MentallyPresentPhysicallyAbsent

Is my husband too naïve or am I too cynical?

2011-12-10T11:26:00.001+05:30

Iread this article and immediately rushed to my husband who was in the livingroom. To my horror, I realized I had been sitting hooked to our desktopcomputer for last couple of minutes reading article after article; while myhusband was sprawled on the sofa holding his laptop and the Tab was lying onthe carpet (also switched on). What has become of us! Is technology taking overour lives? I am not a phone person but I am a big time internet person. I lovesurfing, and I spend hours on the net!

Comingback to the article, if you don’t want to or have time to read the article; Itis about how not to give in to the peer pressure in providing your children withthe latest gadgets. It says the children are going to do exactly what they seeyou doing, irrespective of what you teach them.

Thescene, which I described a little while ago, was a reality check for us. Herewe are completely besotted with all sorts of gadgets, so much that they arealmost taking over our lives and playing havoc with our attention span; and onthe other side, we fear the day when our baby will start asking for gadgetsbecause he would find his parents using one or the other all the time!

Ibriefed my husband about this article and asked him how are we going to handlesuch situation. Now just pay attention to what he said. He said we will make ita point to meet up with the parents of our kid’s buddies and we would mutuallydecide not to give such gadgets like mobile phones, Playstations and Ipods. Iasked him, “and why do you think they would go with your plan?” He said, “becausethey would understand it is not good for the kids”.

Theoretically,we all know children do not need these gadgets so soon, but even we don’t,theoretically! And yet we spend so much time on one or the other! When I was akid, I can clearly remember two such occasions, where I created a scene rightat the shop to make my parents buy stuff for me. They also would not havethought of those things (one was a toy phone and another were skates). May bethose things weren’t such which could impact my life so much, but giving mobilephones and Playstations are big decisions.

Myhusband said, “we would go to other parents’ place and discuss with them aboutthe impact of such gadgets on children, and I’m sure they would understand ourpoint, like we would if somebody else explained to us the same things”. I said,“you could assume that because you are already open to the idea. There’s noconvincing involved here”. Other parents might have different ideas on what isgood for their children". To which he said, “our kid would obviously gel withlike-minded kids, who would not be very different from him, and whose parentswould obviously be like them.” So you see, my husband thinks the world is anice place where everything fits perfectly.

Thenhe said, “don’t be so paranoid. These newspapers, articles and programmes focuson extreme cases. Look around and tell me one such kid who is spoilt.” And likealways he had a point. Then I thought may be I was getting too unreasonable.Kids are smarter these days.

Then,I asked my husband, since we already have PS2 and PS3, what is he going to doabout those? “You can’t expect our kid not to play on the Playstations”. Andsurprise, surprise, he said he would tell him not to! That takes me back to mychildhood. The more my mum told me not to have tea, I became obsessed about it,and I still am! You can’t be playing on them yourself, and expect your childnot to; may be you can fix a time for it, may be allow him only when he playsoutdoors. I don’t want my kid to play football with joysticks; he better goesoutside and enjoys the game as it should be!

Aah!Life was so much simpler earlier. If anybody has any suggestions on theseparenting issues, they are most welcome; and I apologize to keep ranting aboutparenting. I can’t help it; it is the only thing which I can talk about rightnow.

Mixed Bag

2011-11-11T11:47:00.001+05:30

Everytime I look at my baby, I get all misty-eyed. And I keep thinking about thisbook I read sometime back called ‘My Sister’s Keeper’. I have reviewed the bookhere. When I read this book, the mother seemed to me a stubborn woman who justwanted to do anything (even unreasonable) to keep her daughter alive. Sheseemed a negative character. Today when I have a baby, I am able to understandher better. I am able to understand how devastating it can be for a parent tolose her child. My naïve self has often wondered (earlier), what differencedoes it make when somebody loses a child, if he has 2-3 other children. I can’timagine now, how I ever thought like that. I am able to appreciate it a milliontimes more that every child is unique (I know it sounds clichéd but then I haveonly now understood the true meaning of this oft-repeated phrase).

Mybaby is 3 months old now and though I named him Dhruv, I am afraid, I hardlycall him that. I (as well as my husband) keep calling him with hundreddifferent names. Many times I consciously call him Dhruv, out of fear that later on hemay not respond to his name at all, since we never called him that to beginwith! But it is difficult to call a tiny baby with a name, it does not sound warmenough!

Iam afraid I keep thinking about this topic more often now. Child Sexual Abuseis such a taboo topic, irrespective of the fact that it is so rampant. When youare a child, it can cause havoc in your life. When we were in school, we nevertalked about it. I had a few close friends while in school, yet we never talkedabout it. But after I moved out for further studies and started talking more with them as well as other friends, I discovered that inreality several children face abuse but keep it bottled up inside. Perhaps theawareness is more now. But even now I feel, this topic is not discussed enough,and dealt with even less.

Ifyou have read Bitter Chocolate by Pinki Virani, you would know that thesituation on CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) is alarming in India. If you ask me, I don’t careabout this whole ‘Indiaagainst Corruption’ thing. I care a million times more about CSA and SexualHarrassment of Women. I don’t know why nobody does anything about it. I knowmany people who would put up ‘India Against Corruption’ badges and beunnecessarily voluble about how this is need of the hour, and then go on tobribe all and sundry. Why? Because nobody is watching? What about yourconscience? Some argue that the magnitude is different! Well, it is only amatter of time and opportunity. If you are okay with the thought (and action), then youwould be okay once you get the opportunity. Anyways, to each, his own. That’snot my point! We keep reading about CSA at an alarming frequency now. Goodthing is it is coming out in the open now, much more than it ever did earlier;but what are we doing about it?

Atthe cost of sounding undiplomatic, I wanted to have a boy. When you grow up asa girl, you know enough to not want all those challenges for your child. But ithas dawned upon me that now I have a bigger responsibility. A girl, culturallyand instinctively, is sensitized to dangers lurking around every corner; whileboys are pretty reckless. They are neither cautioned well enough, norsensitized to risks of abuse; and many times it is too late. I have beenreading a lot on the internet and my conclusion is these days boys are at agreater risk. As a parent, I don’t know how not to be over-protective in thesetimes and age.

Sincemy baby is small now (he hasn’t started even turning on his sides also andsleeps around 15 hours a day), so I have enough time on hand, most of whichgoes on internet surfing. I have got hooked to Facebook big time. I obviouslydon’t like updating every single step, like what, where and why do I eat, drinkor do whatever, but I like reading latest articles. Since I am mostly homeboundthese days, so I do a lot of online shopping – home stuff and lots of books. Ihave blown too much money on books recently. I would write about it in my book blog. Besides, I love buying somequirky, fun stuff, much to my husband’s dismay (but he is too sweet to sayanything against it. Of course, he makes fun of me about it but that’s okay).

Anyways,I have recently discovered the following which I am absolutely hooked to: The Caravan Magazine, Open Magazine and First Post. I have read some amazingarticles on these websites. One of those was about how we need to focus more onour boys, and they were so bang on. Even I think the real problem is with ourboys and their upbringing, not with the girls. Rather than teaching our girlsto protect themselves and give a list of do's and don'ts; we need to teach ourboys to respect women. Well, to some I sound like a feminist. But I am not. Veryclearly, men and women have been made differently and are supposed to dodifferent things but apart from that, as individuals, they deserve same respectand freedom to do whatever they want to do. So as a parent, this is a bigresponsibility too. I think, if I am able to give right kind of values andupbringing to my baby, rather than dwelling too much about sending him to thebest schools and colleges of the world; he would be able to do well for himself.Perhaps, to begin with, every parent thinks so too, but because of peerpressure and societal norms, they get lost along the way!

Myhusband and I are completely opposites in a few things but so alike in the rest.Anyways, he is as much crazy about new technology and gadgets, as I am aboutbooks and reading; and I don’t touch his games, he never touches my books. Notthat we don’t allow each other, we have mutual dislike for them. He is a kindof much sought after techno-guru who advises on which mobile to buy in hiscircle; pretty much what Rajeev Makhani does on TV, he does in his circle J So, we have the usual PS2,PS3, DSLR and now the Tablet. After much deliberation, we bought Samsung GalaxyTab 10.1 inches, this Diwali. We got it for 34K and it’s worth every penny. Okay,so we also got a 1 gm gold coin with this, so that took care of the Dhanterastradition. It is also the reason, why I am pretty much always connected. Itworks like makkhan! I haven't stopped drooling since the time I have been using it. We have beenthinking about buying this for a while but we decided to buy a DSLR first asour sweet bundle of joy was on his way and I love pictures. I take millionpictures of him. Besides, we were also waiting for this 10 inches to getlaunched. 7” was way too small to use it as a laptop. I have just got used totyping on it but right now I am typing on my good old desktop, because ofhabit!

Ihave these conversations with myself all the time (since I have so much time onhand and there is a limit to blabbering to a 3 month old baby), so I have amillion things to write about but some other time J

I would leave you with a common joke between my husband and I.

I:We don’t spend enough time just sitting and talking, you know. Earlier, incollege, you would ask me even for 5 minutes. You have changed!!! (the oft-repeated phrase between people whoget married after few years of courtship)

MyHusband: No I haven’t changed. I still want to sit with you for 5 minutes

;-)

The Book Fair

2011-10-11T18:53:00.000+05:30

I have been home-bound since last couple of months. I don’t missgoing for shopping or movies or eating out, but I cannot miss a Book Sale, canI? Since the time I read this piece of news, I was coaxing my husband to takeme to the Sale.Now, he never really says ‘No’ to me but somehow we were not able to plan itthrough. Last Sunday, which was the last day of the Sale, we finally managed to go there :-)

Though I could not spend too much time over there, as our little baby hadaccompanied us; I still managed to buy 6 books.

By the way, it was our son’s first visit to a Book Fair, inhopefully many more to come ;-) I am just waiting for the day when I would take the little one to Book Fairs and Book Stores.

Past 11 months or so

2011-10-07T17:13:00.005+05:30

This post is long overdue (looking at mylast post, I think any post here was long overdue in order to consider thisblog alive).

Last one year has truly been life-changing.It all happened when it dawned on me last year that I would soon hit 30.

When I was doing my MBA, I was infatuatedby Advertising and I was lucky to land the only profile available inadvertising on campus, with nothing less than FCB Ulka! The first time I cameto know that I had been selected for that profile had been the highest point inmy life till then. An year or so in Mumbai doing Client Servicing, Imore-or-less realised that advertising, or rather client servicing, was not forme. Moreover, life in Mumbai never appealed to me. Once you get the taste of Pune,it is hard to get over it. So, I moved to Pune about 5 years back in aMarketing Communication profile. I was asked, having worked in advertising,would I be able to adjust in a corporate set-up. I never had doubts about it.It was a great profile. But the only problem was that it was not my calling. Itwas not something which would fill me with pride 20 years down the line, or inshort, it was not my passion.

The only little problem was that I had notreally figured out my ‘passion’. The dream of being a writer is still very muchthere but no matter how easy it is now to become a writer, the kind of writing,I want to do still needs a lot of thought and time.

So, the idea of finding my true passion anddoing what I really want to do and not wait for a lifetime to do it, I quitfrom my wonderful job last year. There was no plan, and nobody believed me thatactually I had no plan on what I would be doing after quitting. Many assumed Iwas pregnant. I thought well ‘that’ you cannot hide for long.

My husband’s friends warned him that it wasnot such a great idea to let me stay at home. They assumed I would call himevery hour, disturb him on his meetings and pester to come home soon. Myhusband can tell them all, I did not do that even for a day. From the pasteight years of knowing each other, we enjoy each other’s company but we don’tneed to sit on each other’s head all the time. We have different interests – I read,he is into gaming.

Well, my original plan was to move aroundPune and check out several tiny shops which we never really go to, spendleisurely hours at bookshops and even catch movies / film festival and plays.

We went to Mahabaleshwar on our anniversaryin December and it is then that we discovered that we were expecting. I wasalready serving my notice period. Yes, having a baby in near future wascertainly part of the plan but we never knew it would happen so soon. It was amoment of happiness as well as a lot of anxiety. We have never been able topicture ourselves as parents. Atleast for me, I get scared by the idea ofhaving someone depend on you for everything – you more-or-less create anindividual for the society and your choices will have so much impact on thatindividual’s life. I am more of a perfectionist and my husband is very hands-onabout everything. As usual, I wanted to do everything perfectly. I was glad andthankful I did not have to run around for office and take it easy. I admirethose who can balance work, home and pregnancy perfectly; I can’t. Everyone said you could have resigned duringyour last trimester but I really wanted to take it easy and take each day slowly.I do not regret that decision even today, when I am sometimes overwhelmed bythe demands of a two month old baby J

I had terrible nausea not only during thefirst Trimester but more or less during the entire nine months. Thankfully, Inever threw out any food. On certain occasions I used to wonder if I would everbe able to relish food any more. Pregnancy can be overwhelming, especially thefirst one. Of course, I had 3 books to refer but actually experience issomething else. I did not want either of our mums to be here till around deliverytime because mums could be very stuck-up on their ideas and if you argue, theywould always play the card of more experience!

I always went for my morning and eveningwalks and spent the rest of the day reading books, watching movies or sleeping.I wanted to have a normal delivery and I wanted to put in every effort in mycapacity to ensure that.

I was fortunate to have no issues during myentire pregnancy but as the due date was approaching, I was getting scared. Ihad already discussed about epidural with my doctor but I had no idea what toexpect. We even asked our doctor, ‘how are we supposed to know when to come tohospital’. I mean, it is a valid question. Nobody wants to make a fool of oneselfby coming too soon or delivering anywhere except hospital; and delivery mightseem easy in movies, it isn’t so in real life. Doctors are the best people todeal with it.

My water broke 12 days prior to my due dateand the same day when I had met doctor for examination. She had not anticipatedthat I would be coming back in a couple of hours, neither had I. From what Ihad read in books, it appeared that my water broke and we decided it is best togo to hospital rather than rush in later. We carried our packed bag but we feltat the back of our minds that we would be coming back home and that it would bea false alarm. And thank god, we went when we went. I was admitted at 10 pm inhospital. Initially, I was at the common labour room where there were 3 womenseparated by curtains. Thankfully, we had checked out the labour room earlierand I was shocked to know that husbands are not allowed inside. Fortunately,there was a private labour room where husband is allowed the entire time. Ofcourse it came at a price. I was praying that it should be available when Iwent into labour. The doctors at labour room had assured that usually it isavailable.

So, anyways, initially I was in the commonlabour room. Apart from the anxiety of not knowing what is going to happen inthe next couple of hours, I also had to listen to the cries of fellow women whowere already in labour. One lady who was next to me was crying out to get thebaby out immediately. And add to that she had an old relative with her who wasasking her to beg forgiveness from God for the pains the lady in labour mighthave given to her parents or something. So, what I deduced was that accordingto the old lady, the younger lady in labour was experiencing so much painbecause she had given troubles to her mother / parents. I don’t have words toexpress myself here, on what kind of thoughts were coming to my mind for thatold lady. I even asked the attending doctor to ask that lady to be quiet (Imean, the old lady). At the same time, I was also frantically messaging myhusband to get the private labour room. I knew if I stayed there any longer, Iwould lose all my confidence.

I was lucky to get the private room. Wesent my mum-in-law home and my hubby settled on one of the chairs because mycontractions had not begun. My contractions began at 5 in the morning but theywere not strong enough, so they induced contractions etc. I will not get intothe process, but when the pain started it was almost unbearable. Since I hadasked for epidural, I got it and was able to endure for another couple ofhours. They let the effect wear off during the last part of labour so that Iwould push properly. The whole thing was a frenzy and I finally delivered at11.56 am. I had read in books that you would never forget the moment when youfirst saw your child, and definitely, that moment was priceless. My baby’s eyeswere wide open and he was looking at my husband. It was such a sweet moment.

Today my baby is 2 months and 1 week old(having born on 28^th July) and every day is a wonder, every momentcherishable. Both of us have never been too much into kids, but our baby hastransformed us. It is blissful to just look at him. Like every new parent, weclick hundreds of pictures and record smallest of new things that he does.Attending to a baby is overwhelming and from what people say, it is just abeginning.

So many women have delivered babies in thepast and so many would in the future. It is a natural process but now that Ihave gone through it, it does not fail to amaze me. It is such an incrediblejourney, and it seems so surreal to me now.

Sometimes when all three of us aretogether, I get overwhelmed by looking at our baby. It was just yesterday, wewere just two of us, and now here is an adorable, tiny person, who has changedour lives forever.

I will take a moment here to thank mywonderful husband. I married my best friend. I have always considered him abetter human being and much more balanced than I am. I get agitated by smallestof things but he never loses his patience. He took great care of me during entirepregnancy, attended all appointments, cooked for me when I was too nauseous andcheered me on when I used to get overwhelmed. I was extremely clear, I wantedhim during labour, and he held my hand the entire time. I always tell him, heis so lucky to have seen the birth of his son, even I haven’t, and neither haveso many other people! He stayed with me in hospital. During initial few days,ad even now, he would get up along with me to attend to baby, if he needs achange. A couple of days before I delivered, I wrote him a small note that saidI would try to be a good mom, but I knew, he would be the greatest dad ever.

And now, with our son, we take each day ata time.

Three movies in one Evening

2011-06-29T13:49:00.003+05:30

We watched 3 movies yesterday- back to back, and they are all comedies. Here’re the quick reviews:

Bheja Fry 2

I wanted to watch this movie since the time I read that there is a sequel to Bheja Fry. I had absolutely loved the 1^st one, so despite the mixed reviews, I went for it. First of all, sequels are tricky issues. When one makes a movie, he does not visualize a sequel. It is only after the movie works, do people think about cashing in on the plot. AlSo, sequels have to live upto a lot of expectations. I think Bheja Fry 2 did fairly well. I was not too keen about any romantic angle for “Bharat Bhushan”. Such angles usually end up looking forced or not funny after a while. Thankfully, the movie does not dwell too much into it. It is more of the situational fun and Bharat Bhushan’s idiosyncrasies.

Vinay Pathak has done a good job as the lovable idiot. His scenes with Suresh Menon are hilarious. Kay Kay Menon is okay, while Amol Gupte seems a little over-the-top, but over all, the movie does entertain. I liked the movie but I loved the first one better.

Kucch Luv Jaisaa

The trailors promised an interesting premise of how love fizzles out after a while in marriage, and you start taking each other for granted. But unfortunately, the movie does not take off well from the premise. Shefali Shah and Rahul Bose make an unlikely pair but most of the time you end up feeling that Bose does not fit the character well. Shefali plays a married woman who has been so wound up in her life around husband, kids and home that she has no life of her own. When husband and kids get too busy in their daily routine, she feels neglected and unwanted. On her birthday, which neither her husband nor her kids remember, she decides to go out and have fun, do things which would not be expected of her. So she goes for a makeover, buys a car and follows a stranger around the city.

I would say I did not like the movie much. It did not have any high moments. It was a very thanda-kind of movie.

Chalo Dilli

Thankfully we watched this movie last, so the boredom of watching KLJ waned at the end. Though this movie also got mixed reviews, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Vinay Pathak does a fabulous job again. But then, these are the characters which he can play with his eyes closed now – lovable, over-the-top, good samaratin! Lara Dutta (the sophisticated, corporate woman) and Vinay Pathak (the motor-mouth, over-the-top businessman) become unlikely travel companions by the turn of events, and the movie charts the ups and downs of their journey together to Delhi. It is basically, Vinay Pathak who entertains you throughout the movie with his antics, while Lara Dutta has also done a decent job. Everyone in the support cast is good, only Yana Gupta's item song looked a little forced.

I totally recommend this one for a relaxed, weekend afternoon timepass.

(Images source: http://www.bollywoodhungama.com)

Fox History & Traveller’s What’s with Indian Men

2011-06-15T12:26:00.001+05:30

There is a fixed set of channels that I surf on TV – Star World, Zee Café, Movie Channels and English News Channels (the font size, vocabulary and background music of Hindi News Channels don’t suit my sensibilities). It is only by chance that I landed on Fox History & Traveller, and I was pleasantly surprised to catch this new Travel show that goes on to explore what is it with “Indian Men”. Hosted by actress Sugandha Garg and model Indrani Dasgupta, the programme is breezy, fun and entertaining. I have seen the Delhi episode and the Goa one.

In the Delhi episode, when Sugandha asks a Delhi guy what is it that makes Delhi men more aggressive than men anywhere else in India. He said it has something to do with the “butter chicken”! He goes on to add that as you go further north to Punjab, the quality of “butter chicken” improves and so does the aggression of men. While you see they don’t make such good “butter chicken” in South or in Mumbai, for that matter. Well, that was one smart and witty answer.

Next show is on Jaipur.Catch the show timings here.

Image source: www.foxhistory.com

About Books and Bookends

2011-05-21T11:35:00.002+05:30

Indian Fiction

Since the time ‘Five Point Someone’ changed the face of Indian fiction, the industry is flooded with this new genre of books, made popular by Chetan Bhagat. Personally, I don’t think highly of his books. But I would give him the credit for bringing an entire generation to the wonderful hobby of reading. Even my husband, who by the way hates the sight of books and has probably read 2-3 non-academic books in his life, has read FPS in one sitting.

There is a section of people who perhaps take reading as a medium to pass time and expect nothing else. They are not expecting ‘acquaintance with another world’, ‘enriching their language or knowledge’ or ‘though provoking insights’; they are just looking at it as something they can easily relate to.

But for me, reading is a serious business. I don’t take it lightly. There is a world of books out there, even a lifetime is not enough to read them. So, I would rather pick books which mean something to me - intellectually, emotionally stimulating, something which leaves an imprint long after I have finished reading it.

So, after reading ‘One Night @ Call Centre’, I have steered clear of this entire genre. It does nothing for me. I do enjoy chicklits once in a while but I would still prefer someone like Sophie Kinsella. I think she is hilarious. But after reading all her books, I am enjoying even her writing a little less now, because they are all very similar in tone, manner and story graph.

I enjoy reading Indu Sundaresan, Shashi Deshpande, Jhumpa Lahiri but I do not have any favourites per se. Surprisingly, I am yet to read Salman Rushdie (I have started ‘Midnight’s Children’), Kiran Desai, V.S.Naipaul, Vikram Seth (a fat ‘A Suitable Boy’ awaits my attention) and so many more. I don’t read authors, I read subjects.

Bookends

If you love books, you would certainly love cute / interesting bookends. The first time I saw Mukul Goyal’s ID Bookends in BBC Good Homes, I hunted it down to a store in Pune and bought it (though frankly it was a bit expensive but they look lovely). I also love these ‘quote-unquote’ and ‘a to z’ bookends. I have not been able to find them anywhere so far!

Reading Pause

With some renovation stuff happening at home, and the carpenter giving us a tough time going far beyond the schedule with no closure in sight, I have not been able to concentrate on reading any book. There are atleast 3 different books on my side table, which I intend to read simultaneously. All 3 are very interesting and completely different. I won’t name them because the moment I say I am reading this book, I struggle to finish it, and this has happened too many times now so I have become quite superstitious about it. I can certainly dwell on the kind of books those are - 1 is a historical fiction, another on Indian English language and the third one is a non-fiction.

Movies, Books, Expensive Hobbies etc

2011-04-29T17:33:00.002+05:30

Weekend Movie

As I was blabbering the other day about how I had won CNN-IBN’s “really tough movie quiz”, I received few DVDs and this gift voucher for Book My Show (500 bucks). It was there with us for over a month now, so we decided to catch ‘Dum Maro Dum’ last Sunday. I usually prefer going for the morning show or afternoon show since the crowd is considerably less, so we went for 11.30 show.

Well, I completely enjoyed the movie. All actors have done a decent job and for me, the fact that I did not even look at my watch once throughout the movie, is a proof enough that I had a good time. Frankly, there is no story per se, but tell me, did ‘Dhoom’ have any story? The narration is pretty tight and screenplay is good. I liked most of the songs, especially this one. Dum Maro Dum remix is just about OK.

I AM releases today and I am looking forward to it. I was quite impressed by the way director Onir raised fund for the movie through social networking sites. Besides, yet again Onir has chosen some sensitive issues to portray on the big screen, and the movie has a great star cast.

Hot topic

It is getting hotter day by day, even in Pune. It is almost impossible to step out till the sun is there. It is hard to believe that just 4 days back, on last Sunday, we had some pre-monsoon showers and such amazing weather. But atleast, good thing is that it is quite cool during night and in the early mornings. OK, so I am still quite far from watching the sunrise, atleast I am getting up before 7 am these days. I am so proud of myself.

Meeting a friend

Since the weather was good and we did not have other plans, we decided to meet a friend on the spur of the moment. There are so many friends who stay close by, but due to insufficient time or laziness, we never get around to meeting them. So, this time we decided, we would not plan too much and just go! It felt so good. Hope to do this more often now.

Book Mania

So, now with no job, nothing much to do at home really and since none of my friends are enamoured by my freedom yet and they do have their jobs to attend to, so I am catching up on my reading like there is no tomorrow. All these years, I bought so many books but never got enough time to finish them all. I have also joined a couple of Book Reading Challenges – South Asian Challenge 2011 and Book Reading Challenge 2011. I try and review every book that I read. It brings a certain amount of discipline in reading and writing.

This year, I have finished following books:

The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan (Genre: Historical fiction)
Braking News by Sunetra Choudhury (Genre: Non Fiction – Travel / Politics)
Rich Like Us by Nayantara Sahgal (Genre: Political fiction)
Deaf Heaven by Pinki Virani (Genre: Fiction)
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Genre: Fiction)
Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik (Genre: Indian Mythology)
Beautiful Thing by Sonia Falero (Genre: Non Fiction)
Women of the Mahabharata by Badrinath Chaturvedi (Genre: Indian Mythology)

And what else, I gave myself an early birthday treat and ordered 6 more:

IPL Season 4

My favourites Chennai Super Kings are on 3^rd position right now, and I was quite impressed by their fielding in the first match against Pune Warriors in Chennai. They played beautifully. Mumbai Indians are still ruling the charts though and looks like they are definitely in the Semifinals. They haven’t played even 7 matches yet. CSK and KKR are likely to be the other 2 teams and I am quite clueless as to which one will be the 4^th team, as things are really unpredictable.

Photography is an expensive hobby

We are planning to buy a DSLR now and hubby is doing all sorts of research. I would like to explore photography, but right now, frankly, I don’t know much. So, he does the research and discusses with me. One thing I definitely know for sure, even an entry level DSLR is going to cost us a bomb!
Thank god, I am not into latest mobile phones, and I have been happily using my Sony Ericsson for last 3 years. I don't even pay much heed to it. In any case, hubby makes up for all my aversion to technology. But I must admit, the first time I saw Samsung Galaxy Tab, even I was besotted by it; though the price was quite a put-off. Spending so much for something which is anyways going to be obsolete in a couple of months, is beyond me!

Collectibles

Apart from hoarding books, I discovered that I also collect interesting notebooks. Here’s a look at my collection.

The Royal Wedding
Indians are known for over-the-top, ostentatious weddings. And then I read this. Why should one spend so much on a wedding?
So far, I was not swept away by the frenzy around this wedding, but I did happen to catch Prince William and Kate say "I will" on one of the channels because well, all news channel are tuned to this mother of all weddings!

Different Strokes

2011-04-21T13:31:00.000+05:30

Finally, I have got what all of us crave for – Time! So I have been catching up on a lot of reading, watching news, watching movies, reading newspaper and going through piles of magazines.

After World Cup, I thought I would be watching every match of IPL. Unfortunately, it is too much cricket and the matches start so late in the day (4 pm onwards) that I prefer to do other things, rather than sit and watch matches. However, I do watch all the matches of Chennai Super Kings. I am a Dhoni-fan after all, and he is throwing in quite a few helicopter shots too.
It seems Sri Lanka government and Cricket Board is hell bent on getting the national cricketers back by 5^th May. I fail to understand all these discussions! Wasn’t it made clear from the beginning how long IPL is going to be played, then why this last minute changes? I am sure Sri Lankan cricketers would not appreciate it.
Come May 1^st, female badminton players will have to wear skirts for tournaments. Read this. I was watching this news item and several badminton players like Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponappa are quite OK with this attempt to glamourise this sport. I particularly loved what Gopichand had to say about this. It was something to the effect that there are many things which should be done for marketing this sport well, and this isn’t the most important of them all.

I have also been eyeing gold prices (just out of interest and not to invest) which don’t seem to be slowing down at all. But actually it is Silver which has turned out to be the best performing asset in the last 5 years. Read this.
When I read this article in Outlook, it was as if I was reading my own thoughts. It was heartening to see how so many people joined hands with Anna Hazare for the Jan LokPal Bill. Those who were not joining it in person at Jantar-Mantar or various local venues across cities were supporting it through Facebook, Twitter and SMS. But I did not join this “fight against corruption”; my conscience did not allow me! Who am I to raise fingers at politicians, as if I have never been party to the corrupt practices which are order of the day? It did not feel right. Moreover, Jan LokPal Bill is not the solution to all forms of corruption. Of course, there are enough arguments that we need to start somewhere but the point is if we need to start somewhere, we need to first look within. (This is strictly my personal opinion)
I am really looking forward to the release of this unusual movie called “I AM”. Read all about the movie on its official website.
Recently, I watched “Tanu Weds Manu” on Tata Sky and absolutely loved it. OK, I could not understand the characterization of Tanu as well as Manu for a while but then I just stopped being too logical about it and let it go. It is in the genre of ‘Jab We Met’, which I still feel was a better movie but this was good too. What I fail to understand everytime I see Kangana Ranaut is why she did whatever she did to her face. Her lips look grotesque and there’s something weird about her face too. Just as we were getting used to her curly mane and strange accent, she goes ahead and spoils her face. She used to look refreshingly different. Now, she looks weird. But my love for Madhavan continues J I have already seen the movie twice, and apparently there are talks about a sequel too.
I am always on the lookout for good books. Here’s a list I am looking out for:

The Locust and the Bird by Hanan AL-Shaykh

The Lotus Queen by Rikin Khamar

Why Loiter? Women And Risk On Mumbai Streets by Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, Shilpa Ranade

Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India by Miranda Kennedy

· I want to buy a good SLR camera soon. I have always loved photographs much more than videos.

And the World Cup comes home

2011-04-04T12:39:00.002+05:30

I have never been a cricket fan. But being the younger sister to a cricket fanatic and the wife of a sports freak, it was inevitable!

I wanted India to win the coveted World Cup badly. I was ready to do anything. I would evaluate my every action, whether sitting on a particular chair helped or sleeping helped, if watching each ball made a difference to India or standing in the balcony was more auspicious! Initially, I thought, not watching the match will be more favourable for our side, so during Semi-finals, both I and my dad would watch all the crap on TV or read or sleep, do whatever, but avoid watching the match. We would invariably, catch the scores on some news channel or internet. My husband could not understand the logic.

During the final match, I had already given the first innings a miss, while trying to engage myself reading a book, which by the way, was unbearably boring. So, I dozed off a couple of times until my husband returned from office, and asked me if I was crazy not watching the World Cup final, and if I was in correct state of mind, not supporting the team. (As if he had doubts!). I was crazy, not watching the fabulous game. Because of my stupidity, I have no memorable moment from India-Pakistan Semifinals.

But before it was too late, good sense prevailed. It is always a joy to watch

India

bat; after all, we have a fabulous batting line up. Even after losing wickets of Sehwag and Tendulkar, Indians had not lost hope. And wasn’t I lucky! After all, my generation is going to recount this victory to the coming generations for years!

I have always had a soft corner for Dhoni. He is just our age, and look at the man’s credentials already. Under his captaincy, India has won:

World T20 - 2007
India No.1 team in Test Cricket - 2009
ODI World Cup – 2011

What’s more, his Chennai Super Kings have even won the IPL 2010. Since I am not a true follower of cricket, I would not even know his other achievements on the field.

For me, the most special thing is that he is the man who brought Jharkhand, even Ranchi, on the national map. Earlier, if you said you were from Jharkhand, many people were not able to tell Chhattisgarh from Uttaranchal or Jharkhand. Then you would prompt with “Bihar”! To which, you would get one raised eyebrows and remarks like “Oh Lalu!” in the most derogatory tone of voice. Now, when you say ‘Jharkhand’, you know people are going to recognize the state and even approve with a smile “oh Dhoni!” and confirm proudly, “yeah, the same place”.

What I like best about Dhoni, is the way he conducts himself. Coming from a humble beginning, this man has adapted beautifully to the changing circumstances of his life and taken everything on his stride. I have never found him overawed or too impressed by the glitz and glamour associated with cricket, and never overwhelmed by the kind of money he is making now. Perhaps his best trait is his ability to keep his cool in all circumstances, on the field or off it. And he speaks quite well too.

Yes, Dhoni was the reason why I wanted us to win the cup badly, but Sachin was a bigger reason. For a man, so humble and inspirational for an entire generation, he deserved to see all his dreams coming true. Dhoni could still have chance in the next World Cup, but it seems unlikely that Sachin would play in the 2015 World Cup. And winning it in his home ground, takes the icing on the cake. If

India

had won in any other country, the victory would have been as sweet but the celebrations would not have been as magnificent! Few will be able to forget the fluttering of their heartbeats, on watching the Indian cricket team go around the Wankhede stadium holding Sachin aloft.

The way every single individual from the team dedicated this win to Sachin, is remarkable. Always a sucker for emotional moments, the Indian team’s moment of glory even made my eyes well up. Needless to say, cricket will now be a bigger religion in India, if that is possible. But I am sure nobody’s complaining. The victory on Saturday showed us all what a unifier it is. Indians can disagree on every single thing but when in comes to cricket, everyone’s on the same side.

What a way to start IPL now!

(Image courtesy: thehindubusinessline.com)

What a day!

2011-03-25T10:48:00.007+05:30

What a day, really! After about 5-6 months, I had this sudden urge to splurge on books and yesterday, splurge I did! Here are the books which I bought through Flipkart yesterday and most of those are already on the way:

Ambani & Sons by Hamish McDonald - shipped

Buy Ambani & Sons from Flipkart.com

The Truth About Me : A Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi, V. Geetha

Buy The Truth About Me : A Hijra Life Story from Flipkart.com

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult - shipped

Buy My Sister's Keeper from Flipkart.com

Secret Son by Laila Lalami

Buy Secret Son from Flipkart.com

Mafia Queens Of Mumbai : Stories Of Women From The Ganglands by S. Hussain Zaidi, Jane Borges, Vishal Bharadwaj - shipped

Buy Mafia Queens Of Mumbai : Stories Of Women From The Ganglands from Flipkart.com

Mumbai Fables by Gyan Prakash - shipped

Buy Mumbai Fables from Flipkart.com

Earlier I used to compare prices on different websites but now after much experience I am quite assured, I will get a good deal at Flipkart. Their customer service is good and prices are always competitive. I have explored enough options to now bank on them completely.

And to add to the joy, the whole universe knows by now, how India had a spectacular victory over Australia yesterday. I was never a cricket person, but of late, I have been converted into one. All by choice. I definitely want Sachin to have the honour of a World Cup in his career. He deserves it.

So, now I go back to reading the 1000 pages 'Parva' by S.L. Bhyrappa. I am going to take a while on this. But the book is worth it! Holding it is the only difficulty I have, when I read it.

Home Makeovers

2011-03-16T16:13:00.000+05:30

I love doing up interiors and home makeovers are always a treat to watch. Quite by chance I saw Colin & Justin's Home Heist on BBC Entertainment, and these days, I am quite enamoured by their home makeovers. And they do it in 6 days flat. It is interesting how they transform homes.

I do have a couple of issues though:

They do not seem to have a low budget
Most of the times, they replace everything including ceilings, entire floorings and furniture
The homes usually end up looking fabulous but devoid of personal touch
I don't like wallpapers too much. They make the space look a little suffocating, especially, if put up on all the walls and in bold patterns
Too many white furnitures and upholstery, and too many decor items. Whites are extremely difficult to maintain (next to impossible)

Well, it is aired thrice daily, featuring different home heists. Pretty interesting!

(Image courtesy: www.hgtv.ca)

Saat Khoon Maaf

2011-02-28T13:25:00.000+05:30

I saw ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ recently, and I was disappointed with the movie. I read several reviews, all bad; and yet I wanted to give it a chance. But I did not like it.

To begin with, the hall was almost empty, barring handful of people; and a few left somewhere in the middle. People who could not go (like my husband) started chatting on their mobiles or yawning every few minutes.
I think, the way, movie was publicized was misleading. Which part was comedy? The only part which I really found hilarious was when they showed ‘4 more to go’ in the interval.
Priyanka Chopra was not bad in acting, but she looked bad throughout the film. I did not understand many times, how she was shown aging. Of course, the movie incorporated important events to give idea about her age, but you can simply show the year. I remember, in this scene, she is dancing to ‘Darrling….’, she looked young, but soon after, when she is shown after her Russian husband’s (Aleksandr Dyachenko )death, she suddenly becomes old. In fact, atleast they attempted to make her face age but her body wasn’t quite aging. A thin, old woman would certainly look different than a thin, young woman.

The characterization of each husband (perhaps, since they were too many) appeared quite hurried. After a point, you felt that the director just wants to throw in a bit of the husband’s personality and go on to his murder. And since one already knows that all of them are going to be murdered, one also waits for the reason the guy gets killed. But that’s hardly the thrill.
In certain cases, one feels that Susanna could have just left the husband, why she has to kill each one of them is not too clear; or perhaps as explained in one of the scenes by her butler, it was part of her personality, she never changed her path!
What was Usha Uthhup doing in the movie, nobody could understand. The other 2 staff of Susanna, were weird. In fact, all 3 were a little over-the-top on many occasions
Songs were not too great either
As long as the parts of all the husbands go, most of them were good. Neil Nitin Mukesh, Aleksandr Dyachenko, Annu Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah were quite good. I thought, Irrfan’s character was not etched out properly. It was too hurried. I did not like John’s part too much. Apart from that, Vivaan Shah was impressive. Konkana Sen did justice to her guest appearance.

And finally, Susanna really had a terrible luck in marriage, while we had a bad day.

(Image courtesy: Wikipedia)

I won a TV Quiz

2011-02-26T11:28:00.000+05:30

Today, just when I got up, an unexpected message from an acquaintance about something entirely different, made my day! While exchanging messages, I discovered that I won prize for a really ‘Tough Quiz’ (that’s the name of the quiz, by the way) on CNN IBN’s 'Now Showing' (presented by Rajeev Masand). Well, I don’t even know what time the show is on air. I had happened to catch it on one of the days, and I happened to know the answers (with help from hubby) of that particular quiz. The Quiz is not the usual no-brainers where the answer is right in front of your eyes. In these, you would either know the answers or you would not. They have an audio clip, a screen shot from some movie and 2 more questions.

It is exciting because I have never won any TV Quiz before. The ‘Bournvita Quiz Contest' Book that I won ages ago, does not count because it just came by post.

I don’t even know what I have won. I think there are some DVDs and Gift Vouchers, but nevertheless, I’m happy :-)

A beautiful, forgotten song from Daddy

2011-02-24T14:16:00.005+05:30

I was just listening to songs on my computer and came across this beautiful song from Daddy which remains my all time favourite.

Bipasha's on wrong foot!

2011-02-23T13:50:00.000+05:30

I was shocked to see this picture. First of all Bipasha engaged 2 kids to tie her shoelaces, then she had the audacity to upload this picture! What was she thinking? She couldn't even imagine what trouble she will get into for this? Such naiveté, really! Twitter is really a great tool to connect with fans, but they should at least know how to handle it.

And then she is calling these two kids, her sister and her friend. Who believes!

A few good movies

2011-02-22T11:12:00.003+05:30

Clearly, I have not written a word since ages now! I have not even bought a book for a long, long time (which is really not an issue, as even if I don’t buy books for next couple of years, I would still have loads of books to read). Besides, I don’t read ‘Outlook’ front to back, as I do ‘People’ as soon as I lay my hands on it. Yes, I am vain. I have not parted ways with atleast last 2 years’ editions of ‘Femina’ and all of ‘BBC Good Homes’, ‘Living etc’ and ‘Outlook’. And therefore, I have also lost all rights to crib about any of my husband’s stuff not kept in place, because my books and magazines occupy every room, every corner. So, I have made peace.

I have not read much in last couple of months, but I have been able to catch loads of good movies on TV.

Saaransh

I happened to catch “Saaransh” a couple of days back. But since the power went off, I had to watch the last 40-50 minutes on YouTube. The one thought that cropped my mind while watching this was how Mahesh Bhatt used to make such great movies once! (‘Arth’ remains my all time favourite). Saaransh is a not a formula movie, just a good movie, which you would want to watch again and again.

Dead Man Walking

Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn deliver award-winning performances in this amazing movie. I was bowled over by both of them. They were too good. Dead Man Walking is a movie adaptation of a book of the same name. The movie tells the story of a special relationship developed by Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) with Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) who is on a death row. Poncelet, alongwith his partner, is accused of raping a teenage girl, and gruesome killing of her and her boyfriend. He is awaiting his execution. Sister Helen agrees to help him in his final appeal to change his execution to life imprisonment. Read more about the movie here.

16 Blocks

I just happened to catch this movie out of the blue. On 14^th February, every channel was playing romantic movies back to back, and there is a limit to watching mush. It gets boring, repetitive and unbearable after sometime. It is like reading Mills & Boons back to back for the entire day, and remember, I am not a teenager any more!

To begin with, I love Bruce Willis. In this movie, he plays this alcoholic detective, who is entrusted with escorting a fast-talking witness to the court. A few minutes into the movie, and you get to know that his colleagues, the city police force, wants this witness dead. I loved the fast-pace and intense action in this movie.

Love Story

I had never seen the movie adaptation of the overhyped book of the same name by Erich Segal. I think, by now, everyone knows the story of ‘Love Story’. When I read it first (one of my really close friends gifted it to me), I could not understand what the hype was all about! It is one of those things, which everyone loves, and you don’t so much, and you are convinced, perhaps there is something wrong with you only.

Anyways, I watched this movie on Valentine’s Day weekend. If not anything else, I found it pretty endearing.

A Few Good Men

I have seen this movie before, but I love nothing more than a good court room drama. Tom Cruise makes it easy on the eyes too :-)

Even apart from him, the entire cast is fabulous and once the trial starts, the movie holds you well till the end.

Pune International Film Festival 2011

2011-01-04T13:22:00.000+05:30

Pune International Film Festival 2011 is round the corner, from 6th-13th January '11. Catch all the details here.
Hope to catch it this time. I remember I had been lucky to be around 'National Film Archive of India' during college days and had been able to attend 2 film festivals. I vaguely remember the first one was of women directors and the 2nd one was on some classics.
But the best one was the 'FTII Wisdom Tree Film Festival' that I attended in 2003 or 2004. They were screening movies at E-Square. It was an amazing experience with movies running back to back in the adjacent screens. I remember, I had seen 6 movies in 3 days :-)

One of the many reasons to shop

2010-12-01T11:50:00.001+05:30

Why does it happen that despite several, several shopping sprees; whenever you open the cupboard to wear something, you never find anything to wear! I feel, I am perpetually short of clothes. The list maniac that I am, I have even made lists of must-have cloth items, but every time I go for shopping, I end up buying something totally different.

I have a couple of dresses that I have never worn or worn may be once or twice. But while cleaning the cupboard, I reason with myself that I would certainly find an apt occasion pretty soon, and well, throwing away the dress without properly utilizing it would be such a waste of money. But, alas, that never happens, and I face the dilemma again the next time I am on my cupboard-cleaning ritual.

So, this Diwali, I made up my mind that whatever I have not been wearing regularly will go, and I parted with 2 bags of clothes - some given away to maids, some to charity. And it was a good feeling. Even according to Feng Shui, hoarding is not a good thing (of course, it does not apply to books), it attracts negativity.

So, now that I am free of negativity, I can look for adding some positive vibes (read more shopping).

If I had more time...

2010-11-30T00:32:00.002+05:30

I have recently changed my blog’s template and let me confide, I don’t like it too much. The formatting is all disturbed and I don’t even know what all links I have lost. There are so many things, which we keep postponing to ‘when we have more time on hand’. Changing the template is certainly one of those for me. Actually, I have quite a long list of ‘to-dos’…’when I have more time’.

Well, when I have time, I would like to

Finally read so many wonderful books that I have been diligently collecting every month
Finally read millions of magazines, stuffed in all corners of my home. May be I would agree to part with a few then
Blog more frequently and much more regularly
Watch all those wonderful movies which I have only been hearing about. Catch all the good movies on TV
Spend more time with family (not just ‘quality time’)
Talk to family and friends more often
Create many more expressions of art
Finally do up my home, the way I have been dreaming about
Do store-hopping to find that perfect dress or furniture, rather than just buying what is available; even haggle!
Leisurely shop in those little boutiques, which I usually cross while going to some Mall (will totally give up going to malls for sure)
Play games on Playstation. Never gone beyond ‘take down’ despite pleas from husband who is a Playstation junkie
Spend more driving hours and hone my driving skills (well, I can drive to save my life but just that)
Learn something new, something creative….. something like pottery, or may be knitting
Work on my vocabulary, never really did it consciously after taking admission in MBA
Read newspaper from front to back (does not apply to Pune Times or Pune Mirror)
Explore photography. I know I will be good at it
Get up really early, and sip my green tea with the rising sun ;-) (yeah, when I have time, I spend minimum time in sleeping)
Read all those wonderful blogs out there on every imaginable topic
Brush up my general knowledge (it is at all time low, since I proudly don’t watch TV & don’t read newspaper)
Travel a lot, see every corner of India, and write travelogues
Discover several more kitschy, India-inspired home décor stores
Finally brush off the dust from my poor cycle, and get going
Do something good, self-less
Play chess
Plan my investments well, rather than just putting everything in whatever comes up first
Acquire a green way of living (in the best way possible)
Learn all applications of my mobile
Waste less, use every product to maximum possible
Click a lot of pictures, and finally get them developed into Albums, and not just keep in Folders on computer. The joy that a physical album or a hardcopy of a beautiful picture gives, cannot be compared with just tapping keys and skimming through the pictures
Write a book (life will perhaps never be complete without writing something worthwhile, even if it is not a book)

I could think of only these couple of things right now, I am sure I would have millions of other things on the list….if I had more time.

Would love to hear what you would like to do if you had more time on hand! I am sure all of us have these ‘to-dos’

In the name of Charity

2010-10-19T22:28:00.000+05:30

I had a horrible experience at Lifestyle recently. Well, I wanted to buy sandals and went for the billing. My friend was standing ahead of me in the queue. The lady at the billing counter asked her if she wanted to donate Re 1 for the charity. My friend asked her, what charity. She pointed towards some Poster, which basically was about some charity initiative by Lifestyle group or something. Anyways, she did go for it reluctantly. What’s Re 1/- right? Well, not with me, if I am not in the right mood.

I went in next. She swiped my card adding the Re 1/-. I asked her that the sandals were for Rs 750 right, so why the bill says Rs 751! She said, (now, note carefully) we have been asked by the management to bill everyone with Re 1/- extra by default. And if somebody argues (please note…argues!), we have been asked to give back Re 1/- coin. Well, if you think about it does anybody visiting a mall really count till the last rupee while paying? We never even total it ever ourselves, and always dole out the money whatever we are asked for. Imaging the unsuspecting buyers, who are paying Re 1/- without their consent.

I was about to get into a full blown lecture but well, at the end I just gave her an earful that this is wrong! Even if it is just Re 1/- you are not supposed to add it with my bill. It is just human tendency. We will just let it go….why make a scene for just Re 1/- (like I did).

But this is really not OK. I have found this in several malls, they are asking for charity (Re 1/- or Rs 10 whatever). God knows, where this money goes! Who accounts for these cash? Why should I support a cause which I am not even aware of!Why should I pay for some company's CSR activity!

If I want to do charity, I would do it on my own, to the cause of my choice. Regardless of the fact that Re 1/- is nothing, I want the option of making a choice!

Amateur photography

2010-09-19T23:17:00.000+05:30

I have always been fascinated by the sky. I can just sit for hours and look at the sky - clouds / day / night / star-studded....doesn't matter! It is always beautiful. Some pictures that I clicked recently from my balcony!

I will be back with more pictures soon. Though I am still exploring the options on my regular Digi-cam, we are planning to get a good one pretty soon. I am not so much into video-shooting. I love pictures, of people or nature. So, well, watch out for more :-)

Weekend fun

2010-08-18T21:12:00.000+05:30

This weekend was superb. Saturday was all about shopping. I bought this kitschy poster for a neat Rs 115/-, which is going to adorn one of my doors, pretty soon!

I discovered another splurging opportunity for myself. I realised that I have fascination for interesting notebooks as well, and I have actually been collecting them for sometime now! In fact, the name of my blog ‘Pen-Paper’ comes from my fascination with all kinds of stationery. I am not too much into Pens though, so no Lamy, Cross pens for me. I can happily write with a 5 rupee pen.

I visited Either Or, and absolutely loved this travel notebook but priced at over Rs 700/-, I stopped short of buying it. May be sometime later. So, I settled for a pretty hand-made paper notebook, which can fit in nicely in my handbag. I have always been accused of carrying mini-luggage with me. This reminds me of a funny incident that happened 2 years back (completely unrelated to this post, but it’s funny)

I was on an official travel to Delhi with my team. The trip was for 2 days with just a night’s stay. Everyone was carrying a suitcase. When I reached, I just had a small overnight bag with me. Everyone kept saying how smart I was and how I have planned it so well that I need not carry too many things. One of them even pointed out that his daughter, who was 4-5 year old at that time, had a bigger bag on such trips. Well, well…………….and then they saw my handbag! “No wonder”, they exclaimed. “Your handbag is as big as your overnight bag. You are keeping half your stuff in that”. The bigger my bag gets, the more ambitious I become with my stuff and eventually, the bag falls apart. I never learn, and I do get a new bag at the end!

Coming back to my happening weekend story, I also went to Crossword (yeah, even after buying 10 books just a couple of days back!). This time they have a really good Sale, 15% off on all books and extra 5% if you are a member….needless to say that I am! So, I picked up 2 books – Braking News and First Proof. It was not an impulse buy. I had been eyeing these 2 books for sometime now!

Sunday was fun too. I was totally hooked on to FRIENDS the entire day, and I have completed Season 2. Nothing works better for cheering me up instantly!

Pssst.... For people in Pune, there's a fabulous Sale going on at College of Engineering. Books are available for as low as Rs 50. I bought 5 books (including hardbound) for Rs 300 only. Quite a steal!

Image Source: Chumbak & Either Or

Social Networking!

2010-08-12T22:09:00.000+05:30

I think I am done with Social Networking sites. To begin with, I am not at all ‘social’ and I don’t ‘network’. I am happy in the place I am, with the people I am! But I do still love blogging. Blogging is one of the very few things that has been able to sustain my interest for so long (yup, I’m in blogworld since 2004).

I read about blog or weblog in paper, and was thrilled by this online diary which can be accessed at anytime and can be shared with everyone. So, of course, you need to be careful on what you write there.

I was introduced to Orkut somewhere in 2005 and got acquainted with Facebook quite recently. Since Orkut was my first brush with networking with friends, I always felt more comfortable there, but soon I realised, everyone moved to Facebook, so I moved too. Well, I’m not really active in either of them. I have a presence in LinkedIn, though I hardly ever log in. I am there on Twitter also, but it is really too much to update status frequently. And anyways, whatever I update will invariably about or around books. I don't solicit or encourage friendship with total strangers, so I neither accept, nor deny "frandship" requests. But I love blogging, it is the only thing which I have enjoyed so much to have continued doing! Especially, when I started my Book blog, because I love books, and I can blabber quite a lot about them.

Wait-a-minute....so while I am blogging to glory, I hear some voices in the background. I hear closely,guess what! it’s my father-in-law cursing the director of a particular TV serial of fooling us with stupid, illogical sequences, wherein people take a good 15 minutes to complete one sentence, and everyone encourages and contributes to confusion and misunderstanding. I hate TV serials, they just make me agitated and restless.

So well, coming back to Social Networking, I read in newspaper recently how putting any work-related status update is poor etiquette, things like how you are toiling hard at work, how you are staying late …getting it? Apparently, that will not go down well with your colleagues, when you are trying to befriend the senior management on social networking, and positioning yourself as a hard worker! See, exactly the reason why I just refrain from writing anything about work.

But I do love looking at updates of friends, of people I have lost touch with, how they are, what are they doing in their lives…looking at their pictures…..its nice :-)

====================================================

I also wanted to share something completely unrelated to the post above. Two days back when I was going to office, I read this cheeky message at the back of a gypsy:

“You can go fast, I can go everywhere……..”

Using Credit Cards well

2010-07-25T22:22:00.000+05:30

I am quite surprised by the fact that there are several people who have no idea how Credit Cards work. First of all, most of these them think that if they have paid the ‘Minimum amount due’, they can pay the ‘outstanding amount’ whenever they feel like, and no extra amount needs to be paid.

I had 3 such discussions with different people. The first one had splurged huge amount of money on his credit card and paid half the amount. He thought, he will pay the balance next month but he did not know that he will be paying interest to the tune of 2.5 to 3.5 % per month on the outstanding balance.

Second one had spent a few thousands on his card, and paid back most of it, except Rs 1000. He had linked his account to the credit card, so the ‘minimum amount due’ was debited every month to his bank account. He thought he just needs to pay Rs 1000, but the fact is he would be paying huge interest per month on the outstanding balance.

Well, I got my first Credit Card when my first salary account was created. I was scared of credit cards then, since I had heard too many stories of people ending up paying huge amounts of interest on their cards. So, I did not use it for an entire year. Then I moved to a different city and started getting to know the ‘credit cards’ better. So, I took the initiative and used it. And well, there has never been looking back thereafter.

Somewhere in the middle, I had spent a lot of money on my card but over the years I have learnt to limit my expenses and work around the cards well.

So, the rule of the game is you should always memorize the statement and due dates well. Say your statement date is 20th of July, so once your statement is generated, the best time to use the card is immediately after that. So, you can use it on 21st, 22nd, 23rd and so on. This amount that you have spent on your credit card will feature on your bill only on 20th of August and the due date before which you need to make the payment, will be somewhere around 5th of September, so you will have ample time to pay back! Easy.

Also, it works well if you use only 1 card, or maximum 2. It is easier to remember all important dates plus you accumulate all points on a single card, which you can redeem for several benefits!

So, use your Credit Card intelligently and enjoy the benefits!

The Ubiquitous TV and the school days!

2010-07-20T12:09:00.000+05:30

Reading At the Edge, I was transported into my early school days. Those ads from yesteryears, those visuals….they are delightful and nostalgic. As a kid, I used to sing along all the ads.

Sunday mornings were devoted to Ramayan and Mahabharat. They were engaging and fascinating, especially for us kids because we did not know the stories of Indian mythology. It was our first brush with these great Indian epics. Of course, right now, owing to my fascination for Mahabharata, I have read several versions. I still don’t know and am not able to remember a lot of characters, but I know more than an average Joe! I used to be so upset, when the casting would appear and the programme would end, because then you would have to wait an entire week for the next episode. Those were the days when there would be ads before and after the programmes, never in-between. Now look at the idiot box today, there are daily soaps dime-a-dozen, which are repeated twice or thrice during the course of the day. There are atleast 2-3 breaks in-between the programmes, so that you can do channel hopping and watch multiple serials at one time. I just hate watching movies on TV with others. I hate surfing channels when there’s a good movie on, because invariably, somebody gets interested in another programme and then begins the continuous surfing and watching 2 programmes at one time. I just hate it! It just ruins the impact of a good movie.

Schools used to be from Monday till Saturday. Sunday would be a free, relaxing day. In those days, kids were free to do whatever we want to, no rushing for tennis classes or dance classes or any such classes. Invariably, the breakfast would be Upma or Idli / Dosa. You would get up to the grinding sounds of mixer, huffing / puffing / grinding the rice batter for Idli / Dosa! No such hassles now though. Idli batters are available ready-made on the kirana store next door!

Sunday afternoons will invariably be dedicated for delicious chicken cooked by mum, and afternoon siesta. Doordarshan would play regional language movies. Now I realise those were Award winning, great movies but at that age I never could appreciate the dark (read art) movies. I also regret not giving enough attention to ‘Discovery of India’. I would fall asleep watching it. I also remember trying to watch a movie (can’t remember the name right now) which had Shabana Azmi, Roopa Ganguly and few others. It started on a rainy day and ends on the same or some other rainy day. It never made any sense to me.

Those were the days when our lives would not revolve around TV, we kids would actually play in the evenings, which I rarely see with kids these days. If I had to grow up in this age, I don’t know what kind of childhood I would have got. I would have been spoilt for choices.

After coming back from school, we would take lunch. Though my brother would conveniently pass on his bag to me and go for playing football. He knew he would get bashing after coming back but he did not mind as long as he had fun! I would also make a ‘bechari’ face after carrying 2 bags, and try to increase his punishment for making me do it. You cannot win from an elder brother, we had enough fights for me to understand this, but you can certainly work your ‘little sister’ tag well to make up for the bullying he did to you to get some thrashing from mum-dad ;-) Sorry brother! But I was the ‘good’ one, and he was the ‘naughty’ one. I would listen wide eyed to his made-up stories, and he would make me laugh hysterically, which would prompt my dad to scold me for complaining later on getting thrashed by my brother! But I would always, always vouch for an elder brother. It is comforting, and fun!

So, where was I? Afternoons were meant for siestas, and we were supposed to go out for playing only after 4pm. Of course, many times I would sneak out even before that. I was supposed to be back before sunset. But those times were fun – running, cycling, playing! The entire neighbourhood would come alive with the laughter of children.

Cable channels, initially meant the local channels which would play new movies. Then we had Zee TV. I used to love ‘Farman’ on Doordarshan; and ‘Campus’ on Zee TV – may be they were on air during different time periods but those are the memories of my school days. My mum never let me watch ‘Banegi Apni Baat’ and ‘Hip Hip Hurray’ because she felt they promoted too much of metro culture. Whatever! I was also hooked to ‘I dream of Jeanie’, ‘Bewitched’ and ‘Small Wonder’.

TV should not rule our lives. I see it happening increasingly these days. They are always on. One of the things I nag my husband about is, unsubscribing Tata Sky. I hate the persistent noise of TV in my home. TV has certainly come to invade our personal space. There is always so much time in a day, but we still keep complaining about not having enough time because we waste a lot of time sitting unblinkingly in front of the TV. I completely disapprove of it. I consciously avoid wasting my time on idiot box. I only like to catch good movies on TV, or watch FRIENDS while I am doing something like cooking or making collage or reading a magazine etc. I will never only watch TV. People argue that atleast for News we should watch TV. I think, the kind of news they keep on ranting about is anyways worthless. Nobody really watches much TV at my home, but whenever somebody visits – my parents or his – it is always spent more on following the serials and less on talking amongst us.

Perhaps, in the earlier days, we were much better because TV was in moderation. There were 2-3 good programmes in a week. With so much of choice in everything, I don’t know where are we going!

Expressions of creativity

2010-07-17T11:33:00.002+05:30

I mostly ride my 2-wheeler for several reasons. I am still not too comfortable behind the driving wheel, it is tedious to find place for parking, it is much easier to whiz past in heavy traffic….blah, blah, blah! So, I get too see a lot of things while commuting. I am especially enamoured by the variety of number plates people have, and even diverse messages on their car, on their bikes!

Earlier I had mentioned about this extremely cute message on a car “not so close darling. I hardly know you”. It really made me smile!

Most common ones are inscribing your religion on your vehicle, be it the stickers of various gods (ganesha is the most preferred, some also go for sai baba), you would also occasionally find a ‘786’ or a ‘cross’. ‘Aai-baba cha aashirwad’, ‘Daddy’s gift’, etc, also can be seen a lot.

Anther trend is creating names or words out of numbers. Many times some numbers are more prominent, rest are too small to even be legible.

In fact, what really prompted this post was the number plate I saw today. It said “careful! Stunter ahead!”. ‘Army’, ‘Press’, Doctor’s cross sign are also very, very common.

Trucks, cars and few bikes display names of the kids of the family. In fact, I also came across 1 car with the photograph of the children on the back.

Many times when I see distorted numbers, I fee strongly that there should be a standardized format for Number plates. In accident cases, one would never be able to make out the correct number of the offenders. A number plate should not be an expression of creativity, it has some purpose and when there is too much of clutter, distorted numbers and creativity at play, it just beats the purpose. A standardized format also orients people in grasping the numbers much more quickly. In current context, even an alert person on the road might take several precious minutes to make out what the number exactly is.

Blabbering of the mind!

2010-07-13T12:10:00.000+05:30

It is said grass is always greener on the other side. And not for nothing! In my hectic professional life, I sometimes wonder what could life be as a fulltime housewife. When I look at long hours at work, continuous stressful state of mind, follow ups and more follow ups; it seems such an idyllic state of being! But is it so? I cannot even survive one weekend doing nothing. People have called me weird at different stages of life. I like getting up really early on a holiday, others prefer sleeping till late. And well, with the entire day on hand, I keep wondering how to best utilize the day. I have this inherent quest for a perfect, balanced life. My passion for books and magazines is strange and all-consuming. I have them in every imaginable corner of my home. But we all have our idiosyncrasies.

I am overjoyed with the sense of achievement when a job is accomplished well. It is exhilarating, and it makes all the sweat worthwhile. But I have romantic notions of stay-at-home life…… getting up early (at sunrise), exercising, cycling, having green tea, taking in the fresh air of early morning, cooking, catching up on good movies (which I always miss, since I am at office), spending time with family, finally complete all the filing, bank-related work that I always wanted to do, finally read ALL magazines, books which I have hoarded since so many years now (!), finally read newspaper (from front to back). Ah! If only life was so simple and ideal. I am certain that I will not survive this ‘do-nothing’ phase for more than a week. It is something else to take time off from work and enjoy holidays, and something else to be completely out of touch from professional life. After all, it has contributed to my being.

Perhaps, perfect life is a misnomer. Perhaps, after a while, everything becomes mundane, and routine. Perhaps, there is merit in enjoying the moment.

Movie Review: Raavan

2010-06-25T19:48:00.003+05:30

I was inquisitive about ‘Raavan’, when I first heard about it. But as I slowly got to know more about it, I was really not planning to watch this one….but this time, a movie happened to me. Unfortunately, I watched this one, immediately after ‘Rajneeti’ and really did not know how to pass time till the end! It is such a boring movie. Interestingly, Rajneeti was inspired by Mahabharat and Raavan by Ramayan.

My comments:

Mani Ratnam: I have seen Dil Se, Guru, Yuva, etc, and the only movie that has impressed me is Yuva, nothing else. ‘Guru’ also did not work for me. Why is he so besotted with Abhishek and Aishwarya is beyond me! No doubt, the cinematography is breath-taking, but at some point, I got irritated with very close camera angles. And it rained throughout the movie, as if it was being shot at Cherrapunji.

The Movie: The movie lacked story and any high point in the plot. There was no chemistry between Vikram and Aishwarya, and not even between Abhishek and Aishwarya. How all of a sudden he gets besotted with her, was not really established. I kept wondering why Mani Ratnam felt the compelling need to make this movie, wasting so much time and money of the entire crew involved in making it, and of all the people who would attempt to see it.

Abhishek: I don’t know why media is even saying this has got mixed reviews. Nobody liked it – plain and simple! What Abhishek tries to establish with all his mumbling and over-acting, was not too clear. His character was supposed to look menacing, but that never happens. His character portrayal was too similar to ‘Yuva’, which in any case, was much better.

Aishwarya: She looks bloated and not the ethereal beauty she generally does. I wonder why she is supposed to be the highest paid actress in India. She is extremely pretty, agreed, but acting……puh-lease!

Vikram: Can’t comment much on him. He was OK in whatever role he had. May be “Ravanan” would have much better scope for him.

Others: Ravi Kisen was good, while Govinda was OK. His weight does not convince us that he could be the tree-jumping forest native. But over-all, he had some spark.

Priyamani: She looked promising in her small role but what kind of conservative village has such revealing outfits. I don’t understand why in the name of village belle, the actresses are supposed to wear skimpy clothes. I am yet to see such villages.

Songs: Not too great. I don’t even like “Beera” that much. There was a slow number which I liked passingly, but not as much to even be able to recall it now.

I read somewhere today that Amitabh thought Abhishek’s character comes across such half-baked because the film has not been edited well!

Movie Review: Rajneeti

2010-06-21T12:46:00.000+05:30

I was destined to watch ‘Rajneeti’ and ‘Raavan’ back to back this Saturday. So, well, I went along with my destiny, though I never wanted to watch ‘Raavan’ because I know Aishwarya cannot act, and Abhishek just overdoes it. Also, Mani Ratnam looks like besotted with this couple and just wanted to make a movie with them, no matter what the story. I will do ‘Raavan’ bashing later.

Overall, ‘Rajneeti’ was an engaging movie though it has received mixed reviews. I kind of liked this multi-starrer. Here’s what I thought about the actors and their roles, etc….

Nana Patekar: I read somewhere that he wasn’t too happy with his role or something. I thought, he had a good role. He was the ‘Krishna’, the strategist, always in control of the situation

Katrina Kaif: Why I chose to write about her first? Because, I loved her. She truly stands out in her role. And she has really learnt Hindi well. So, now she looks good, speaks Hindi and acts too, what else do you want guys?! I loved her effervescent self in the first half and the lady-like persona in the second half. She does justice to her role.

Manoj Bajpai: He was truly remarkable in his negative character. I think he should do more films, he is quite good

Ajay Devgan: Ajay can walk through this role with his eyes closed. It is the same old, brooding character that he has mastered long, long time back. But I don’t want to take away from his acting, he was good

Arjun Rampal: I think, his character was not really etched out too well. I never could decide if he was white or grey! He uses Shruti Seth’s character (why she did such a pathetic role is beyond me, and she really did it horribly) and yet has a certain vulnerability to it. He looks terribly good with his long hair and kurta look, but he looks too urbane and sophisticated

Ranbir Kapoor: He was fine but I think we have overrated him a lot. He tends to do a bit of over-acting but frankly he is okay. He can do better. His role was good but it required someone sharp and shrewd, he looked such a bhola-bhala. A laptop does not make you a scheming strategist (have I let out too much! Anyways, I am sure I am one of the last people to see this movie!)

Naseeruddin Shah: I don’t know why he was there in the movie, and the kiss between him and that lady (her name is Nikhila Trikha – just googled) looked highly inappropriate and uncalled for (‘script ki demand’!!!!)

Thankfully, there weren’t any full-fledged song to break the pace of the movie. Actually, there were too many things happening, so we weren’t bored at any point of time. But at the end, it seems Politics is a dirty business!

And how can I forget, the cameo by Praksh Jha! It was hilarious since I knew it was Prakash Jha, of course, many aren’t so updated about movies!!

But certainly, go for it!

(Image source: IMDb)

A Book can happen to you!

2010-05-25T09:44:00.000+05:30

I went to Landmark last Sunday because I had collected sufficient points to exchange for a book, and well, I just needed a reason to go there. So, I persuaded my husband and my friends to drop by Landmark, so that I could pick a book. I prefer “buying” books from online shops but here I wasn’t spending anything, right! So no guilt feelings!

I spent quite some time browsing through books and whenever I actually go buying books, I never can remember the books on my wish list. Most of the times, these books are so rare that even if I am able to remember a name or two, I am never able to find it on the shelf!

Anyways, I finalised on “We are Iran” by Nasrin Alavi and “Deaf Heaven” by Pinki Virani. The first one sounded interesting as it was a meticulous compilation of lives in contemporary Iran through several blogs, while I picked up the other one because I had recently read two of Pinki Virani’s books and I had been impressed by both. So, did not even think twice before picking it up.

Anyways, I went to the billing counter, proudly gave my Citibank card and asked to bill while redeeming my 293 points also. The lady left for a while to check the points, came back and said it is not honouring the points, not even 150 points. So, what to do, I became a fool coming all the way to redeem points and shelling out money. So, I quickly decided, I will take only 1 book and showed that I want “Deaf Heaven”.

I came back home and when I pulled the book outside, what did I see? The book tat came back was “We are Iran”. I was totally mad at that lady – first she told me the points could not be redeemed, and then she billed the wrong book. But after a while, I looked at the other side of this whole event and realised how a book can happen to you. I did not choose this book but I still got it. I would buy “Deaf Heaven” anyways, but I may not have got back to buying “We are Iran” again. That makes me feel nice and positive.

Tea and Will Power

2010-05-18T19:56:00.001+05:30

For a while, I had been thinking about quitting something which I absolutely love, almost addicted to. And the obvious answer was Tea! I know, some might find this whole post very funny, but people who know me, also know how obsessed I have been with Tea since very young age. The more my mum would discourage me to have tea, the more it became an obsession. I have gone to the length of being so badly fixated on tea, that the moment mum would go out, the first thing I would do was make tea for myself. What fascinated me more about late-night studies or early morning studies was being officially allowed to have Tea!

But anyways, the point is I have quit tea for a week now and it feels tremendously liberating. Whenever somebody would have tea, I would consciously say it loud that I don’t drink tea anymore! It feels good and it sort of reassures me, it boosts my confidence. I feel extremely proud of myself, and I know it is definitely going to have a positive impact on me health-wise as well.

I’m really not into soft drinks, so when it is the point of having something to drink, I go for salted fresh lime water or plain water. The amount of sugar, I have cut down, as a result is also quite a lot. I used to have anywhere between 2 to 4 cups of tea everyday. So there 

A week back, I thought it would be impossible for me to quit tea, ever. I decided to try this first for a month. In just a week, I’m almost on the verge of quitting tea forever.

As I am thinking and writing about this, what is clear to me is that it is really not so much about tea, as much as it is about my will power to overcome something which I thought was indispensable for me. It is all in the mind. The mind convinces us that there are things we would not be able to do or live without, but if you take it as a challenge and give it a try, you can surely make it possible. Because it is always possible, we should have that much conviction!

Contemporary Indian Design

2010-04-17T00:11:00.001+05:30

The first time I got acquainted with ‘Contemporary Indian Art’ was in The Mint’s Saturday supplement ‘Lounge’. It featured a couple of Indian design companies which create quirky / kitschy home and fashion accessories that are essentially Indian. I immediately googled all these firms, looked through their products and since then I have bought several products from their range, and they have all been smashing, beautiful and definitely unique. After that I came across similar write-ups and features in Elle Décor as well as Femina. And it has been one awesome revelation.

After my initiation into ‘Contemporary Indian Art’, I have come across several such firms which promote ‘Indian’-ness in their designs.

Check out the links and get bowled over by the eye-catching collection each one of these have.

Design Temple

Happily Unmarried
Loose Ends
Play Clan
Fluke By Design
Art by Aarohi

And well, I have also designed a few things for my home, which I have talked about earlier, and which I will surely showcase on my blog some day.

Image courtesy: Happily Unmarried

Movie Review: A Wednesday

2010-04-10T01:10:00.000+05:30

‘A Wednesday’ has been on my wish list for a long, long time now. Unfortunately, every time I would catch it on TV, it would be somewhere half way through. I really wanted to see the complete movie. As the luck would have it, hubby went out partying for the financial year closing, so no IPL matches to dominate our living room, as usual I started surfing channels and as luck would have it, ‘A Wednesday’ had just about started on Doordarshan. Yipee!

It is a wonderful movie. Right from the casting to the narration of the story, the screenplay, the whole mood and essence of the movie, everything was good. Though everyone did justice to their characters, including Deepal Shaw (I’m not sure if that funny voice is really her’s), I think Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher matched each other too well. Anupam Kher as the Commissioner of Police and Nasseruddin Shah as the common man were absolutely effortless. Aamir Bashir did complete justice to his role. Jimmy Shergill was good too but may not be perfect as the no-nonsense tough cop. The other actors playing terrorists did not look too menacing but that was not the point. The main thing was that the movie did drive home the point.

My thoughts on why you should watch this movie?

• It is not run-of-the-mill song and dance routine drama, it is different

• The story is engaging and completely hooks you on, even though at the back of your mind you know where all this is going

• It translates the exact same thoughts that haunts everyone today all the time, into words

• It speaks out the feelings of a common man – you, me, us!

• I absolutely loved the monologue by Naseer where he speaks out for common man

Mumbai

2010-04-07T21:31:00.003+05:30

Mumbai has always enticed me but I never really explored it when I was here during my first job for more than a year. Whenever I come back, I always feel there’s so much to be explored, to be seen, to experience. Mumbai is so huge, unlike any other city. One gets overwhelmed by just sheer size of it. I have promised myself time and again that next time I am going to spend more time hunting for great deals on books to build up my ever growing collection, some more time for all the quirky stuff I have located in hordes of shops in the length and breadth of the city, some more time catch to the Irish coffee at Prithvi theatres and a little more time to just gawk at the endless, restless crowd of people who are perpetually in mad rush of their life!

Image courtesy: http://travelgyan.wordpress.com

SERIAL - killer!

2010-04-06T23:26:00.003+05:30

These days with so much time spent at home, I could not save myself from the hordes of serials on the tube! Here’s a round-up on what I have been watching since last 1 week:

Sania – Shoaib marriage controversy - Yes, I’m guilty of encouraging the intrusion of News channels in the private lives of celebrities, but it does hook you on! And it is getting wilder day by day. If you ask me, I don’t know what is wrong with Sania? I mean, all of us know it is never going to work. But well, all the best to her if after all this, she still wants to go ahead!

Mann ki Awaaz, Pratigya - Briefly, it is the story of a small town, where a goonda-type guy Boy A (rich Thakur) falls for a middle-class girl Girl A and who keeps following her everywhere, and literally makes her life miserable. Finally, she decides to save her family from all the trouble the guy causes, and marry the guy to put an end to all the misery. Well, the girl’s brother, Boy B, asks to get married to the 1st guy’s sister, Girl B. I missed the earlier episodes in order to really throw light on why he does that. But anyways, Girl B is a pretty thing with a hot head and a colorful language. She calls her brother as “kutte”, “sale”. The conversation between brother-sister duo is quite entertaining, though filled with a lot of abuses.

I think they should not have shown marriage between Boy A and Girl A. It will surely give wrong signals to young people in small town and villages, and they would think that through this way they will be able to marry the girl of their choice! I truly feel that in the wake of showing the wrong things prevailing in the society, well we are ending up showing all the wrong things, if not encouraging!

Pavitra Rishta - Ok, there’s this girl Girl A, who is married to Boy A, but they are in the middle of a divorce, so Boy A can get married to Girl B, who is pregnant with Boy A’s deceased brother's child, phew! Strange, isn’t it? Not if you regularly watch these serials.

Dance India Dance - This is the only programme which I really watch….sometimes! All the finalists are amazing, but I absolutely love Shakti. I totally bet on her, she is going to win hands down!

Well, that’s that, I have consciously stayed away from rest of the grind. Those are totally intolerable and extremely, extremely slow-paced. I lose all my patience.

Life's not FAIR!

2010-03-19T12:07:00.002+05:30

What is common between Shahrukh Khan, Johan Abraham, Genelia Dsouza, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor and Kajol? Apart from the fact that they are all actors? If you watch even a little bit of TV, you would surely know that all these actors promote different brands of creams that promise fairness! I think these days the frequency of fairness creams have also increased manyfolds.

I don’t know what kind of fake culture we are promoting. 90% of the ads would tell you that if you are not fair, slim and without scars, pimples or any other kind of blemishes, you don’t deserve to socialise! Are we giving too much importance to appearance? What kind of ‘healthy’ environment are we giving to our next generation?

No wonder kids have matured much beyond their age. It is sickening to see girls barely in their teens frequenting beauty parlours!

P.S. Read an interesting news

If you look at the film stars who are promoting the fairness creams, most of them are from the current generation. The companies need to expand their market. So where would they sell their product? Guys!

I had read somewhere that the idea of the first fairness cream generated from everyone’s fixation on “gori” bride. So, naturally, all the girls and girls’ parents flocked to buy the cream that could change their lives. The only party to benefit in this scenario was the company selling the fairness cream. Read a related article here.

There’s an interesting (read feminist) book called The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. Read about it here. Needless to say, I’m gonna get it :-) You can buy it from Indiaplaza @ Rs 327. I'm getting it at Rs 299 because I have Indiaplaza Bookclub Membership!

Well, now it seems ‘beauty’ is no longer a domain for women. Hail the powerful people of Marketing and Advertising!

Good Homes

2010-03-14T23:22:00.001+05:30

Of all the things I love doing, doing up my home is one of my passions. It is good that my husband does not have similar passion otherwise we would end up fighting on what we want to do with it.

I absolutely love Interior magazines. There are so many inspirations in so many different forms, one thing leads to another and you get something absolutely perfect for your home.

I am also a cleanliness freak. Everything has to be absolutely on it’s place whether or not there is anybody around to see it that everything is laid out perfectly. The last thing I do before leaving home for office is put everything in place (as much as possible, in whatever little time I have while rushing to office). And well, the first thing I do on entering my home, no matter how tired I am, is put everything is place. Starting from shoes, to cushions to our lunch boxes, the rug, the several remotes, newspaper, magazines, moving on to putting away the clean clothes inside cupboard…..and I do not settle for my cup of tea, before making everything picture perfect. Yeah, I’m very much like Monica (from FRIENDS). I remember, once Phoebe said about living with Monica, “yeah, eating cookies while standing on sink, is fun!” yeah, I’m like that too.

Sometimes when I find my husband cleaning the kitchen and putting everything in order, I feel overwhelmed. How one person gets conditioned to live with the other person! But frankly, I feel too grateful to whatever he does, because cleanliness is my one of the passions (read vices) not his!

Anyways, reading and skimming through hoards of interior magazines, I cut-out whatever colors, items or accessories appeal to me. I have bought a lot of things by just getting a glimpse of it in any of those glitzy magazines like BBC Good Homes, Living etc, Ideal Homes & Gardens and Elle Décor. These are some of my favourites, but I absolutely love BBC Good Homes. It is fabulous.

Since I’m also on to collage and scrapbooks big time, (I will share some of my collages sometime) I am right now working on my dream home scrapbook. It has color combinations, home accessories, etc that I would like to adapt into my home. I buy a lot of photo frames and wall frames. I love retro-style posters. Right now, my bedroom has the huge collage done by me on our special moments over he years. It is quite huge, about 4.5 ft (w) X 2.5 ft (h). My guest bedroom showcases, another collage done by me with colourful cover page of books (well, I did not cut my books, these are cut-outs collates from different newspapers and magazines). I have recently bought a colourful Mario Miranda poster (inspired from one of the ‘real homes’ showcased in BBC Good Homes), and it is just waiting to be framed. I also intend to have a lot of smaller frames for both our families’ photographs, which I will put on wall.

Perhaps I should seriously consider home styling as an alternate career option. It is truly fun!

Trip to the romantic city - Udaipur

2010-02-27T11:17:00.005+05:30

Since I am on to travelogues, here’s a quick round-up on my trip to Udaipur recently. Udaipur is a quaint, little town in Rajasthan – no crowd, beautiful palaces, heritage hotels, no traffic, not too many places to go….what else can you ask for on a holiday!
Usually, people want to check out as many places in and around the city as possible; but we don’t get into that maddening urge to see anything and everything. A holiday is a holiday, so the most important thing is to slow down the pace, just go wherever you feel like, no plans, no hundred places to see. As a rule, we neither plan, nor attempt to check out all the ‘popular’ tourist places. We shortlist 2-3 places and take our time to go around those only.
Day 1We selected the hotel on our own. Just visited a couple of sites, read a few reviews and zeroed in on The Rampratap Palace, and it really looks exactly like it does in the pictures. It is a beautiful heritage hotel with excellent service, and just 25 rooms so there are never too many people around. I fell in love with this hotel, the moment I saw it. The structure is completely reminiscent of the old times, and the framed pictures of maharajahs, old advertisements, etc add to the aura.

We got a room in the first floor, which also had a quite decent balcony overlooking the road. Just outside our room, was the tiny restaurant that served breakfasts in the mornings – Continental and Indian. Outside the restaurants were lounging garden chairs and little lanterns. Right next to I,t was the hotel’s in-house shop of local items and also a spa. The spiralling stairs led to an open and spacious terrace, which had a fabulous view of around the hotel.

The first day, we hired a cab and selected a few places closer to our Hotel like Nehru park, Saheliyon ki baadi, which, everything said and done, are all parks. There is nothing to ‘see’ as such in these places, so we decided no more parks, and we straightaway went to the beautiful ‘City Palace’. What to say about this beautiful place, it just takes you back to many centuries ago. The Palace is huge and cameras are not allowed inside. We got a guide with us, so that he could tell us about the story around that palace. Apparently, a lot of movies or parts of movies have been shot in this palace like Guide, Hum Saath Saath Hain, a song from Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, etc, etc. There are old weapons too stacked in a room. Read all about City Palace here.

The Palace keeps hosting a lot of events and marriages. In fact, Udaipur had been in news for hosting Raveena Tandon’s marriage and Vikram Chatwal’s marriage. Now who’s Vikram Chatwal?! That’s the reason, I say, read PEOPLE or Page 3 more often, guys!
Well, anyways, I was so drawn to the place that I wanted to buy a book on the City Palace, and luckily there was a little shop within the palace. I bought a book called “Udaipur”. It has everything told by the guide to us and a lot of information about the city as well – about its festivals, generations of maharajas, etc.

That day we did a little bit of shopping in the local market and bought the usual batik print dress material, kurtas and the jaipuri razaai!

Our Hotel had a beautiful restaurant, located across the road. The hotel had their own collection of vintage cars on display. The combination of candle-lights, cool breeze, the heritage hotel in the background, made an extremely romantic setting. It was one of such moments, when you don’t think about anything and the moment stands still, which you would want to hold on in your memories forever!

Day 2
The second day, we visited the “Aapni Dhaani” , which is on the same platform as “Chowki Dhaani” and encapsulates games, culture and food of Rajasthan.
We also did a little bit of shopping of the rajasthani mojris. I bought 2 footwears – 1 in reddish leather and the other is quite colourful, but haven’t had chance to wear any of those in last so many days!
There is a Monsoon Palace at Sajjangarh, which is in the outskirts of Udaipur. It is not as big as the City Palace but is frequented by tourists to catch the mesmerising sunrises and sunsets!
There is a small cafeteria there to take a break while coming back to the city after watching the sunset.
Dinner again was at the beautiful restaurant of Rampratap hotel!
Day 3
We had an early morning flight for home. The airport is quite nice at Udaipur and not too many people boarding from there. We saw Dia Mirza, Priti Janghiani, Prachi Desai, Shweta Kwatra and Manav Gohil coming in to board the same flight for Mumbai. Apparently, there was some event the previous night.
It usually happens to me that whenever I see any celebrity (so to say), I don’t know what to do. I feel like staring at the person but feel embarrassed to do so! So, we checked in with all of them, without trying to stare too hard at them.

Overall, the trip was short yet memorable. Though a popular tourist place, yet Udaipur is still not such a hot spot. The quiet, little, laid back town is just the right place to spend some peaceful time. Hope I do get an opportunity to go back there again!

Goa again!

2010-02-13T13:22:00.000+05:30

Yeah! Believe it or not, I’m just back from yet another trip to Goa! I hadn’t had a clue about this trip till last week but opportunity knocked in and I was asked to attend a Seminar in Goa, with another friend from office. I was not too keen because I had just got back from Goa and secondly, I am too homebound. I hate leaving my home for long period. Quite recently, we had been on a holiday in Goa. Succeeding week, my hubby went on another office incentive trip and hey, while he was still there, I got the news that I have to attend this seminar in the week after that.

Nevertheless, what you gotta do is what you gotta do! Usually, when I had been reluctant in going on such trips, it has always turned out to be fun. So, I thought, let’s not think about it much, and just do it.

The journey to Goa was painful! I would say whoever thought that overnight buses are comfortable and most logical option, don’t know what they are talking about. It absolutely did not work for me! I had the most horrible experience of my life, and I’m still so much in pain because of that one journey!

Anyways, we reached Goa at 6.30 am, and checked into Hotel Mandovi. What can I say! The story goes that once this hotel was the pride of Panjim and even Lal Bahudar Shastri has stayed there during his visit. It is well located, facing the Mandovi River and the entire stretch of road around it, is a delight for any tourist or culture enthusiast. You just need to take a walk down the lane. There is the famous Ferry boats taking off from close by, the lanes are cosy and charming, reminiscent of old times with buildings of yesteryears lined up along the roads. There is Entertainment Society, Kala Kendra and a lot of branded stores too.

The first day we took a little time to get used to the fact that the hotel was not upto our expectations. My friend was keen on even trying to change the hotel, later in the day; but I was quite OK. The hotel obviously has seen better days, but the hospitality is good, bathrooms are good and location was perfect, since our seminar was at Goa Mariott, which is quite close. We did check out ‘Fidalgo’ in the evening but I did not find it too appealing. It is a typical modern hotel, and looks just like that. There is no charm. It could be anywhere in India. It is quite good but then it is not special. And yeah, though Mandovi definitely has seen better days, it still has that charm. I had no issues about it. It was cosy and comfortable!

The seminar used to stretch from 9 am till 6.30 pm during all three days. We used to rush back to the hotel, put on our sports shoes and quickly get off to do some shopping because shops in Goa get closed very, very early by any standards.

The first day, we strolled around the hotel, bought the usual dose of Kajus. Then my friend bought some cute, little clothes for her daughter, we bought a little bit of knick-knacks and settled for dinner at ‘Rajdhani’ (which is almost next to Mandovi Hotel). Filled with excruciating pain of last night’s journey and wearing heels for the whole day at seminar, I just wanted to doze off (which I did)!

The second day got a little better of us. We slipped into our shoes and walked down the lane to check out Mandovi market. I bought some wooden coasters (which I had been looking for quite sometime now) but it was surely overpriced. Bought it anyways. We also bought the cowboy hats for our husbands (now we really don’t know where they would wear it! Well, that’s what they need to figure out!) I also bought cute Hot Wheels car for my hubby (well, yeah, I collect books…he collects toy cars…big deal! To each, his own. ) We also bought Mario Miranda Postcards about Goan life from our Hotel bookshop. It is a set of 16 Black and white post cards, and absolutely adorable! I also bought a book on Goa lifestyle and culture, and a magnet with wooden auto rickshaw that said “Goa”. So we played “tourists” to the hilt. This time we settled for an open restaurant just opposite Hotel Mandovi called “Quarterdeck”. It is facing the sea and you can just look at the water for hours!
My friend was keen on the Ferry but I did not want to go so late in the night on our own. I admire her enthusiasm to try new things, but I’m a bit cautious by nature, so we gave it a miss.

The only thing which was missing from my list was a nice Mario Miranda Poster. I had seen one in BBC Good Homes, and I really wanted to get hold of one! I must say, I have been infinitely lucky in this one. By checking a lot from our local friends, we came to know that a retail store near our Hotel stocks those. That’s the reason I have no questions that there is God! We almost ran to the place after getting back from the last day at Seminar, I did not want to miss it after getting so close. I must say, the price was exorbitant, so we just settled for color Posters, which we can get framed later. At Rs 800 each, I think it was OK. I also loved a notebook there but I put it back looking at the price of Rs 600. They had truly interesting stuff.

I also had plans to strike a good deal for some handful of Archies comics with the raddiwallah, sitting next to our Hotel. I had seen Tinkle with him while crossing, but they were closed for Mahashivratri. Imagine!

Catching the return bus was another experience in itself. When at 8.45 pm, we reached the rickshaw stand to get a ride to catch the 9 o’clock bus, guess what! We were welcomed with no rickshaws!!! From somewhere, we located a private taxi, even had the guts to negotiate rates for the drop at that hour! I must confess, I was extremely scared of getting into that taxi. I am not the one to do something like this! But he did drop us to the place, only to see the back of our bus…………….leaving! I made quite a spectacle, running after the bus and even hitting on one side of the bus, but to no avail, the bus just wheezed off. I was totally aghast at what happened! We missed the bus! When I returned, there was another bus standing there. The driver checked with me, which bus were I looking for. I said, ‘sleeper’ and simultaneously realized that the one which was standing, actually was the Sleeper bus. See I did tell you, there is God! No doubts about that!

My friend had a great laugh at my expense but I really had no energy for finding another bus for our return journey! So, I was just happy to be in that bus! When we settled in, then did we see that it was 9 pm then, so that bus could not have been our bus anyways!

Well, I would say, it was quite a trip. We did so much in such little time. Let’s see when I return to Goa again. By the way, we totally missed the Carnival, which begins today right in front of our Hotel. Such losers! And we also missed the Gala Dinner at Cita de Goa, since we had to catch the bus back.

Greatest Of All - GOA

2010-02-06T14:22:00.004+05:30

It may appear like I am no more blogging here, but I’m very much ‘active’. I sew million of thoughts together hundreds of times, but they never got expressed into words. I have had a very hectic 3 months – work, travel, books, movies….I did it all…and ironically, what I did not do, is what I love the most…write!

Last couple of months have been good. First there was a quick vacation to the romantic city, Udaipur and last week, we went to Goa (finally!).

Goa is just 12 hours journey from Pune but it took us ages to plan one. I’m not a sea person, I love the hills. I hate frolicking in water. I would much rather, sit back and marvel at the expanse of green hills or beautiful, faraway mountains. But this trip was fun.

It was a family visit – cum – pleasure trip. One day was entirely dedicated to spending time with family there. On day 2, when finally we picked up our bags and left for our resort, we decided on taking Non-Stop local buses, rather than a taxi. Buses take longer routes and take you around the place, while taxi would drop you to the resort without bothering much about so-called sight-seeing.

It was fun to catch a bus after so long, and it did not really matter because the bus had only one final stop. I was enamoured by the brightly colored houses, along the way. From dark purple to deep pink, from bright yellow to bottle green, there were brightest of hues. There were quite a few quaint churches, as well. Unfortunately, I did not get opportunity to visit any church this time, but next time I would surely keep more time on hand.

The bus journey till Madgaon, and then yet another bus to Panjim were one of the most cherishable memories of Goa! Our place of stay ‘Colonia Santa Maria’ was yet another beautiful colonial style resort. It was just 2 minutes away from the Baga beach. The rooms were cozy and comfortable. I was amazed to see that 80% of the crowd was of foreign tourists.

We hired an Activa and rode to Calangute beach. We, atleast I, had not planned on any water sport. But just as we entered the beach, we were continuously hounded by those people. So, we finally decided to go for Parasailing. We were taken on a boat towards a Motor boat, which was already inside. We had to shift into the bigger motor boat. There we took turns to go up and fly. That is what Parasailing is all about!

Soaked in salty water, we decided to make way for our resort. In the evening, we took a stroll on the Baga beach and it was one of the most picture-perfect, romantic moments of life. You look at the sea and even at night the ambience is breath-taking with chairs and tables lined up along the sea with cute candle-lights! I always pictured Goa as a noisy, crowded place but all such moments made this trip worthwhile.

We went back to our room quite late. Not really wanting to go to the restaurant, we ordered Sandwiches and Tea for dinner at our room! Our room balcony overlooked the pavement and you could listen to the live music playing at the restaurant, so there was really no need to go there.

Next morning, we returned to enjoy the sun and to look at the mesmerizing beauty that is the Sea. So far, I had always associated beaches with noisy, cramming people, a lot of garbage and humidity. Goa was absolutely the opposite. Looking at the blue-green color of the sea, the short and high waves, everything was breath-taking and beautiful!

Our return trip was quite an adventure too. When we sat for dinner at 1.15 pm, our return tickets in Train were not confirmed. So, we were looking for bus tickets. The Sleeper, Semi-Sleepers were not available. The basic AC Volvos were charging 1400 bucks for a single ticket. We thought why don’t we hire a car, if it anyways will go upto Rs 3000. We got the shock of our lives when neither of the cabbies was ready to go below Rs 9000 for the trip. I even told them “we are from India only”. And suddenly, at about 1.40 pm, we came to know that our Train tickets were confirmed. We got our ordered food packed, called a cab and checked out from our room - all in a frenzy. The station at Vasco was about 1 hour away. Since we booked on sleeper, so that atleast we can get some confirmed tickets, so we had to bother about blankets as well. Finally, we reached station at 3 pm for the 3.10 pm train!

We had some interesting co-passengers. Since, those were foreign tourists’ quota seats, we had only foreigners as co-passengers. The one guy, who started with us from Vasco, was from Chili and has been traveling since last 1.5 years! From Greece to South America to entire Europe to India and then plan was to go to Nepal and few more countries. We asked the obvious question – “don’t you work?” He said, “I worked for 4 years, saved some money and started traveling.” Then we said, “so you must have saved a lot of money!”. He said, “the idea is to travel cheap. If you are careful in what you eat, where you stay and how you travel, then you can save a lot of money!” Great wisdom indeed, and I have seen this in a lot of foreign tourists who come to India.

As a culture, we don’t encourage traveling without proper plan, while these foreign travelers, just go on their own (many times alone) to explore unknown countries and unknown culture. Really inspiring indeed! I would not go on unknown excursions but I surely understood the advantage of traveling cheaper.

If I look at this Goa trip; since we booked tickets etc at the last moment, we spent 40% of all expenses only in traveling, another 30% in hotel room and rest all miscellaneous. Just 2 day trip! In fact, we stayed 1 day at home and only 1 day at the resort and ended up spending almost 14-15K!

Well, this is just our 5th trip in 2 years, and we are still learning. I want to travel across India and then, Europe ;-)

'All is Well' with 3 Idiots

2009-12-27T02:55:00.002+05:30

It is 2.45 am and I'm just back from the show of ‘3 Idiots’ and absolutely loved it…I mean, what’s not to love in the movie, guys! Aamir has done it again and Raju Hirani has also done it yet again. In any case, I love Aamir, I have never been out of love with Madhavan since the first time I saw him on Banegi Apni Baat ;-) Well, I kind of like Sharman (he’s a little goofy but that’s OK). I am also not averse to liking Kareena these days because sometimes she also acts well (inspite of herself!). I loved the fact that the movie did not stick to ‘Five Point Someone’ storyline. I have already forgotten the story in any case. Well, I loved the screenplay, and I loved the perfect proportion of flashbacks and momentum of current story.

I don’t care if Aamir has edited the movie in his favour. I don’t care if the songs don’t really stay with you. I don’t even care if there have been any unexplained loose ends (I did not even notice, even if there were). I just know, after a very, very long time, I did not look at my watch even once during a movie. I just know the movie made me laugh, made me smile, made me go crazy and made me cry as well.

I have seen Avatar, a technical masterpiece, but I slept through quite a bit of it. Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani was hilarious in bits, but it was slightly over-the-top and not consistently funny or emotional. It was quite flat in a lot of places. It was OK. I loved Paa, but Wanted was more hilarious than an ‘action’ movie! However, ‘3 Idiots’ is certainly a class apart and gets 5 stars from me. I can watch it over and over again.

What do I say, I love you Aamir :-) You rock!

(all you other people, go and watch the movie. It surely deserves to be a hit!)

Old times sake

2009-10-12T22:40:00.008+05:30

I had a true-blue nostalgic time today, and I loved it! It started with listening (and watching) one of my all-time-favourites on YouTube “Mujhe raat din bas muhe” from Sangharsh. Well, it took me to the old times, one song led to another and whoa………I kept listening to songs of those times one after another – from Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahi Title Track to Ae Mere Hamsafar from Qayamat se Qayamat Tak………from Pehli Pehli baar Baliye from Sangharsh to Tere Dar Par Sanam Chale Aaye from Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi….and throw in a Tumse Milke from Parinda..........it was blissful!

Where have those songs gone! We don’t get to listen to Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Sadhna Sargam too often these days. The days of any single singer ruling the Music industry has truly gone, now we have new set of singers in every movie!

I will leave you with one of the most beautiful songs of those times :-)

Tere dar par sanam chale aaye

Tu na aaya to hum chale aaye

Bin tere koi aas bhi na rahi

Itne tarse ke pyaas bhi na rahi

Oh, bin tere koi aas bhi na rahi

Itne tarse ke pyaas bhi na rahi - 2

Ladkhadaaye kadam, chale aaye - 2

Chale aaye, chale aaye

Tere dar par sanam chale aaye

Tu na aaya to hum chale aaye

Dil ko dhadka laga tha pal pal to

Shor sun le na koi paayal ka - 2

Phir bhi teri kasam chale aaye - 2

Chale aaye, chale aaye

Tere dar par sanam chale aaye

Tu na aaya to hum chale aaye

Tere dar par sanam chale aaye

Tu na aaya to hum chale aaye

Yup back for more......just re-discovered Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. I think it was the first movie that made casting entertaining. I can just keep looking at Salman and Madhuri over and over again, and both look absolutely captivating in this movie. Even S.P.Balasubramanium’s voice sounded heaven to me (I never really liked it)! Ended up listening to all the songs. I have never been a Salman Khan fan but he looks so adorable in this, and Madhuri looks lovely and sensuous! Check out songs at YouTube.

Movie Review: Wake Up Sid

2009-10-11T02:30:00.004+05:30

Just came back from a show of Wake Up Sid. Well, mmmm I thought it would be one of those hip, cool movies. It is kind of OK but it is very, what shall I say, lukewarm.

I always thought Konkona is a good actress but increasingly she is getting type-casted as the late-20s, frustrated, finding-her-identity-kind of girl. She has become quite repetitive, even her hair and looks have become quite done to death; she really needs a different kind of role. She was good as an independent stand-alone character but then we have seen her do the same thing so many times that it gets kind-of stale. I think the director really should have casted somebody else, to make it look fresh.

So, what I loved about the movie?

Ranbir was good. He is slowly converting me into a fan. I have never really liked him. People thought he was cute, but I always thought the opposite but in this movie, he certainly looked cute J
I loooooooooooooooooooved Konkona’s apartment…it was fabulous
Design Temple has done some fabulous job in Publicity designs and these guys are really good. I have read about them and have been through their website earlier. Really cool Indian designs.
There were so many similarities I found in Konkona's character and me - like her cosy home (I like to believe that mine is too), her love for books, her ambition to become a writer and most importantly, the way she gets irritated to find her home in mess after coming back from office.
I absolutely love the song “Iktara”
I liked the theme of the movie, the way story progressed

What it lacked!

A high point – there was no “the moment” in the movie. And in any case, you already know what’s going to happen! It needed a certain amount of innovation.
It was way longer than required
There were some unwanted characters in the movie, floating around. There were some moments which could have been edited. The director certainly wasted important screen timing in all these.
The ending was totally filmy and not required, could have been handled differently.

People, don’t let me dissuade you (some critics have given it 4 stars)! Go and decide for yourself. I will give it say 2.5 - 3 stars out of 5 because it is an average movie. It is not a ‘Dil Chahta Hai’, and I have not seen ‘Lakshya’ so cannot comment on that but it surely falls in that genre.

Another day, another thought

2009-10-04T19:56:00.001+05:30

There are times when I start thinking about everything in perspective – what I am doing and why I’m doing it, its relevance in my entire life, is it the way I would like my life to go on. One day is no way different than the other day.

And then there are times, when I feel so happy and exhilarated, sometimes with hubby and sometimes while with friends; I just want to pause the moment and capture it fully into my heart. It becomes a moment forever. You know this moment will never come again. I mean life will move on, there will be different moments and may be happier ones, but that one small, beautiful moment will become a part of memories.

I hope I am making sense!

Frankly, every day has its share of accomplishments and disappointments. I’m still struggling to get back to exercising. I am still trying to organize my life better. Good thing is in last couple of days, I have improved quite a lot in my driving. I take every opportunity to hit the road because driving is like any other thing, the more you do it, the better you get at it. I am truly happy about learning something new. Swimming is going to be next. But right now it is so breezy and cool here, I will wait for some more time.

I would also like to work on my language, the way I used to while preparing for MBA entrance exam.

There are so many things to do really, and while you are busy learning things, life is moving on!

Festivities galore

2009-09-28T22:51:00.003+05:30

Of late we have been celebrating all festivals with a lot of enthusiasm. We had a great time on Ganesh Chaturthhi, Anant Chaturdashi and also on Dussera (Happy Dussera, by the way!). We make it a point to get together and celebrate with all rituals. The point is what are we going to teach our next generation and in any case, these festivals mean a lot to all of us, have always meant to be great family time.

Last 3 days have been absolute fun. On Saturday, we went to a couple of places to see Durga Puja Pandal. But I must say, it is absolutely nothing to the way it is celebrated in East. Durga Puja reminds me of school days. We would have new clothes and everyday, starting from Saptami, we would be out with friends, gorging on Paani Puris and Chaats. Well, on Saturday, we were also able to catch this cute dance by a few kids in one of the pandals. Later, we had a nice Italian dinner at Soho’s (can’t remember the restaurant’s name though, starts with “T”). The only dish which turned out good was the one that I ordered- Mushrooms tossed in Olive oil with cheese Garlic bread.

Yesterday was good too, we went to watch “Wanted”. No, that was not at all my idea. The guys wanted to see this movie (I don’t know what kind of pleasure guys get in watching gory movies). I would say, “Wanted” was a good comedy, worth watching once. The true Tollywood style action, dance and dialogues, really kept us in splits all the time, and add to that Salman Khan dancing like Prabhu Deva!!! You can’t even imagine what it truly means, unless you watch it yourself. While coming back, we went to eat Momos in Vimannagar.

That was not all, we had to get Marigolds for Dassera. The phoolwalas were quoting such ostentatious price (one garland for 50 bucks!!!), so we just got the flowers and made garlands ourselves. Actually in Maharashtra, the tradition is to deck up your house and vehicles with Marigolds. We have never done this back home, but there’s no harm in it, so we also did all of it. All of us made nice colorful rangolis at our floor and actually got carried away a little bit. At the end of it, our entire floor was covered with rangolis J

So, this weekend was definitely smashing, now waiting for the next one. Though I have a working Saturday, but it isn’t so bad!

Wake Up Sid "Iktara"

2009-09-20T13:15:00.003+05:30

Recently I caught this very hummable song from 'Wake Up Sid' on TV: O re mann tu to bawra hai, tu hi jane tu kya sochta hai..........(better known as "iktara"). It is a beautiful rendition by Kavita Seth.

Here's the lyrics:

O re manwa tu to bawra hai
Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai
Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai
Baware

Kyun dikhaye sapne tu sote jaagte
Jo barsein sapne boond boond
Nainon ko moond moond
Nainon ko moond moond
Jo barsein sapne boond boond
Nainon ko moond moond

Kaise main chaloon
Dekh na sakoon
Anjaane raaste

Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara

Sun rahi hoon sudhbudh kho ke
Koi main kahani
Puri kahani hai kya kisi hai pata
Main to kisiki ho ke yeh bhi na jaani
Ruth hai yeh do pal ki ya rahegi sada
Kise hai pata
kise hai pata

Jo barsein sapne boond boond
Nainon ko moond moond
Nainon ko moond moond
Jo barsein sapne boond boond
Nainon ko moond moond

Kaise main chaloon
Dekh na sakoon
Anjaane raaste

Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara iktara
Goonja sa hai koi ektara

(Source: lyricsmasti.com)

On the Road

2009-09-20T12:44:00.000+05:30

The other day when I was riding my scooty, there were quite a few things which left me infuriated. This post is actually an inspiration from that day.

Things which leave me cursing on the road:

Where there are no dividers, people who drive on the other lane even when there are enough vehicles coming from the opposite sides.
The sharp, sudden holes surfacing in the middle of the roads (no wonder I have fallen twice, back to back)
People driving with high beam on.
Poor street lighting – what are we paying taxes for!
Some chauvinists, who try to show off that they can drive faster
The slow pace at which the roads are made, and the fast pace in which it gets deteriorated
The way autorickshawalas never give proper signal while taking a turn, it would always be sudden, abrupt.

I will surely keep adding my woes (because all the ideas crop up when I am on the road)

Paranoia

2009-08-15T21:10:00.000+05:30

It is all so surreal. As if I will wake up one day and all this will go away like a nightmare. Just yesterday I was telling my colleague, I never thought I would see this day in office (90% of the people are in masks by the way). Even a month back if somebody would have said that we would be working at office in masks, I would not have believed it. It brings back stories of ages ago, when villages used to wash out or eaten up by a disease. Our technology has progressed and our diseases have become more complex and even more fatal.

I think the government totally missed out on declaring curfew this weekend. I have seen people moving out of the city on vacations, and it is definitely going to be dangerous. It is good that people from all classes are aware enough to wear masks while venturing into public. But every thing said and done, people are meeting other people, commuting in public transports and there is only so much precaution can you take while going out of home. In fact, there is even greater danger for people at home when some of the members go out daily. We needed a total cut-off, for this weekend atleast.

I had a great day today, for I did not wear a mask in last 24 hours! We did have a small party with a couple of friends, which I was immensely skeptical about, but then I finally let it go! Perhaps media is making me paranoid. Perhaps a little caution and precaution is enough to keep you safe.

Hope this gets over soon!

The Fear Factor

2009-08-10T23:40:00.004+05:30

Friendship Day was good and Rakshabandhan was scintillating but Swine Flu has taken daylights out of all of us. Not so long ago, chickenguinea, Bird Flu, SARS….looked like something which happened to other people in other countries. But the ascent of Swine Flu is so palpable. I think 90% of the people on roads are wearing some or the other kind of Masks.

It started with a couple of cases in schools in Pune, then we heard how couple of schools were shut for a few days. Slowly, the disease became rampant, with every school and college closing for 7-10 days. We were still enjoying ourselves. In last 2 days, we are so gripped by the thought of Swine Flu during every waking hour that there is really no respite.

I am giving my driving classes a break for a couple of days. We even started wearing masks at office. These masks are really not the ones which are recommended (N95) but anything is better than nothing. This mask is actually out of stock in all medical shops and people are ordering these from outside. I don’t know when will I be able to lay my hands on those, till then we are all wearing the regular disposable masks. Read more on the right mask here.

The so-called good news is that the vaccine will be out by December in India. If ‘that’ is good news, then what is bad! And hey, right early in the morning, I read this news in Paper and my spirit ebbed like never before. Something needs to be done, and real fast!

Humko Ishq Ne Mara

2009-07-30T23:13:00.004+05:30

Today while coming back from office, I found myself singing – ‘Kab se bekraar the sunane ko….’. This song is from a movie called “Humko Ishq ne Mara”.

I remember I was in school then, and we were all crazy about songs of this movie. Right from the popular “Jaadu Hai Ye Naya Naya, Dil hai Deewana…” to the title track "Humko Ishq Ne Mara”, all songs were our favourites for Antakshari.

I vaguely remember it was a college flick about these 3 girls and 3 guys. The name of the cutest guy in the picture (sitting at the centre) was Kiran (in the movie), he is mistaken as a girl and allotted a room with 2 other girls (can you believe that!). Back then it did not feel weird at all! Ah! Teenage………! You can catch all the details about the movie here.

It was a cute, teenage flick. The only lady missing from this poster of the movie is Rakhi Vijan aka Sweety from Hum Paanch. I think this movie came before that serial. You would also notice Amrita Saluja, a common face on the ad scene. She is the “Mummy” in Whirlpool’s ‘Mummy ka Magic Chalega Kya’ campaign. I have not noticed the third actress, Charmy much, though apparently she has done couple of movies in South.

Amongst the guys, only Ashish Chaudhary can be identified more readily. The name of the guy on the right handsie at the back is Huroum Mirza. I think I have seen him somewhere but cannot recall which serial or which movie! The third guy (who is at the centre) has been seen is as latest as the movie ‘Mumbai Salsa’.

A little research showed that the movie was directed by Arjun Sablok of ‘Na Tum Jano Na Hum’ and ‘Neal n Nikky’ fame.

It is strange how a movie or a song opens a box full of fond memories!

Air Brushing

2009-07-30T00:07:00.004+05:30

I have been on the Product shoot for the last two days. It is absolutely no fun. I have been bored too death. We were shooting this product in which we needed to enhance the sleekness of the product, we felt that the product was looking fat, and were discussing whether we can ‘enhance’ that sleekness through Photoshop or something.

It suddenly dawned on me, how similar thing would be happening while shooting models or film actor / actresses. In fact, people who are in Media or Communication would know how each and every commercial picture is enhanced and ‘modified’ – that flawless skin, such perfect hair (even a strand of hair gone astray can be corrected)! But sometimes, I think people cross the limit. I remember, I had seen Rani Mukherjee on the Cover Page of a popular women’s magazine. It was clearly visible that the picture was ‘airbrushed’. Rani’s head and body were looking mismatched and she was looking far too thin. Read the article on 'Airbrushing the Photographs.'

It is really unfair for all the innocent people around who don’t know that the perfect picture that they see in glossies is really not the true picture. Many women buy what these magazines try to sell, an unreal picture of perfect beauty!

So, gym can really wait till tomorrow, or may be the day after J

Image Courtesy: Telegraph.co.uk

Pet woes!

2009-07-28T22:59:00.001+05:30

With all due respects to all the people who have pets, I am really against the idea. Please people, don’t be judgmental. I have nothing against those poor animals (if I may say so!), they are fine…but only in other people’s homes who are strangers and in homes I do not need to go. I have atleast 2 friends who have Pet dogs. They can be forever assured that I would never give them any surprise visit. I would always call up before landing on their place, that too very discreetly. I tip-toe to their main door, press the bell and hide inside the lift, until I’m completely assured of my safety (the pets locked up safely inside one of the rooms). I do feel sorry for them. In fact, I have even offered that I be locked in a room and let them roam around, but in any case, some distance is essential for my health.

Everyone keeps pestering me and telling me that their darling pet would not do anything. They don’t understand. It does not have to ‘do’ anything to scare me. I am just paranoid about them.

Besides, there is a practical reason why I do not like pets. I cannot stand their hair (I’m talking about dogs and cats) everywhere and on everything around the house. I too feel all lovey-dovey from a distance, but I’m not too keen on playing with them, they jumping all over me.

It is almost like a habit for me now. My friends just have to live with it. Poor guys!

The Weekend that Was!

2009-07-27T23:05:00.001+05:30

I don’t know whether this weekend was a good one for me or a real bad one. It is all perceptual you see. So what happened?

My Weekend started with the rashes on my wrist looking filthier (Yuck!) which did wonders for my spirit.
I fell from scooty, when I was lost in my day dreams and suddenly got accosted with a big, unexpected pot hole. Good thing is I got minor bruises on my hand and knee, and I also got pampering and TLC from my hubby…so it was not that bad actually. Thankfully, I always wear helmet. I was so mad while coming back at the condition of the road that I hurled a lot of abuses to the Corporation.
We had great fun watching ‘Hostel’ together with friends on TV. Although a gruesome movie, thankfully, all such scenes were cut.
Dinner was lavish, for we and our next door friends decided to have it together, so it turned out to be bonanza……hmmmm….. Sumptuous!
Finally on Sunday morning we went to the Gym. I’m going to be steer clear of weights, because I know I will not be able to be regular. So I just want to stick to cardio. We also planned how we will go cycling once the roads are all done. Dreams!
We finally saw “Ice Age 3” and I slept somewhere in the middle. It was OK and since I have not seen any of the earlier ones, may be that could be the reason of my boredom.
I had lofty plans of joining Driving school, but all went into the drain as I hurt my plan and my spirit plummeted to a new low!
Next 2 days are going to be hectic, as I have to attend Product Shoots and also complete all the follow ups with all the vendors, give some approvals, negotiate some rates…….woooh!
Pune is really a laid back city in all sense, even the professionalism is a little laid back. When I was in Mumbai, we were trained to be on our toes for whatever Client asked for; in Pune, despite being on the Client side, I have to be on toes with my Vendors (read agencies). People really have some high notions here. The kind of work agencies pass on to Clients would have been unimaginable for us in our ad agency in Mumbai. And after that, they have guts to cross-question us!

I remember, how we had been told that you have to be smarter than the Client. You must know all that is to know about their brand in order to inspire confidence in Client. Ah! Mumbai is definitely in different league when it comes to professionalism!

· Today I tried some fast cooking with my brand new Microwave. It is really quick. You just microwave your veggies for couple of minutes and then sauté. It really saves a lot of time.

· This week is going to be special…..won’t tell right now. Work is going to be as usual. I am looking forward to Rakhi and till now, not sure what to gift the bestest brother in the whole world J

Tag Here!

2009-07-26T20:21:00.005+05:30

I really have no clue about this 'tags' business, nevertheless, since Smita has tagged me, here I go!
A – Available/Single? Happily Married :)
B – Best friend? No single Best Friend, couple of very good Friends
C – Cake or Pie? Cake!!!
D – Drink of choice?Tea! Tea! Tea!
E – Essential item you use every day?Vaseline
F – Favorite colour? Fuchsia, Yellow, Red, Black, Blue..............so many of them
G – Gummy Bears Or Worms? Eeeeeks! Neither
H – Hometown?Jamshedpur
I – Indulgence?Books. Hands down!
J – January or February? January :) Hubby's Birth month
K – Kids & their names?What Kids? None
L – Life is incomplete without? Love
M – Marriage date? 3rd December
N – Number of siblings? 1 Big Brother
O – Oranges or Apples? I have equal dislike for both
P – Phobias/Fears? All kinds of insects, all kinds of birds and animals...ya, that includes human beings too
Q – Quote for today? My Quote for everyday: ‘I Know but one Freedom, that is Freedom of the Mind.’
R – Reason to smile? Love, Family, Friends….Life!
S – Season? Panchvan mausam pyaar ka………………..
T – Tag 3 People? Well, let’s see
U – Unknown fact about me? That I'm a cleanliness freak, everything has to be in place, picture-perfect all-the time!

V – Vegetable you don't like? Karela, Lauki

W – Worst habit? That I'm a cleanliness freak, everything has to be in place, picture-perfect all-the time!

X – X-rays you've had? I don't have any X-ray

Y – Your favorite food? Indian home-cooked food

Z – Zodiac sign? Taurus: the Bull
And here's the Award for successfully completing this Tag:
So now, you too have a chance to be a Proud Member of the 'International Bloggers Community'. Here are the Rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Copy the image above, the rules and the questionnaire in this post.
3. Post this in one or all of your blogs.
4. Answer the four questions following these Rules.
5. Recruit at least seven (7) friends on your Blog Roll by sharing this with them.
6. Come back to BLoGGiSTa iNFo CoRNeR (PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THIS LINK) at http://bloggistame.blogspot.com and leave the URL of your Post in order for you/your Blog to be added to the Master List.
7. Have Fun!

Questions & Your Answers:
1. The person who tagged you: Smita
2. His/her site's title and url: Books, Life and More; URL: http://books-life-n-more.blogspot.com
3. Date when you were tagged: 24th July '09
4. Persons you tagged:
Life...
Writing Unofficially Official
Embellishing my Thought Process
Varun's Digital Diary
Knowin' Life
Candid Talk
Wilson's Blog
Finally, done.... (some formatting has gone for a Toss though)

Sach Ka Samna

2009-07-24T21:35:00.003+05:30

OK how many of you have seen “Sach Ka Samna”. Well, although I’ve given up watching anything on TV except say reruns of FRIENDS and movies; when I read that Rajiv is going to ask Kambli as to whether he always knew the names of all the women he has slept with…..I knew I am gonna watch it. ‘Sach Ka Samna’ is Reality TV at its best, another Indian cousin of American original – ‘Sach Ka Samna’ caters to that part of us wherein we always look for a scandal or some spicy news. It is entertainment with shock value. Who knows, whether all those answers are really correct. These days I do not trust Television at all. Everything can be made up, and so many people are game to let themselves be part such controversies.

I think Rajiv is doing a decent job, better than he ever did in his claim to fame “Kahin to Hoga”.

I have been reading that next Urvashi Dholakia of ‘Kasauti Zindagi Ki’ fame is going to brave Rajiv’s questions. Now I hear it has created quite a furore in Rajya Sabha as well, apparently the content is not fit for unrestricted viewing. Read Here.

Image Courtesy: Sify

Mera Kuchh Samaan Tumhare Paas Pada Hai

2009-07-22T12:22:00.004+05:30

Yesterday I was again late from office (8 pm in Pune is late by the way). So, after some timepass on net, some in couple of magazines, and the rest in chatting on phone; I finally got on to making dinner at 9.15. The good thing is that I smartly get the veggies cooked in the morning by my maid, so I just make chapattis, which is not a big thing actually.

Well, anyways, my hubby was back from his Table Tennis / Pool game, and was about to put some of his mindless, meaningless, Punjabi foot-tapping kind of music in full blast. I was quick to demand that I want to listen to some soulful music (read slow, luxurious, lazy, ghazal kind of songs). I asked for Ijaazat’s ‘Mera Kuchh Saaman’. In such cases, I either go for Arth, Ijaazat, Saath-Saath or Ghar – my all time favourites.

I have always been a fan of Gulzar’s poetry –ethereal, earthy and poignant. Particularly, in this song, he makes the pain of the lover come alive with his words, as a listener you cannot help but empathize with her. This song has a very nostalgic quality to it; it just transfers you into that 70s era. It is just the kind of song that you would want to listen to in a mushy, rainy day; while sipping tea and thinking about all the things you have lost.

Here are the lyrics to one of the most beautiful renditions of Asha Bhosle, of all times. I can listen to it again and again for n number of times.

Mera kuch saamaan tumhare paas pada hai -2

saavan ke kuch bheege bheege din rakhe hain

aur mere ik khat main lipti raat padi hai

vo raat bhulaa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do - 2

mera kuch saamaan tumhaare paas pada hai - 2

patjhad hai kuch ... hai na ?

o ! patjhar main kuch patton ke girne kee aahat

kaanon main ek baar pahan ke laut aai thee

patajhad kee vo saakh abhi tak kaanp rahi hai

vo saakh gira do, mera vo saamaan lauta do - 2

ek akeli chhataree main jab aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe the - 2

aadhe sookhe aadhe geele, sukha to main le aaye thee

geela man shayad bistar ke paas pada hovo bhijwa do,

mera vo saamaan lauta do

ek so sola chaand ki ratein, ek tumhare kaandhe ka til - 2

geeli mehendi ki khushbu, jhoot mooth ke shikwe kuch

jhooth mooth ke wade sab yaad karaa do

sab bhijwa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do - 2

ek ijaazat de do bas, jab isako dafanaaungee

main bhi vaheen so jaungee

main bhi vaheen so jaungee

When I listen to this song, I think of a crazy, effervescent and young Anuradha Patel, hill station, rains, Rekha’s romantic voice, hot tea, 1970s, waiting room of a station, warmth, cozy evenings, Asha Bhosle’s voice, the depth in the lyrics, pain which is sweet…….and everything romantic and beautiful!

Looking the Part

2009-07-20T22:21:00.001+05:30

Yesterday had an argument with my dearest mother. On what? Well, my mother thinks I have really not learnt anything from her. Why this judgement? Simply because despite being married, I do not wear either Mangal sutra or Bindi or Bangles or toe-rings, whatever! Even the sindoor I wear is just not enough. It is hardly visible. My mother is a firm believer of ‘looking’ the part. In fact, I don’t even know why I started putting onSindoor. I like red actually, it brightens up anything. So, I started putting sindoor because it added colour to my face.

She thinks I’m trying to act oh-so modern. But I don’t really believe in ‘wearing’ marriage on my sleeve. To me, marriage is not so superficial.

Mum tries to reason with me saying that wearing all these is an expression on celebration of marriage. But I am definitely not buying it!

Marriage to me is extremely liberating. It means that you acknowledge the presence of someone special in your life and you want to spend the rest of your life with him. It does not mean you are somebody’s property now, it means when you go ahead and realize your dreams, there is someone who would be there behind you to support you, to share your joys and show you the right path.

With due respect to all the people from mum’s generation, I think they are too stuck up on these inconsequential details and lose the real essence. Marriage is really not the devil that it is made out to be, you just need to meet the right person ;)

The Return of Bridget Jones

2009-07-19T15:01:00.004+05:30

The buzz is that Bridget Jones – III is in the pipeline. I absolutely loved the first part – both book and the movie. But, the second part was a little drag. In this one, Bridget is supposed to be trying to have a baby. I am sure it will turn out to be something on the lines of Ben Elton’s The Inconceivable. 'The Inconceivable' is a hilarious book on how a couple is desperately trying to have a baby, and in the attempt the situations get funny, even ludicrous. Do check out this book if you like humour.

Coming back to Bridget, I am sure all women connected with her insecurities, despair and self-pity because we have all gone through this sometime or the other. Since ‘weight’ is such an all-pervading and sensitive issue with every single woman in this world; no matter which part of the world you are in, if you are a woman, you surely empathized with Bridget.

I don’t know how this third part would be but the trend has been that sequels generally do not live upto their originals. The basic reason is that the first part is a fresh idea, while the sequels are all something which you are trying (even forcibly) to cash on to your one bright idea! Well, let’s see. I am surely looking forward to it.

Image courtesy: BBC News

Road-ies

2009-07-17T22:56:00.002+05:30

While going to office today, I was perplexed by the condition of the roads. It is a 25 minutes ride to my office, and thanks to the Corporation, it is really a challenge to be able to reach office safely. Of course, the daily to and fro trips are slowly taking its toll on my back (with all the jerks) but it is inevitable.

I truly believe if you have driven on Indian roads, you can drive anywhere in the world. It is not only the condition of roads that is to be blamed; actually everything works in perfect harmony.

The road will be perpetually under construction
If it has rained for sometime, driving can become adventure sports for you would not know which hole is how much deep and you would have enough exercise dodging the holes, garbage that has over flown on the roads and a lot of actual mud slinging.
There will be vehicle coming from all sides. As my brother says, in India, when you are crossing road you should not only look in the direction of Traffic, look at the opposite side and the front too. You never know from which side a vehicle would be speeding to your side.
There will be animals walking leisurely on the road like dogs, cats, cows, buffaloes, etc, etc.
Right when you would find a vacant stretch of road and you would slightly increase your speed with confidence, from somewhere a kid will cross the road running, causing you a momentary heart-attack and unbalancing you for next couple of seconds.
State Transport Corporation buses would move on the roads as if they own it, and incompliance to this unwritten diktat can cause anything between major discomforts to accidents.
People behind you would keep honking horns at you, even if there would not be any space to move ahead.
If you don’t let people behind you get ahead of you, you will be subjected to all kinds of verbal abuses.
Most of the secluded, under-construction roads will not have street lights

By the way, our Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Kamal Nath says that next decade will be of Infrastructure. I am all for it!

My Cup of Tea

2009-07-15T22:51:00.006+05:30

I am almost obsessed by Tea. When I was a kid, mum would try her best to dissuade me from getting on this habit but somehow it fascinated me even more (yes, people get fascinated by something like Tea also). Sometimes, I would not be satisfied by just one cup, I will go and make another cup all over again.

Thankfully, I never got the habit of Morning Tea. It is bad for health to drink tea in empty stomach, especially first thing in the morning. But yeah, I love having it when my hubby sometimes gets up very early and make his special Tea.

Sometimes I also have lemon Tea or black tea when I had had too much during the day. I plan to slowly move to Green Tea as well, but that can wait for sometime. It tastes so different that it does not feel like Tea at all!

I like Tea in big coffee mugs. I have different kind of coffee mugs - some gifted by me to my hubby, and some by him to me, and some freebies. A coffee mug is special to me too. It is like your identity. Your coffee / tea mug tells a lot about you.

People think I’m crazy. I even ‘cheers’ with my cup of Tea, when everyone else is downing wine, rum or some kind of alcohol. By the way, I really think all types of alcohol is highly over-rated. I cannot stand even the smell!

In my world, I am happy with my cup of Tea.

Image Courtesy: Shutterstock Images

Rain dance

2009-07-13T23:05:00.004+05:30

Amidst the sound of hubby kicking the plastic football, keeping my fingers crossed on what he is going to break and the soundtrack of ‘Dhan Ta Nen’ from Kaminey, I’m back for just a quick post.

It looks as if rains are finally here. I am not too fond of rains because I just haaaatttttttteeee getting wet. I like drizzle, so you enjoy rain and not get wet! But since we will be practically handicapped without water, so I will do that much sacrifice for the sake of humankind ;-)

I got wet while going to office and again on my way back. Got wet again when I went to friend’s place close by, and yet again while coming back….Ugghh!

Well, but I do love getting cozy inside a blanket on a rainy day, sipping garama garam tea and reading a good book. It is the ultimate fascination of any book lover. I would also love a drive on a beautiful rainy day (not the heavy rains though).

Rains mean water, greenery, blankets, hot adrak-wali chai, pakode, lush-green fields, rain-coats, and so much more!And I do love looking at water pouring in from my balcony, but not a step outside.

Car-mic connections

2009-07-12T16:38:00.003+05:30

Sometimes, unanticipated, little things bring smile on your face.....read this cheeky line at the back of a car (could not stop from smiling):

"Not so close dear, I hardly know you"