Let's Kiss and Make-Up.

Oh, avid reader(s). Where should I start? The shame kills me, more than the ex-newbie's penchant for purple eye make-up that I'm sure you're sick of reading every time you visit my almost defunct blog. And here we thought we had a revival of sorts. Sigh. Working hours aren't what they used to be in the days of $1800 paychecks. But that's the price you pay for having nice things and nice homes and nice hangovers. Everything's nice and not-entirely-wholesome. Just the way we like it. Never could get rid of those cigarettes. Now I shall take them to the grave with me. Me, a pearl necklace and a pack of Marlboro Lights (I refuse to call them Marlboro Gold).

So, we have a new country! One fine July day this summer, I packed up all my seven years of adult life and moved out of what I will still call The City for old times' sake. I packed the books and the shoes and the old regrets and moved further East. Clearly, one was made to live in Asian cities. Dumplings and Pokka green tea, my friend(s). Too strong a bond to break just yet.

It has been three months that I have been away from The City and in this new life with new crazy rules and new crazy expectations. It bears repeating, this craziness. It is crazy. I have worked harder in these three months than in the last two years combined. I've also consumed alcohol like it was 2006. I have, however, not made any friends. Good friends. But that is expected - you know me, I was never charming and truth be told, me trying to be charming is even worse than me being Deep and Tortured. But some friends. Some not-friends that I hang out with out of sheer desperation and boredom. Some possible potential friends who just haven't seen how cool I am yet.

But mostly lonely. I sometimes stand outside bars and look longingly at people drinking and talking amongst themselves and I wish so desperately that they would just take me. Take me into their cool little groups and show me how to be a real adult. Because honestly, I feel like someone just dropped me in a planet full of rich, successful, intelligent and beautiful men and women and I'm now expected to make this up as I go along, gently correcting people who mistake my Zara cardi for MaxMara and pretending like selling handbags for a living really is, like, relevant. And that I meant for my hair to be this shaggy, that I'm making some sort of political statement about sharks by refusing to get a cut while actually I'm just struggling to find a hairdresser that doesn't cost more than my rent. I'm not even kidding. I so wish I was.

But you know, that's life. Or so I've been told by these MaxMara women.

I will, however, leave on a good note. I was out for dinner with some people from work who have just moved here from our US office. Girl A asks me where I'm from. I say I'm from India. Girl A has a strong, nasal, almost fake American accent.

Girl A: Where in India?
Me: From Delhi.
Girl A: (confused) Where.... is... that?
Me: It's, um, in the north? It's the capital of India?
Girl A: Ah. I grew up in a town full of Indians. It was like full of them. Everywhere. And then I moved to San Diego and I was like, where did all the Indians go?

Where did all the Indians go.

I didn't know what to say.

But I got a catchphrase out of it.