Gone nuts

...has blogrolling. Backwards spelt sentence.

No seriously, when such dormant bloggers as Sharad and Skepsi show a blinking 'Struck anew' next to their name, I know something's not quite right with the universe. For that matter, EVERYone on my blogroll suddenly shows hectic activity, so I know its some trick conjured up by the Masters of the Blogrolling Universe. That, or I've suddenly stepped into the Twilight Zone.

Tcheh!

India @ 60

India is going all out to woo foreign tourists to India and improve the country's image abroad. Possibly the biggest range of events to bolster the 'India Shining' image, Incredible India@60, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in collaboration with a host of other bodies, is currently in progress in New York. I was part of the inaugural ceremony on Sunday, and it was certainly a bang as far as the Americans were concerned. New Yorkers gathered around in curiosity as the nadaswaram and mridangam played loud and clear. A red carpet welcomed guests, with women in Indian garb on either side, as they moved into Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center to witness truly spectacular performances of traditional Indian dance forms - Odissi, Kathakali, Kathak, Mohiniattam, Bharatanatyam and Manipuri. The final performance included a fantastic jugalbandi of sorts, with all dance forms represented on stage at the same time. Madhavi Mudgal's Odissi dancers and the Kathak performers from Kathak Kendra in Delhi were genuinely remarkable. The Kathak dancers, especially, held the audience in sway as the bells on their feet chimed in perfect melody even as their minute and complicated foot movements were faultless, and their skirts twirled gracefully. The era of Umrao Jaan truly came back to life.

It is rather tragic that I had to witness something that is so quintessentially Indian after coming to New York. I've seen some of these dance forms in India of course, but not all together like this, and it was certainly worth watching.

Unfortunately, I can't praise the organisers. Tickets exceeded the auditorium's capacity, some people who received invitations were not allowed inside, and tickets meant for certain people were handed out to others. The Indian VIPs were there in full force though, from the Indian Ambassador in New York Ronen Sen, to Pranab Mukherjee, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Vayalar Ravi, Nandan Nilekani (whose foreign invitees, by the way, were not allowed inside as they didn't have their tickets on them), Rajat Gupta of McKinsey fame, Sunil Mittal, Sam Pitroda and film stars Shabana Azmi and Anil Kapoor. The press in India covered the event extensively but since they took all the trouble to organise this huge event, the CII would have done well to get a few international press representatives to cover it as well.

Still, as more than one American came up to me as an Indian, and said that day, 'Congratulations on your 60th birthday!', here's hoping that in the next 60 years India will truly become the country we all want it to be.

Tah-da!!!

Annndddd.... welcome to the Brand New Wanderings and Wonderings!!! A HUGE big Thank You to Graphic Designer Nerd for the new look, and for putting up with my zillion emails asking for minute changes to this and that. By the way Grafx, if 'nerd' means being this talented then I'd like to be a nerd too :-D

India: Outsourcing outsourcing?

The NYT has an article on developments in India's outsourcing capabilities. Interesting reading. US students are apparently rejecting Google for Infosys!

Perfection

If life were perfect, would it be worth living?

Happy Birthday Penny Lane!

It's very difficult when comments are switched off and you want to say something to a blogger. Anyway, in the search for a novel way to wish Penny Lane a happy birthday, I came upon this, and couldn't help but smile. Maybe Penny will smile too - Happy Birthday!

Do You Realize?

In 2002, the Flaming Lips came out with a song called 'Do You Realize'. Singer-songwriter Gretchen Lieberum has come out with her own version of it, featuring a plastic crown and a group of diverse Los Angelans, and shot with a used camera on a budget of $3000. Take a look.

The Artist

‘Unnuda ponnu romba sowbhagyavathi ma’, the astrologer predicted, looking at her little daughter’s hand. Varalakshmi was thrilled. Aha. Oho. She’d given birth to a girl who would be the recipient of good luck. Who knew, maybe some of it would rub off on her, the mother, as well. Maybe she’d get an excellent job when she became an adult, earn lots of money and give her poor old mother some jewellery and pattu sarees every now and then. After all, she was the one who brought her into the world, illiya. Of course her daughter would be grateful, in addition to being lucky and intelligent and pretty and smart.

Then he added, in Tamil, ‘She is going to be an artist.’ Varalakshmi’s forehead filled with furrows as she wondered what art her daughter was going to be proficient at. She’d get the best bharatanatyam, classical singing and painting teachers for her immediately. The younger you teach them, the better, is what most people said. OK, so it wasn’t going to be a job that her daughter would excel at. Who wanted a job anyway? That Padmavathi Amma’s daughter went to her fancy office every day and look what happened? She married a Punjabi. They all had those big turbans on their heads all the time., and someone told her the men all had long hair! And some of them ate non-veg also. Ayyo! Good thing her daughter was going to be an artist. She would be a world-renowned bharatanatyam exponent maybe. Tour the world and be written about in the papers. And in her press conferences she would acknowledge the hard work her mother had put into making her the star she was. She would win awards and cash prizes. And she would get lots of pattu sarees and jewellery as gifts from her admirers which she would pass on to her mother because she wouldn’t need so many. Varalakshmi smiled proudly.

Yes, that’s what she would do. She had to find the best dance, music and painting teachers for her daughter immediately. There was no time to be lost.

Fifteen years later, Varalakshmi picked up the newspaper that the paper boy had thrown on their doorstep, as he had been doing for years now. She adjusted the glasses on her nose and read slowly.

'Con Artist makes away with jewellery worth Rs. 50 lakhs:
A female con artist succeeded in robbing a jewellery shop today in broad daylight. The woman had been alienated from her parents for the last two years and was living in a hostel in Mandaveli. Her mother, Varalakshmi, is a housewife….'

Varalakshmi fainted.

Umbrella Love

The door banged shut, forced to by a powerful gale that acted with invisible hands. She could almost picturise him – him as in Mr.Gale – a tall, brooding type with a cape and large-rimmed hat. She wasn’t quite sure why the gale should be a man, but with that kind of brute force let’s say she didn’t feel all that off the mark that blusterous morning.

Koshy’s was almost empty. There was just one couple sitting at the far end, it being the beginning of the week and a terrible morning at that. She was not as wet as she expected – her trustworthy raincoat had yet again lived up to its name. She extricated herself from the dripping coat and slunk into the closest table, because she wanted to be near the windows. Bad though the weather may have been, she still liked the romance of the rain. Call her a soppy fool – she didn’t care.

As she put her backpack down on the floor next to her, she suddenly noticed a funny little enamel face grinning at her. It was the handle of a colourful umbrella, shaped in a most unique way. Two things attracted her to it at once – first, the myriad of colours on it. She liked most umbrellas that were any shade of anything but black. She hated the boring old black umbrellas. They made her want to scream – everyone and their brother had one, and it was boring, boring, boring. Just not her. She didn’t even own an umbrella, preferring the convenience of a raincoat, but if she did then it would most certainly not be black. That much she knew. So the colorful umbrella endeared itself to her on sight. Then of course there was that handle – that weird little grin. Colourful umbrellas were not that uncommon, but one with a face? Now that she hadn’t seen too many of.

She placed an order for a cup of hot chocolate, and began to examine the umbrella. Whose could it be? And had he or she just left after breakfast or was it a remnant of a boisterous get-together at the restaurant the previous night? And where, oh where had they got the umbrella from? She decided she’d go and buy one exactly like that if she ever found out.

The rain continued to pour across the window-pane, tiny little rivulets blurring the scene outside. She counted them slowly, but soon tired of the exercise. There were too many of them. She turned her attention back to the umbrella and decided to ask the waiter about it. He’d know. Her hot chocolate made its appearance a few minutes later, and she immediately asked the waiter whether he knew whom it belonged to. The waiter looked at it, smiled, and said that it belonged to a regular customer, who’d probably forgotten it when he left after his coffee less than an hour ago. He said he’d make sure it would be returned to its owner, and asked for it so he could keep it safely till the owner came by again.

She was just about to hand it over when she looked at the funny face once more and asked whether she could look at it a bit longer since she thought it was so attractive. The waiter smiled again. He knew her also well, after all. He agreed, and left her to finish her hot chocolate in peace.

Just then, the door banged again. She looked up, and noticed a rather intelligent-looking young fellow in a Che Guevara T-shirt and soaking jeans enter the restaurant. Her mind raced. Could it be him? She saw him walk to the waiter. Should she do what she was thinking? She didn’t know. Her drink stood there untouched.

She decided to go for it. She rummaged in her purse quickly, withdrew some money, put it on the table, grabbed her things and ran out.

In her hand, a funny little face gleamed.

Good news for New York Times loyalists

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its site, (the Times Select articles), effective today.

Apparently they underestimated the number of visitors to their site that were being driven through Yahoo!, Google and other search engines. These users are less likely to pay to view articles than regular NYT loyalists, and the paper didn't want to lose out on the opportunity to generate more online revenue and page views.

Another one bites the dust. Long live online advertising - ha ha.

Innocence lost

Kadala, salty and sandy,
In paper cones like the upturned hats of clowns
Thrust into waiting hands,
Little waiting hands
Crunched and swallowed in minutes.

The young married couple sitting nonchalantly,
Enjoying their moments of togetherness in solitude.
Chubby-cheeked cousins playing -
Making sand-castles?
The older few walking and talking seriously -
About communism?

Neenu stood unerringly tall, like – oh, like the stately Big Ben (she liked Big Ben),
Her little poetic mind admiring the setting sun
As it sunk slowly beneath the rippling water in the horizon.
Describing the beauty of the scene to herself in hushed whispers -
She couldn’t wait to transcribe the image
To her prized diary (for her eyes only).

Then her married cousins shouted:
What are you doing standing there alone?
This is Kerala. People are looking at you.

The caste saga in India

When I was a student in India, I distinctly remember a certain practice in my school that grated on my young nerves whenever it presented itself before me. It was the requirement in my school's admission form (and a few other forms) of disclosing the caste of the student. I knew jack squat about caste then, at all of 12 years - my previous years of education having been outside the country. Through the next few years of my education there, it came up a couple of times more in different application forms and each time I would blink in a concentrated manner for a few minutes as I looked at the blank that followed that seemingly innocuous word : 'caste'.

I even remember a particular incident where one of my rather intelligent classmates proudly said that she belonged to the Backward Caste (or BC), and that therefore it would be easier for her to gain admission into medical school (She did get a seat). My point though, is that she was smart, so she should have probably got in anyway. Another friend, belonging to the so-called 'forward caste', whose parents had connections in the government, got her a fake certificate stating that she belonged to a backward caste to make her admission into college easier.

The issue didn't really affect me as I wasn't one of those who intended to study medicine or engineering, which was where the issue of caste really held sway over whether you got into college or not. But there was a point where many people were faking certificates and the like to stand a better chance of admissions into college, and I just didn't understand it. No, seriously. Call me an idiot or whatever but I found it ridiculous that people were resorting to things like that. I shouldn't have, I suppose, because I know now that it is certainly not uncommon in India. Plus, when I went to get admission into an arts and science college myself, I found that a certain number of seats HAD to go to students from a particular caste, and so on and so forth, and the issue of reservation for students from particular castes was very much prevalent there as well. If I was looking for immunity, I was disappointed because I certainly didn't find it there.

Of course, controversies will always surround the issue of reservation, and I think it is difficult to come to a 'one-fits-all' solution. To anyone who knows India's history, it wasn't a bad move to introduce reservations in India. Some truly deserving students belonging to SC's and ST's do benefit from reservation, without a doubt. My friend who got into medical school, for example, is doing an M.D at Harvard now. If she did not belong to a BC, it is possible that she may not have got into medical school in India in the first place, and a good doctor would have been lost then and there. But the reverse is also true,which necessarily means that sometimes, some deserving non-SC/ST students lose out on seats as well.

Anyhow, what started me off on this topic was this article I read today that says that the Supreme Court has decreed that schools cannot compel students to disclose caste. Interestingly, a PIL filed by someone from Tamilnadu who sought a complete ban on caste-disclosure forms in schools, was dismissed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it would create problems for those who wanted to avail of free scholarships and other benefits.

'Gifted' - A Review

Gifted
Nikita Lalwani
Random House
288 pages
September 2007

A quick reading of the synopsis of ‘Gifted’ doesn’t make the reader think there is anything terribly exciting or unique to expect from it. Probably one of the best examples of the adage ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ in recent times, ‘Gifted’ follows Rumi Vasi as she is carefully molded by her father to become one of the youngest students ever to attend Oxford University. This is Lalwani’s first novel, much of it, as she claims, written at Bath Spa University in the UK where she pursued an MA in Creative Writing. And what an impressive first attempt it is.

Set in Cardiff, Wales, where Lalwani was raised, Rumi is the first-born of Mahesh and Shreene Vasi, typical Indian immigrants who make the UK their home in search of that elusive goal of a better future. Mahesh is a lecturer at the University of Swansea, a post that he earned after he gained his PhD at Cardiff. We learn that he ended up in Cardiff despite his admittance into Cambridge and University College London, because, very simply, ‘they had offered the cash. They had wanted him here, a foreigner with no more than five pounds in his pocket and a slip of a wife, bare-toed and shivering.’

Rumi is made to follow a highly disciplined and regimented schedule from the age of five, after a visit from her teacher who proclaims that the precocious young girl is a ‘gifted mathematician’. This is reinforced after her first visit to India with her mother, when an astrologer who looks at her hand says that it is the hand of a genius. Mahesh never lets her slip under his supervision, and her closest friends become the numbers that she starts continuously linking together in her mind in permutations and combinations.

As Rumi enters her teenage years, her life becomes full of the contradictions that a child of her upbringing is wont to endure. Shreene, always unhappy that her husband decided to settle abroad when she wanted to return to India, is not the ‘coconut’ that her husband is (‘brown on the outside, white on the inside’). Rumi’s knowledge of India comes from her mother’s anecdotes about her life in India as a young girl and her love for Hindi films, which Mahesh allows the family to watch only once in a while, to ensure that Rumi’s English is not affected. Shreene is the typical Indian conservative mother – when Rumi asks whether, as she was taught in science, she was born through sexual intercourse, Shreene flies into a rage and then calms down enough to say that she was born through prayer, because ‘only white people have sex’.

Amidst all the turmoil that the young Rumi is going through, Mahesh’s grand plan finally yields fruit. Rumi, not yet fifteen, is admitted to Oxford. There, thrown into an adult world, Rumi finally rebels.

Lalwani’s writing is truly descriptive - the reader feels Rumi’s angst and confusion at every point, and the connection only grows as the book finally reaches its climax. The finale is built-up like a difficult jigsaw puzzle , the small pieces all falling into place one by one before the complete masterpiece is revealed.

A few years ago, I assisted a documentary film-maker in India on one of her short freelance projects. Imagine my surprise when I found out that three years later, that same person had written a book which was deemed worthy of being in the 2007 Man Booker longlist.

The book is ‘Gifted’, and the author, Nikita Lalwani.

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com.

Pangea Day

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a conference to bring together people from those worlds. Since then, its scope has become broader.

The TED prize is designed to leverage the TED community's exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to three individuals who each receive $100,000 and, more importantly, the granting of one wish to change the world.

The video below heralds the launch of Pangea Day, called for by 2006 TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim. Pangea Day will basically tap the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion around the world. On May 10, 2008 - Pangea Day - sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, supplemented by exceptional speakers and great musicians.

If anyone reading this is a film-maker, you should think about submitting a project for Pangea Day. Even otherwise, the site is worth a look.

The song of the seasons

The seasons were changing. She could feel the nip in the air, ever so slight, that heralded the beginning of Fall. It was Fall when she first set foot in this country, all those years ago. Most people she spoke to liked Fall. They said they liked the colors - the slow change of the falling leaves as they turned from parrot green to sunflower yellow to russet red and then fell, chocolate brown. Lifeless. But what she liked was the crunching of the leaves beneath her feet when she walked among the trees. She liked the way they dropped down suddenly, making her let out a surprised breath. She liked the paper-like noise and the softness of the ground beneath the spread of brown. There was no Fall back in India. No real color-changing of the leaves, at least not in the metropolises she was used to. Delhi of course had a pseudo-Fall - the weather used to have that by-now-familiar nip in September and October, but that was it.

Soon, winter would come. It would be cold and gloomy for days on end. But winter here also meant Christmas was approaching. She loved Christmas, and the fairyland lights strung up everywhere, making her world seem like a dream. She even liked the snow, though it meant that heater of hers would need turning on after all those months of silence. Snow wasn't always pretty though - she liked the drip-drip-drop flakes but she disliked the dirty slush - again in the cities mainly. She sighed. The cities - those agglomerations of people, multitudes and multitudes of them. She hated them and loved their throbbing pulses at the same time.

She moved on to spring....

Just then, the doorbell rang, its familiar sing-song tone announcing his arrival. He was home. She shook herself out of her reverie, gave one last longing look at the ant-people scurrying about 40 floors below her and slid the window shut.

Most Earth Shattering Collaboration 2007 - for the guys again!

Watch this video to learn who won Most Earth Shattering Collaboration at the 2007 MTV Music Awards last week. For a clue, I featured the winning video on my blog in March this year!

Polygamy in the US

Extremely interesting - I just read about this polygamous sect in the US which straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives. The polygamous settlement is largely controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and allies of its jailed prophet, Warren S. Jeffs, who is about to stand trial on charges of sexual exploitation. Nearly all of the 6,000 residents follow the dictates of Mr. Jeffs, who they believe speaks for God; women wear ankle-length dresses, and children are taught to run away from outsiders.

This is the USA, by the way. Not Iran. Or some country from the Middle Ages that no longer exists.

This country, as always, is fascinating. First a Festival for Virgins, and now a Polygamous Sect which casts boys of 15 out because they like to watch movies like (OhmiGod) 'Die Hard'. By the way, if anyone has doubts, the US has not legalized polygamy. I don't know how this sect continues to exist, though.

Watching the King of Tennis

Being at the 2007 U.S.Open was a great experience. It was a psychotically hot day but I could feel the buzz, especially when Roger Federer walked onto Center Court. He plays so effortlessly, it almost makes you think he isn't even trying. The husband calls him an alien, because he doesn't exhibit 'human qualities'. I beg to differ. The man excels at his sport. That doesn't come without years of hard work, discipline and dedication.

And to think he is my age.

He won $2 million at the U.S.Open - plus a Lexus. Peanuts for him, possibly. I'm wondering now when he will start slowing down. Not anytime soon, by the looks of it!

Brain surgery

Thoughts fell over one another
Jostling to be first in line
She was confused.
Within the narrow physical confines of her mind
There was only so much that could fit -
Or was there?

Like butterflies unfettered
In a meadow bursting with joy
Boundaryless,
She knew her thoughts couldn’t be tamed –
Didn’t want to be.

‘You can’t do this’
Or ‘You mustn’t do that’
Why not? Why?
Her life was hers, as much as the thoughts were.
She pushed the misty window open

And let a decisive breath open her up.

India steps up - economics for kids

I wrote about my visit to the Federal Bank of New York a few months ago. They publish comic books to teach children about money and banking, and I went through a few displayed copies when I visited. The comics are given free for classroom use, are fun and easy for kids to read. I think that they are a great way to teach children about money and have wondered why India can't have books like that too.

Looks like they read my mind. The RBI has just come out with its first comic book, called 'Raju and the Money Tree', to do exactly that. It's also free, and is even available online. But India's problems are different from that of the US, and the comics can help in other ways, as Regional Director of the RBI, Delhi, H.R.Khan says:

About 61 per cent rural and 40 per cent urban population is still out of the formal banking system. With the growing worry about ‘financial exclusion,’ a dire need was felt to increase financial literacy of laymen and make them aware of banking.

And yes, they are being published in 13 regional languages also - including Hindi, Oriya, Assamese, Bengali, Urdu and Tamil. More books are in the pipeline — on basic banking, rural poor, urban poor, electronic based no-frills accounts, currency and the RBI as a monetary authority.

I am immensely proud. Whatever anyone else may say, better late than never.

From riches to rags

.....and not the other way around. I haven't seen too many news stories like this, though it probably isn't such a rare occurrence. Geetanjali Nagpal, a former model who used to walk the ramp with the likes of Sushmita Sen, is on the streets. A graduate of Lady Sriram College in Delhi, she took to drugs after the peak of her career in the 90's, and things spiralled downwards from there. Scary. I feel sorry for her. You can see a CNN-IBN video here.

Being on The Rachael Ray Show

So this was a proper indoor studio shoot. Recorded, not live, like my outing to Good Morning America's studio last week. Apparently they had 110,000 audience applications for the first 3 weeks of shooting the new season, so a big Thank You to my friend N who got tickets and passed them on to me.

First, Rachael Ray rocks. The warm-up guy, comedian R.C Smith (they actually have a guy whose job it is to entertain the audience in between shots), did say that if we hadn't been on any other show before then we wouldn't want to after being on Rachael Ray, and he wasn't lying. It was super fun. I got there huffing and puffing like a crazy maniac (I always have stories, don't I), pushed as I was to run for close to twenty minutes non-stop amid the busy New York streets, to make sure I got to the studio on time. And I just made it, because they started admitting people soon after I joined the queue. Mandatory security check complete, we went up to the waiting room where we were provided free food and coffee. Then we were herded inside the studio, which was colorful and swanky. It was divided into three parts - the kitchen, a garden area and a sort of lounge area. The best part was definitely the rotating lazy susan on which the audience chairs were fixed, so we were turned around to face whichever part of the studio the shot was being taken in, without having to move a muscle.

They were shooting segments of two separate episodes yesterday. Both had celebrity guests, and we were kept in the dark as to who they were. The first was Valerie Bertinelli (the lady who comes in the Jenny Craig ads), and of course she was on the cooking segment. Rachael and her look a lot alike - seriously, they could be cousins, as she said, and they spoke about her weight loss with Jenny Craig and her son Wolfgang's impending tour with Van Halen (she is married to guitarist Eddie from the band). They did unexpected things like burning a pair of Valerie's old size 14 jeans in a barbeque grill so that she wouldn't go back to her old weight ever again (if that works, I should try burning my old clothes too - ha ha ha!!!), and Rachael made a yummy-looking turkey bacon burger with onion rings in the Barbie-type kitchen. (When I say Barbie-type, I mean an orange stove and an electric blue fridge, for starters!).

The second celebrity guest (and this was definitely the most memorable part of my trip to the studio) was....was.....WAS....DANIEL RADCLIFFE!!!! No kidding. Harry Potter in all his sixteen-year-old glory. He was rather cute, very British and I couldn't believe I was seeing him!!! Rachael is a lovely conversationalist, and got him to speak about his take on a lot of interesting things:

on the fame, post-Harry Potter:
Rachael: How is it being so famous?
Daniel: It's just great, really.
Rachael: Thank God he's not like other stars who pretend to hate the fact that they're famous!

...his experience working on the upcoming 'December Boys', shot in Australia:
Daniel: I'd been to Australia a few times and just love the country, so shooting there was fun. Except it was in this rural part of Australia, an island called Kangaroo Island, and after living in London all my life it was such a change. I think Australia is my favourite country apart from England, sorry!! (this to the audience, referring to America of course!)

...his experience acting in a nude scene for his London stage debut in 'Equus':
Rachael: What was it like shooting that? Did you enjoy the whole thing or was it weird to have so many people watch you?
Daniel: I couldn't have done it if I was in America because you aren't allowed to shoot nude scenes if you are under sixteen, but of course London doesn't care about all that! It was weird, being watched by so many people.

Rachael: What is the weirdest thing a fan has ever done?
Daniel: Well when I was doing the nude scene, there was this one person who picked up my boxers from the corner of the stage where I'd taken them off, and just legged it!
__________________

Yeah. It was quite cool. Rachael Ray herself is cute as a button and seems to be quite a nice person. No attitude or anything. I guess if you have a talk show, you have to be personable! We got free boxes of sweet potato cookies, which weird as they sound, actually tasted quite nice. And then of course there were the games where R.C.Smith picked on random members of the audience and asked them questions and gave them goodie-bags. He was good, a really funny guy.

I'm glad THAT's been crossed off my to-do list. Being part of audience on American TV show - indoor and outdoor - done. :-)

Weekend song: Sunday Morning

Beautiful sunny day, lazy feel, relaxing at home. All I want is nothing.