An Eventful Weekend

An 'Event' - The highlight of this weekend of course was the fact that I attended an event that the nice people at Indiblogger were having at Delhi, and we talked about this - the 'Get Published' contest. It's a pretty exciting initiative and we're expecting a lot of action here over the next few months - should be fun! By the way, here's a link to the presentation I made, in case you're interested.

A New Guitar - my sister offered to help me buy a new guitar and we found ourselves wandering up and down a vaguely familiar alley in Lajpat Nagar. We bypassed our erstwhile favorite Bharat Music House and went to Onstage, which had a nice range of guitars. I picked up a model that my guitar teacher Bhaskar had recommended -the Yamaha F310 - and loved the sound. Never one to mull over decisions of this sort, I asked for the price. 

'Rs. 12,000-something-something' the guy mumbled. 

'WHAT?'

My sister was matter-of-fact about the whole thing - after all, her own guitar, a brilliant Ibanez cost about that much when she got it years ago. I was about to philosophically sigh and say 'Oh well' and fork over the money, when something stopped me. I pulled out my phone and called Bhaskar and asked him if this guitar was supposed to cost Rs.12,000-something-something. 

'WHAT?'

He laughed and said no, no, it was like 7,000-something-something at best. I clarified the price with the Onstage guy and he remained firm about the 12,000-something-something, but looked distinctly uncomfortable. Bhaskar advised me to go and check at the Yamaha Showroom down the road. We pottered off there, leaving behind an unhappy looking salesman. 

And ended up with the exact same guitar at Rs. 7,150 plus a free tuner plus a free bag plus three free plectrums. 

Just like that. I don't what the dynamics here are with discounts, offers etc but it strikes me as really odd that a shop is trying to palm off an instrument, when just down the road there's a shop happily selling it for so much less. And also, I nearly bought it! Yeesh. I'm not the type to really bother with comparing prices for most things that I buy. Now that seems pretty stupid, and I plan to be a lot more careful. 

Several new dresses - my good friend Vani decided to give me a whole load of beautiful clothes. She said 'I decided to stop pretending I'm going to lose weight someday' - and handed me these shimmering, slinky, lovely dresses, the kind that I've hitherto seen only hanging on store-room mannequins. I held them gingerly and asked the burning question on my mind - 'Er, what kind of bras do these need?' 

In the past, whenever I've gone and indulged in new dresses, I've invariably found to my dismay that they require special types of bras, which I never got around to buying. Therefore, the most beautiful purple cocktail dress has been buried at the back of my cupboard since before my first pregnancy - yes, six years. 

'Arrey, mostly normal bras only. But these two...no three, require halter bras.'

'What's that?' I asked with interest. 

Vani stared at me as if I was from an another planet. The long and short of it is that we've decided to go bra-shopping together. I'm very excited about it. The last time we did this was seven years ago (!) in Bombay, and I'm not ashamed to tell you we ended up at a shop called 'Sweety's' and bought a whole lot of stuff that I never got to use because I subsequently had many children. Those nice ones don't fit me anymore and now we have to get a whole bunch of new ones and I'm sorry because I never really intended to make this post about bras and I'm going to have to stop typing this part now. 

A New Thought - I'm now toying - just 'toying' with the thought of taking on a work project. It's not like I don't have enough to do, but I just think I'd like to perhaps stay connected with the work that I do, which is mostly around digital marketing. I don't know. Vijay feels maybe I'm taking it on too soon, before my sabbatical is close to over - but I think perhaps it's something I'd like to do. I know I haven't climbed Mt. Everest yet, and my second book will need editing and my third book needs to be written - but somehow, it's just a feeling that I've got - that I should explore this whole 'project' area. Also, I'm watching my bank balance diminishing with alarming speed, and while there's still some time to go before it runs out completely, I'm not sure I should wait till it hits zero. So am I selling out on my sabbatical? Or am I being pragmatic? Or am I just restless? Or do I actually like my work and the fact that it pays? Or am I finally giving up on the 'full-time-author' dream - nah, I think I gave up on that one a while back. Anyway, I don't know what will eventually come of this. Time will tell. 

As of now, there's enough to do. Zumba this evening ( which I've told my instructor I'm cutting down from three days a week to two now), a spankin' new guitar to be played, a certain activity to be written for, a particular first book to be promoted, and of course - so many kids to be welcomed home from school in a few hours. Yeah, I think I'm fine for now.