tiramisu

tiramisu

Wednesday 14 June 2006

Voulez vous danser avec moi ce soir?

"Dance with me?"
The question was apparent but only
in the anticipation of his extended hand. I hesitated.
"I don't know how," the confused excitement
in my eyes seemed to say. He persisted.

"I'll show you ."
Slowly I brought my hand to meet his
and felt a tingle in my fingernails. He elevated
me and we moved to the dance floor,
the sole performers for the evening, my nerves agitated.

"Come closer."
I misunderstood and stepped
on his toes, making him jump. I was mortified.
He covered up for my faux pas,
quickly aligning himself to my misguided efforts, chivalry personified.

"What if I can't?"
"You can. Trust me,
I'll teach you." He tried
to calm my nerves. "What if I step on your toes again?"
"I'll not wince once, they are yours to tread." I was mystified.

"What if I can't hold on?"
"I'll pull the weight, for both of us,"
his voice was steady, his gaze keen. I was assured,
somewhat. "What if I hold too tight?"
"I'll remove your fear and hold you closer. You are secured."

"And if I can't keep up?"
"I'll wait for you, so you can adjust
your pace. Do you always ask so many questions?" he smiled.
"I'm nervous. What if I move too fast?"
"I'll catch up, so you are never lonely." A promise filed.

"After the prelude,"
He warned me to get into motion
as he held my hand. On the count of two, we moved.
The pounding in my heart became louder and began to subside
as he led me swiftly across the floor. A good dancer, he proved.

"See, you are doing fine,"
he beamed approvingly at my disjointed routine.
"You are too generous," I blushed as the music box belted
out a lilting tune from long ago. "I mean it, I couldn't
have asked for a nimbler partner." My heart melted.

"There's one thing though,"
he interjected my wafting thoughts. The glint in his eye
should have alerted me but I breathed
so rapidly that he steadied me with his arms, while in my heart
a flutter of emotions, dark (and fair), seethed.

"My turn to ask questions,"
he whispered in my ear, his breath warm like a blanket
around my shoulders. "Will you be my partner?... forever?" I sighed,
the flutter was now in my stomach, "hmm... I need some time to think." His face fell.
"But I could answer sooner if you...," I waited for him to look up, "... kiss me." He gladly complied.

Copyright (C) Meeta
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"If you wish to be loved, love."

Sunday 4 June 2006

Back to school - Flashback - Part II

[Another post from a bygone era.]

9th November 2003

Here's some more of my narcissistic self flooding your mailboxes yet again! All those who've written/ called, it's been lovely to hear from u. It's always nice to catch up with friends and family, so please do keep writing/ calling.

Thought I'd tell u a bit about school and college here at Oxford (yeah, isn't it funny how I'm at school and in college at the same time?!)

The Said Business School got a whole new building to give it a face in 2001, so u can imagine that the building is still quite new. Although the business school does not have a 'campus' as such, we do have a lot of space to play with (you know how the Brits like to have things ... luxuriously spread out!). So the premises occupy about as much space as three times St. Xavier's College in Mumbai with all its addenda.

The facility has a 350-seater auditorium/ lecture-theatre, 4 mid-sized lecture halls (seating about 110 each), the library on two floors (with a "Pin-drop silence" section on the upper level), several seminar rooms of varying sizes for discussions, receptions and company presentations, an open-air mini-stadium (minus the track), a Common Room, laid out in a semi-circular fashion with glass on the curved perimeter, that doubles as the cafetaria during breaks and the Happy Hour,and the offices of the faculty, etc.

The faculty are excellent, every one of them. The Managerial Economics guy is an Israeli who is doing his research on e-commerce. I think he could very well have taken up modelling for a career and made a ton of money from it. Such a chiselled face and such a charming disposition as one rarely gets to see in middle-aged men these days...

The OB guy (there's a gal too later in the term...oops, from the coming week actually!... the term is too short to think of it in terms of now and later) is the only one who dresses casual to class. Organisational Behaviour is just a series of one inspiring and enlightening story after another. For me, I think, the experience at my last job really prepared me well to look out for hygiene/ motivation factors in the case studies I'm doing now.

The Financial Reporting (basically Accounts) fella is a laugh riot, a Japanese with Suzuki for a last name, who makes the class more interesting with his simple Jap humour than anyone with excellent pedantic abilities could have done.

The Finance guy, a Brit, is as Brit as a Brit prof could be, quick-talking, precise, with an ever-so-subtle sense of humour. He does a great job of a course that is definitely not the easiest to teach in eight weeks. We just unearthed the CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) in the last two classes, and I can confidently say that I feel 'very' knowledgeable now!

The Decision Science guy, the youngest of the lot (just 34, though he could pass off as a 25-yr-old) would have been a comedian in Italian theatre circles if he hadn't decided to make Statistics his source of livelihood. He's the cutest Brit I've seen ever since I stepped foot in this country! I had a crush on him at first sight!! But, alas, the shimmering gold band on his finger razed all my hopes to the ground :( ... ;))

The Strategy prof is amazing! Another Brit, with a not-so-Brit sense of humour, he makes the class an event in itself. It's impossible to switch off for even a minute during those 3 hrs (of course, another good reason would be his good looks ;)... I'm seriously beginning to think now that men become more appealing as they near their 40s... You may get to read some of his literature in the Business Standard. Alas, another guy is stepping in from the coming week, an American, I hear. At the end of the last class, we were all so overwhelmed at the thought of not having him lecture us anymore that we gave him a standing ovation. (sob, sob...)

Hey, you know me, there's usually something still left after the last best thing - something even better! To give u some background, I was reading an excellent management book a few months ago, in June I think, the international bestseller called 'In Search of Excellence'. I was rather impressed by the book. Little had I known then that I would get the chance to meet a co-author of the book in person just a few months hence!

Tom Peters was here to give us a talk, during the UK launch of his to-be-bestseller 'Re-imagine', and what a talk it was!! I'm sure that there was not one person among the 300 odd who attended the talk that evening who was not shaken up after those 30 stimulating minutes! An orator par excellence, he's really much younger at heart, in mind and in laryngeal ability, than his 58 years make him appear. He gave us a lot of good news - the future of the global economy will be driven by India and China as far as geographies go, and by women as far as demographies go. I'm extremely enthused that I have membership of both the groups! (chip on shoulder and all... ahem)

Well, that's a whole lot of verbal diarrhoea from my side. Here is a picture from the Matriculation that I recently attended. Matriculation is actually the ceremony whereby a student formally becomes a member of the Oxford University. Cambridge is the only other place to have this tradition. The weird robe we are wearing is called an Advanced Graduate Gown. Among formal ceremonies, it is worn only on the days of matriculation and graduation. Otherwise, we are required to wear it for dinner in the College Hall (the dining hall, i.e.), and during our exams, one of those Oxonian traditions that go on for no particular logical reason. hmm...

Hear soon, all.

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"Many things in life are lost just for the want of asking."