is strong vibrant visual story telling. So yes Watch Watchmen.
And I will go read the book- no comic- no graphic novel.

Beach

Yes I am aware Bangalore is landlocked. Still some people pining for sun,sand and fun, created a pub/bar/club/restaurant called it the beach and filled up the floor with sand, and expected it to fill up with bangloreans who wouldn't know the difference anyway. I always thought Beach was a monumentally silly idea, but hey suprise suprise its quite fun. First I went to Fuga hoping some page 3 coolness will rub off on me but it was deader than what really really dead is. So onwards to beach which had greenish bouncy lights and people dancing. yaaay.
I believe that they have some sunset grooves party every sunday 3:00p.m- 6:00p.m. Yaay madhyana party! the kind we used to have when you had permission to stay out of home only till dinner and when you went to bunkers to order a small vodka and split that with a friend. You dint do that? Well neither did I.

Pub crawl

Went on a truncated pub crawl but totally awesomely worth it. From the springy benches of styx (that we dint sit in) to the uber blue tinted coolness of nasa (the loos are also space themed and your waiters are captains and the cocktails are insane -insanely named and priced at least zero gravity will cost you some 250 bucks) and pecos.

What is wonderful about hopping from shady pub to shady pub in bangalore is that you can walk from one to another yaaay! An excellent way to spend a Bangalore evening.

More events as and when I remember them.

The post title doesnt make sense? I know.