The Kochi blogger remains the Kochi blogger and the world continues to be a happy place...

Kochi- home sweet home

Coimbatore- home sweet home too....

Yippppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! I am going home- Coimbatore- tomorrow (I call Patna, Delhi, Pune, Chennai, Alappuzha, Kochi AND Coimbatore my home, but that is another story, for another day- lucky you!!!)
Coimbatore is where my parents decided to settle, close enough to Kerala- from where they originally are but not close enough for relatives to constantly pester them…pretty clever, eh?
I have a cousin who recently moved to Kochi with her hubby and she decided to opt for a place in my area- she has an uncle in this area too and she decided that staying close to relatives (her uncle and Ida plus their respective families= loads of people!!) might be a good idea- poor soul, she really has a lot to learn, doesn’t she??? Especially if she is staying close Ida, she will get “special” lessons in life that she never needed, and I have so much of unnecessary info that I am just waiting to share, she would be ideal!Yeah, I am pretty benevolent that way…
She has no idea what she is in for…this is going to be fun!!!!!
But anyway, before I got distracted with the possibility of making my dear cousin’s life interesting (which is a pretty distracting topic, but what to do…I have other things to write, sigh) I was saying that I am going to Coimbatore…maybe I must change my name to “the Coimbatore blogger” for a few days, except that I would not be there for more than 3-4 days and then I will have to change back again to “the Kochi blogger”, and I do not know if I will be blogging from there, so it could all be a waste of time. Besides which, it is also possible that somebody else wants the name “the Coimbatore blogger” and if I use it, the person would be deprived of the name…plus when I want the name “the Kochi blogger” back, it is equally possible that someone else might have wanted the name, seeing how great a blog “the Kochi blogger” is set to become (ok, you people can wipe that smirk off your faces…), and this person may STEAL MY BLOG!!! And then I will have to kill the person to get back “the Kochi blogger”, (yeah, I saw Terminator Salvation recently) which is of course mine, and what if the person doesn’t like the idea of being killed and is a psychopath who just does not understand that my life is more precious than his? That could be really messy….. what I am basically trying to say is that I am saving the Coimbatore blogger, the future Kochi blogger and all of us a lot of trouble… “AND YET AGAIN, IDA SAVES THE WORLD”!!!!!!!!!!
So, while Kochi is sure to be mourning my loss for a few days, Coimbatore is waiting with bated breath (is bated breath the term I am looking for? Hmm…not sure, but you get the drift…)
So, as I face the prospects of a few days of unadulterated, mummy-cooked food-o-maina, an unleashed fest of gluttony...let me smile that enigmatic smile of mine and say…see you people soon with reports from Coimbatore…and remember, I will still be “the Kochi blogger”, and NOT the Coimbatore blogger, ok?

Ida becomes a visionary and preaches religion(which one??)

You know, I have been typing this post like billion times, and each time it JUST DOES NOT SEEM RIGHT, ok, so you guys will just have to forgive me...I have just resigned myself to my fate- this will not be a great post(don't you DARE suggest the others were not great either, I know how they were, but a woman can give in to occasional fantasies, can't she?)
Been bed ridden for past two days...just before I fell ill I told my hubby dear that I had a feeling I was going to fall ill...he is so used to me falling ill that he now hardly reacts when I say something like this...time was when I just had to sigh and he would be hugging me and consoling me and time is now when I would be lying in bed, unable to move a muscle, he would just look in and say "do you think you can make me a coffee..." humph!
So, as predicted, I fell ill...another prophesy comes true...these days everything I say comes true...I had placed a plate of milk in front of our cat and predicted that she would drink milk and guess what? she did...I had predicted that it will rain, and it did, when I predicted that it won't, lo and behold! it didn't(of course that is how monsoons in Kerela work, but why are we even discussing this topic?)..
So you know I have this feeling that my prophetic vision is getting stronger by the day...maybe I should start doing this professionally, like Nostradamus ...but wasn't he like killed or something? Let's not try Nostradamus then, maybe I can be "Mata Ida" or "St. Ida" or "whatever-you-call-god-people-in-other-religions Ida" That would be neat, eh? Being agnostic myself, I might just have to bumble my way through things, but hey, who doesn't? And with my prophetic vision, it really does not matter...
So, what do you guys say? Who wants to join me in the most profitable business ever??Limited seats only... Free predictions for first few entries...Hurry...offer expires soon...

PS: Yes, I am writing this in a totally "high" state with all the medications, I dedicate this masterpiece to my doctors!!

We love the things we hate about each other...but what we "really" love is to sleep

So, our marriage is now officially one year old. Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary....and all Upair has till now to show of it is a few months of continuous headache, a few (like 3-dozen-a-day....pretty low, right) acidity attacks, a teeny- little potbelly and that's about it...I mean, no prescriptions for Prozac or Xanax or any other fun stuff all other married couple have!! I know, I am pretty slow...but months of headache, I can't be ALL bad at this "being wife" business,huh?
I know he often has tears in his eyes, but that must just be the joy of living with me, right?
The basic problem is that his idea of ideal wife is this




And I am more like this

(I don't know if I am allowed to use these pictures, but hey, whoever owns this, you must understand that you are contributing to a great cause- explaining to the world what I would never have been able to in words, and besides I have given links to your site, so you get free back links and you must be happy, but if you would still want me to remove it...just write in...)

So, anyway, now you know what lies at the crux of a happy marriage- a husband who has so bad a headache that he cannot notice what's wrong with his wife anymore and a wife so ill all the time that she is beyond thinking about anything but sleep...

Therefore, you can safely say that we "slept" our way through one full year of married life...others might tell you that you have to communicate...that is true, you MUST talk, but not to each other...my hubby talks to his cars and gadgets, I talk to random strangers on the internet...see, perfect harmony...

We went out to The Rennaissance yesterday(the name of a Hotel and not a theatre group)...I was dissapointed to find that the waiters there do NOT dress up like Rennaissance artists and they do not have brush-shaped forks and knives and verses of poem printed on the tablecloth....does nobody have a sense of theme anymore??? But seriously, the place looked great and the food was even better and I would reccomend it to anybody who loaths bland food, 'coz the food there is anything but bland...

We are both like seated in this romantic table and I am all thinking about how in-love we must look and Upair actually says the most romantic thing he can say, he calls me "Mandi"(Something equal to an Idiot in Malayalam, but in a sweet way)..yeah, coming from Upair, that's high romance....so now I am all over the moon and can't stop all the love that is flowing out of me....we finished dinner, went for a leeetle drive, came back and slept...slept, seriously, that was us after one year:) Still surviving.....

Hungry Heart!!!

Facebook is depressing...started taking a quiz today"What is missing in your life?" and I come across this question:
What is NOT lacking in your current living situation?

1. Financial achievement
2. Friends
3. Adventure
4. Freedom

Have you ever seen anything so atrocious? Is it just me? Am I the only one who had to spend the longest time puzzling over this question? ALL THE FOUR ARE LACKING!!!! How can I select one? Felt like a complete loser and was humming "I want to break free..."all day long:(
But anyway, depressing thoughts aside, today we discuss FOOD!!
First up is the Attic or The Attic- Steak House in Marine drive...
it seems the place was very famous for its steaks till something went wrong and the food started tasting not-too-great.
But anyway, Upair and I went there last week and found the food SUPERB. They have changed the cook, a new management and new menu, lesser steaks and more continental cuisine....after going through the unpronounceable menu(yeah, I am like TOTALLY sophisticated-- see, I can even spell the word!!!) I finally ordered the only thing I could pronounce- lasagna. Upair order chicken something-or-the other, which had fried chicken stuffed with cheesy somethin and mashed potatoes...both the dishes were YUMMMMMMMMMMMM!! Can't wait to go there again.

The lasagna and chicken-something looked like this

There is a newly re-done mallu restaurant right under it- the Ela, not tried it out. If any of you go, do let me know how it is....
Let's move on now...
Then we went to Cafe Coffee Day for some Grande Latte- it was ok, but last time was better.
While we are on the topic of food, the best topic anyone can choose to be on, in fact the only topic worth discussing, in fact the only topic I can discuss with my mouth shut ('coz I'll be too busy chewing), let me tell you about what we did yesterday...
Saw Wolverine...good movie...blah, blah, blah...now we go to FOOD!
We went to Pizza hut. I think it has been 2 months since we last went....the whole place has changed. I cannot decide whether I like the new decor or not. It looks lovely, true, but it also looks a bit formal. Earlier it had more "youngish" look. Maybe it is because its target audience- ME AND YOU- is growing older that the look was changed...I DON'T WANNA GROW UP!!!!
Food as usual was good, I love the spicy garlic bread over there, so we had that too!

At least the food does not look formal:)

Well, want to write more, but I suddenly thought of facebook and the first point, the "financial" point, gotta go do something about that...so let me go mint my 1 cent and 2 cents...
You all have a blast of a week!
BYEEEEEE!

PS:These pictures are from the net...not mine, so may not be like the real thing...yeah, another "smart" Ida move:)

How I could be a birdbrain and a genius in the same blog post....

Here I am again, I was planning on posting this earlier but other important things came up- there were some really fun Disney youtube videos that I just had to see (of course the fact that I was going to get a whole $0.02 for every view helped the cheapo in me).

I sat through the whole clip, only to realize that you have to be a member of youtube to write reviews. So had to create a new account and sign in. I am really tired of signing up everywhere. I keep forgetting the passwords. I used to have one password for all my accounts but it was just another thing for Upair to tease me with. “All women are the same…they are too birdbrained to remember more than one password and they do not realize how unsafe it is”…hmmm…just to prove to him that I was no birdbrain, I decided to have new passwords for all the places I signed up.

Except that I did end up forgetting all the passwords, so now I actually AM a proven birdbrain. But then I discovered this bright method of “customizing” my passwords. My password would simply be the name of the website. If it was too short, I just repeated the name of the site twice.
I know, I know, it must be too difficult to figure out my genius. Here’s an example:

Say I was starting an account on Google, my password would be google or googlegoogle. Brilliant, aren’t I? Except that now I have written it on my blog, every crook out there wishing to steal my money would know exactly what my password is…hmmm…writing this was not too bright thing to do, eh? But I guess not many hackers out there will be willing to actually go into the trouble of getting into my account to get the $0.02 that I earned watching youtube… ‘coz that’s all there is. Really! Trust a birdbrain to tell the truth!

So, coming back to the post, I had mentioned a park yesterday, turns out its name is Priyadarshini park. Upair looked it up on the Google maps for me, so you can be sure. Had I looked it up, I would have found out Brindavan Gardens in Karnataka and not know the difference and you would gone around searching for Brindavan gardens all around Kochi. And some “helpful” youngster would have given you the direction to the gays' park in Kochi (Yes, there is such a place, except that it is called something else and I am not going to tell you what it is really called!)…and you would have been like , “Why did Ida find this park spectacular?” and then would have Googled Brindavan Gardens and would have discovered that it is in Karnataka and you would know really how stupid I could be…thanks to Upair, we were all saved a lot of trouble…

The Park (Priyadarshini, not Brindavan, and not gays' park, either, you perv!) is near the Taj Malabar Hotel. And believe me it is worth forgetting the atrociously priced food in Taj Malabar and giving it a miss and heading for the park. The scenery is too good to be missed. The walkway in front of it also has a name that Google map doesn’t mention. Upair and I have read the name a thousand times but the birdbrained me and the not-so-birdbrained Upair have totally forgotten the name of the road. See, you do not get too far in life by not being birdbrained…why not stick to the simple birdbrained state? But I AM NOT BIRDBRAINED and don’t you dare suggest that…

I am including few snaps of the spooky place I had mentioned. Unfortunately the camera worked a bit too well and the place looks brighter in the photo than it really is. Boo-hoo, it does not look gloomy anymore: (

The Not-spooky-enough Priyadarshini Park(NOT BRINDAVAN GARDENS)

Well, this has again turned out to be long post. You guys are really a talkative bunch!! Oops, just looked at the comments and saw “0” comments…I guess I became a little extra chatty. So, again I am not able to write about the Attic. All that and more in the next post, ok?

((((((Hugs))))))

Hanky-panky in the Park!

It is Friday already and I can't say that I am not glad to see that the week is finally coming to a close. The most difficult part of the week for me in Thursday.
Monday you know you have to face the drudgery of the week, Tuesday again you are resigned to your fate, by Wednesday depression starts creeping and by the time it is Thursday you are ready to buy an unlicensed gun and shoot everyone and anything in sight (Yes, INCLUDING, the sweet neighborhood aunty, because what gives her the right to be so cheerful when you are drowning in misery?) You cry yourself to sleep on Thursday. And miracles of miracles, the never-ending week becomes a Friday!!! And weekend is just around the corner. Oh mercy, mercy, mercy, at last!!!
So, here we are, on that day, which makes endless boredom worthwhile, cause there is hope ...
Last weekend Upair, my hubby, and I had gone to the Attic....Oh, oh, oh! Lemme not forget, even before that, we had gone to this lovely little park (even before that we had gone to the South Railway station to drop off Upair's sis and hubby, but now that would not be of interest to you, would it?). It is in the naval area , near the lovely walkway...I have forgotten the name of the walkway(Heh-heh-heh!Yes, now that you have finished laughing, maybe we can continue...) but I will ask Upair and let you know tomorrow(Or whenever it is that I blog next).
But I digress, I was speaking about the lovely park, oh, it was beautiful....there was one part that had a kind of circular seating arrangement and there was no roof, except that climbers were climbing all over the place and they had sort of interlinked on the top, making a "natural" roof.
I am sure there is a name for such a thing but I'll be darned if I know what it is...my description of the place sucks, so lemme see if I can find some snaps of it to post it...
But anyway, the end result was truly spectacular! It looked right out of horror movies. All we needed was a "white-saree-aunty-with-long-open-hair" and we would be set. Upair and I were giggling away on these reflections, and generally trying to decide who best suited the role- if you would see us, you will know that that the competition is tough- me being more horrible looking and he being more scary looking....But anyway, we are doing this when we see a middle-aged person passing by with two young girls, presumably his daughters, and giving us the dirtiest look possible. And as we try to figure our what could be wrong, we see another group of elders with the same disapproving expression. And then another, and another....
And we are like giving each other these blank stares, absolutely clueless as to what is happening. And then suddenly it strikes us. They think we are desperate couple, surely up to hanky-panky in the park....our spooky location might have somehow seemed romantic to them. Or maybe they feel horror makes us kinky...or who knows...you just have to see a young(relatively) guy and a young (again, relatively) girl together and you see people adding two and two together to get most complex equations in math!
So, we discreetly got up...of course by now I had caught a cold and was sneezing and snorting so loud that the kids thought that it was a thunder and clapped, so being discreet was not exactly possible. But, we tried, I hid my face in my hankie and Upair looked into his mobile phone...Yeah, Upair thinks that if he gets lost in the "cellular" world, he will actually vanish from sight- MEN, I tell you.
So, anyway, now we are like seated in a family area, in full view of the public...and I see a girl and a guy make way for "our" enclosure under the shrubs...they must be up to some hanky-panky, I think...well, not everyone is as innocent as Upair and Ida, right?
So there we sit on the bench, commenting on all the kids and then mosquitoes decide to join the fun. Of course, they all have to attack me, because Upair does not already have enough things to tease me with!
But anyway, after I make a scene with the mosquitoes and the other people in the park start looking at me as if I was the nuttiest thing they had seen after nut crackers, we finally decide to call it quits and head for "The Attic"...
Actually this post was going to be about that, but you people just ask too many questions and I know exactly what you will be asking, so I have to write all these other details, so no time now for the post on attic...more on it in the next post...
Till then bye-bye...and please keep your houses dirty- I hope all the mosquitoes have some place else to go except following me.....

Kochi- "K" is for Konfusion!!!!

Infopark and Smart city vs "veragu adippu" (stoves that use wood as fuel), women's liberation vs drunkards who beat their wives up, lastest mercedes cars vs buses that want to run you down, Yadav bhelpuri vs Best Bakery, scorching heat vs endless monsoon, ....A city of paradoxes, to say the least. I have been here for a year now and cannot decide whether I hate it or love it.
May be love it cause there is so much of scenery, maybe I hate it because there is too much garbage lying around,
May be I love the strong independant women, maybe I hate the submissive attitude they have towards the men,
Maybe I love the lovely,lovely walkways, maybe I hate the way too narrow roads,
I love some food, I hate others too....
So as you can see, I have a very messed up opinion of this place. As I discover more of life in this city, maybe my thoughts will get clear, but then again, maybe not...
Anyway, it is something write about...
And that's all that counts...or maybe not...????