'I love you' can be said or conveyed in so many ways. I choose one of my ways as cooking the right meal(s).

This method, quite conventional, done for centuries by women, came to me naturally as I always loved to cook. So how simpler can it get, I love to cook, I love a man, I cook for the man, and he loves it!

I try to learn new recipes, from ma, gran, and ever since I started living with him, his mom too. Not all of them are a success at the first go itself, but I have only been reciprocated with generous compliments and more love, salt or no salt, burnt or raw. He also loves to get his friends home for dinner and cook with me.

His mom did scare me at first, saying he does not eat burnt/cold/previous day's food, gave a list of things he has never eaten - more 'Don't s' than 'Do s'.

The man eats anything I serve him on a plate.

One lazy afternoon, a good friend and a housemate, Al was describing how his mom makes prawn pickles. The subject dwelt on pickles for a long time, and I suddenly remembered I had tried a batch of awesome lime pickle a couple of years ago. 'Hey do you remember the lime pickle I made 2years ago? Do you want me to make some this weekend?', I spurted.

'No, there is no need' was the reply. I was shocked and at a loss for words. Al started laughing looking at my face.

'Why, didn't you like it? Why did you ask me not to make? I am sure you don't like it. But that was really rude of you to say like that...', I went on and on and on. Did I feel ridiculed or insecure with what I thought of as one of my talents, I didn't know.

All he had in his defense was 'I only wanted to save you the hassle..'. Al was still laughing.

Quite offended and annoyed I kept quiet all evening.

It only dawned upon me later, that he did mean what he said. He knows how hard I work and he did not want to bother me with any more, that too for making pickle(like I had turned 60)!

After a few days, in the Indian grocery section, he showed me the pickle rack and said with utmost sincerity 'Look how many you can get with no effort. I did not want you to labor over nothing'.

Saying NO was his way of saying 'I love you'.

I have seen relationships with the woman obsessing with what to feed her family, or her partner, the man being (appreciative or not) of his woman's efforts, but I have not seen many where the man protects his woman from turning into a 'cookaholic' and sincerely wants to save her energy for doing other important, worthwhile things, even if it is just lazing with a laptop. It is a step more than accepting a woman for what she is - it is protecting her from what she does not want to become.

AB I love you.

Touchwood :)

OK I agree. I have a long name. Divya Ramasubramanian. 21 characters including the space in between my first and second names. This name has amused some, confused some, gave a few a chance to giggle and even scared some. Some love to butcher it, some make their own versions.

Here goes the aliases of 'Divya Ramasubramanian' given by different people in the order of who gave it and the alias itself.
( Note: This does not include my pet names and love-names

1) Who - ME! Until I was 3years old
Name - Ziya papa
(Translated - Ziya baby - Divya is quite complex to pronounce you know...)

2) Who - Every 5th person I meet
Name - Vidya
(Tempts me to believe that every 5th person I come across could be dyslexic!)

3) Who - Vicchu mama - Neighbour in Chennai
Name - Deepika
(He claimed its easier to remember and say, I had to remind him its not even close)

4)Who - Primary school
Name - R Divya
(I quite liked this short and sweet version)

5) Who - Guys in my building when I was a teenager
Name - matchis ki Dibya
(Furious, had a fight, stopped talking to them)

6) Who - High school teacher and hence a few teasing friends
Name - Davia Rama-Subra-Manian
(That was said by counting fingers)

7) Who - Junior high friends
Name - Divaiyya
(Ragged with the song 'Divaiyya vasta vaiyya...aaargh)

8) Who - Engg friends
Name - DR
(I quite liked it, but many 'non-welcome' people tried to hit on me pronouncing DR as 'dear')

9) Who - many
Name - Divya Subramanyam
(Conveniently forgot 'Rama' part - not too bad, can live with it)

10) Who - Friends
Name - Divs, Divi, Di, Diya, Diva, DP(abbr of Divya Pagal)
(Happily OK)

11) Who - Naughty Friends
Name - Ramu
(Now why drag my dad into this!)

12) Who - Family, when they want a favour from me
Name - Dibu/ Dibuma
(I retort with 'What do you want this time?')

13) Who - British Uni professor
Name -
(He preferred not saying my name at all. Once he was writing it down, asked me to spell it for him
Me: D-I-V-Y-A
Him: Is there really a Y after a V?)

14) Who - National Railway on my ID card
Name - Mr D R Bramanian
(How humiliating! I hate producing it to the ticketing officers - never meet their gaze :P)

On a similar note..

15) Who - My gym
Name - Divya R Banian
(I had entered Divya R Manian)

16) Who - A Bangladeshi salesman
Name - Dibba (on the verge of fainting, trying to read my second name, he skipped it)
(He did apologise for not being able to pronounce my name)

17) Who - European telephone banking guy
Name - Miss Ramas - ubarum....can I call you Miss Divya if u don't mind?
(I would give you a tenner for saying my full name, even if you pronounced it wrong!)

18) Who - My hairdresser
Name - Nivea
(Seriously, what were you thinking???)

This one's cool -
19)Who - ex-boss
Name - Divya Supermario
(One day my ex-manager bet him to spell my name correctly, ex-boss lost £5, though I gained nothing, sigh)

My best friend's name is Divya too. If you are reading this girl, you are more than welcome to add to the list :)

September 2006 - Its for the first time, I left home, moved to UK to make something out of myself. Ma was still coming to terms with my empty room, so she had called over my gran and uncle.

The day they arrive, she calls me and talks in whispers throughout the call. Here is the conversation-

Ma: I saw a CD on your computer table, but don't worry I 've hidden it
Me: What CD? Why did you hide it?
Ma: What would your uncle think of you if he sees it? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone
Me: (a thousand thoughts crossing my mind)WHAT CD IS IT???
Ma: I don't know, you have written 'How to lose a guy in 10 days' on it
Me: (rolling with laughter) Its a movie!!! Please watch it and show it to uncle as well. Its totally a normal movie
Ma: (quite stubborn) Gran and uncle are not as forward as you. There is no need to mention anything to them!

All the explanation I gave her after that fell on deaf ears. So the next time I went, I showed her the movie and proved my point, much to her relief.

I wonder what must have been going on in her head...
I am happy she tried to save my ass though :)

There are restaurants in Paris where you need to make a reservation at least 6 months in advance for a dinner. They have great food, live music and excellent service. People usually propose at these places. The interesting fact is that these restaurants have two kind of menu cards - one with prices and one without.

The men always get the one with prices printed on it and the women get the one with no prices printed!

I wonder which other places do the same...and I wonder when will I get a chance to dine in one :)

...I loved listening to stories. Then I met AB who loves narrating stories. We clicked for many reasons one of them being his gift of gab. The flair with which he tells his stories is so captivating that he has earned a title of 'story-teller' amongst friends.

All these stories would be of people he comes across, incidents at work, many made up on the fly too! He also comes up with extremely convincing arguments or ideas that are often hard to say no to.

One afternoon, we were traveling in a bus from Borivali to Mulund. I was tired and deprived of sleep. I asked him to tell me a story and put me to sleep. He asked which kind of story I wanted to listen to, and I said the story of a farmer and a king. To my surprise he made up a beautiful story and I slept like a baby!

Ever since, I always ask him to tell me stories especially before I sleep and I give him a topic. There have been stories of naughty children, fairies, animals, birds and so many other things! My favourite characters are a squirrel named Rabbit and a rabbit named Squirrel who are best friends, Cookie the cat, Motu the naughty kid in the village, Chiu the bird, the enchanted forest of Guguland, the list just goes on! Every story has a moral, a feel-good factor to it and loads of cuteness. I sleep listening to them and get beautiful dreams...

Many times I think I should write his stories down - call it AB's fables or Tales from Guguland, but sadly, we seldom make it to the end of these stories. Half way through, either I fall asleep hearing his soothing voice or he falls asleep from fatigue and the stories remain incomplete.
Hmmmm, maybe I can make a daily soap out of it... Trust me, it will be any day more interesting than those stupid K-serials!

I, on the other hand, am a complete disaster when it comes to making stories. One day AB asked me to tell a story about Minku the monkey. I started off pretty well and neither of us were sleepy. I went on and on, but did not know how to end it! So I made a plot and had Minku bite and cut the lion's tail when he was sleeping and then the lion attacked Minku and ate him up. Phew, end of story! Pleased with myself I turned to look at him, only to find him deeply upset as I had killed his main character. Sadly he said "Tune mere Minku ko maara..." (You killed my Minku).

That night we both had terrible nightmares, thanks to my evil story! Ever since, telling stories is his department.

Of the many things that make a relationship special, I have my 'Tales from Guguland' happily added to the list!

June 2009- traveling from London to Mumbai on a Friday night, soon after finishing work, required a little more than strength and excitement. Friends came to see me off, delayed me and made the ordeal a bit harder when I had to run inside with my 5kg bag leaving no time to even shop at the duty free.

When I finally got seated, a lovely meal and three rounds of vodka later, it did not take a huge effort to slip into a slumber, snuggled inside the bright red 'Kingfisher Airlines' blanket. Hours passed and I suddenly woke up - there was no turbulence, no noise, the plane's engine sound was no longer a racket, everything and everyone still, no specific switching on of any light, the plane had got as dark as it could.

What woke me up? I was puzzled, at the silence, the darkness, the tranquility at thousands of feet above the ground level. Amazed at these surreal few seconds, I opened the window cover to look out. Needless to say, I could not have found out where I was, just by looking at the vast, empty sky but instinctively or intuitively, I am unsure of, I opened the cover.

What I saw gave me goose bumps. Pitch black sky, with no starting or an ending point, not a single star in sight, but sitting right outside my window was a full, radiant, bright round moon. Her beauty took my breath away. A thick layer of clouds at the same level as the plane were moon lit and silver. The view thus encompassed a soft silver floor, black background and a full moon vain with her beauty.

As I stumbled and struggled to take pictures, a kind flight purser came to me and said, "If you don't mind, I can take you to the front end of the plane where you will get a better view to take pictures?". A little startled and a little apprehensive, I followed him through an array of sleeping people, careful not to touch or wake them up.

Finally we came to what looked like a deserted bar, with sofas and tall chairs. As promised, I did get a chance to take beautiful pictures. I thanked the guy and went back to my seat pleased with nature's beauty, my Panasonic TZ5 and the service of Kingfisher Airlines. Just then, he took my camera from me to return with even more awe inspiring photos.

The pictures were of sunrise, dark blue sky with an orange frill.

I looked out of my window again - all I saw was the moon, black sky and clouds. Seeing my confused expression, he opened the window cover on the other side of the plane.


It was dawn on the other side.

I looked out of one window and then the other - I realized I was floating in space in this man-made metal vessel, caught in between night and day. Everybody else lost in oblivion, what woke me up? What made me look out? What made the kind flight staff open the opposite window cover?

I don't have answers to these questions. All I had was this mixed feeling of being insignificant in front of nature on one hand and feeling special for being the 'chosen one' to view this majestic phenomenon, on the other.

Pure bliss.

My housemate Ob and I return home to find the door unlocked and slightly open. We are sure that others are at work...
Me (alarmed n running towards the living room):Oh no! Lemme check if things are in place!!!
Ob (walking coolly): Hey relax, dont check everything, just count the number of rochers on the table
Me (puzzled): Why???
Ob (with a shrug and a straight face):Well a thief would not just steal stuff and leave without eating the rochers
Me: mouth wide open - at loss for words